CAC 40 Down Marginally In Lackluster Trade

(RTTNews) - French stocks are moving in a tight range in cautious trade on Wednesday as investors digest a slew of domestic economic reports, and continue to assess the impact of Trump administration's trade policy on global economic growth.

The benchmark CAC 40 was down 7.51 points or 0.1% at 7,819.28 nearly half an hour past noon. The index, which edged dwon 5o 7,808.80 earlier, advanced to 7,853.66 before turning weak again.

L'Oreal is declining 1.7%, Essilor is down 1.5% and Bouygues is down by about 1.35%. Sanofi and Carrefour are down nearly 1% from their previous closing levels.

Pernod Ricard, Credit Agricole, Veolia Environment, Renault, Vinci, STMicroElectronics and ArcelorMittal are also weak.

Thales is rising 2.3%. Unibail Rodamco is gaining 2.1% and Airbus is up 1.7%, while Eurofins Scientific and Safran are advancing 1.2% and 1.1%, respectively.

Michelin, Hermes International, LVMH, Sanit Gobain and Bureau Veritas are also up in positive territory.

Data from the statistical office INSEE showed France's gross domestic product grew 0.1% from the fourth quarter, when the economy shrank 0.1%. The rate matched the estimate published on April 30.

On the expenditure side of GDP, household consumption declined 0.2%, which was pulled down in particular by the drop in spending on transport equipment. Meanwhile, government spending grew 0.2%.

At the same time, gross fixed capital formation remained flat for the second straight time.

Foreign trade kept contributing negatively to GDP growth in the first quarter. Exports decreased sharply by 1.8% on weaker demand for transport equipment and chemical products. By contrast, imports climbed 0.5%, boosted by energy and other industrial products.

In April, household consumption rebounded due to the increase in consumption of food and engineered goods. Household spending rose 0.3%, in contrast to the 1.1% decrease in March.

Food consumption advanced 2.1% and engineered goods consumption gained 0.7%. By contrast, energy consumption decreased 3.6%.

Another data today showed that producer prices in France declined for the seventeenth straight month in April. Producer prices decreased 0.8% year-on-year, following a 0.2% drop in March. At the same time, monthly fall in producer prices deepened to 4.3% from 0.5%.

In the first quarter, payroll employment dropped 0.1% or 20,900 from the previous quarter. This followed a decrease of 0.4% or -98,600 in the fourth quarter.