Paris (AFP)

The Paris Bourse slowed down a little in its progress Wednesday at midday, advancing 0.29%, in the face of profit taking on important CAC 40 stocks, while remaining optimistic in view of several factors positive.

After an opening above 5,600 points, the CAC 40 only progressed by 15.87 points to 5,578.98 points for its third consecutive session in the green.

This is a "normal breathing of the market" equities after two sessions of strong rebound, analyzes Daniel Larrouturou, equity manager at Dôm Finance, noting "some profit taking on large weightings in the CAC 40 index, such as LVMH and L'Oréal ", which had climbed a lot lately.

In addition, "a slight deterioration in the bond market following slight increases in inflationary pressures", continues the specialist.

The euro zone's annual inflation rate turned positive again in January, at + 0.9%, after five negative months due to depressed economic conditions due to the pandemic.

As with the first lockdowns in spring 2020, service sectors in Europe continue to suffer from restrictions.

Private sector activity in France experienced a faster contraction in January than in December, against a backdrop of "tightening of restrictions to combat the Covid-19 pandemic", IHS Markit confirmed on Wednesday.

"Even if the economic data is rickety, central banks remain committed to maintaining comfortable financial conditions for the coming months," said Stephen Innes, analyst at Axi.

And "investors are reassured by the quarterly results higher than the expectations of Amazon and Alphabet (Google) who have fully benefited from the health crisis", and by "the recovery plan of Joe Biden (which) seems on the right track", notes Franklin Pichard, director of Kiplink Finance.

They also welcome the prospect of accelerating vaccination campaigns in the face of the proliferation of agreements between laboratories to increase the production of vaccines already authorized.

In France, a subcontractor will start producing "in March" the Moderna vaccine against Covid-19, and another will launch "in April" the production of that of Pfizer / BioNTech, announced Wednesday on RTL the Minister for Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

British pharmaceutical company GSK and its German competitor CureVac also announced on Wednesday that they would unite to develop a vaccine against new variants of the coronavirus with the hope of being ready for 2022.

Marie Brizard intoxicated by her capital increase

The title jumped 9.48% to 1.64 euro.

The spirits group obtained 100.9 million euros thanks to its capital increase, slightly less than the amount of approximately 105 million euros initially targeted.

Publicis hailed for its growth forecasts

After rising more than 5% in the morning, the title was up 1.05% to 44.21 euros.

The group plans to return to growth in the second quarter and proposes to pay a dividend of two euros per share for the year 2020.

Pierre and Vacances in retreat

The title yielded 1.38% to 10.70 euros following the opening of the amicable conciliation procedure requested by the group in order to discuss with its creditors, after having been severely affected by the effects of the health crisis.

© 2021 AFP