CAC 40 Moderately Lower

(RTTNews) - French stocks are exhibiting weakness on Thursday in cautious trade, with investors awaiting speeches from central bank chiefs at the Jackson Hole Symposium, which gets underway later in the day. Investors are also digesting flash survey figures on regional manufacturing and services sector activity in the month of August.

The benchmark CAC 40 was down 49.71 points or about 0.61% at 7,923.32 a few minutes ago.

LVMH and ArcelorMittal are down nearly 2% from their previous closing levels. Kering is down 1.7%, while Credit Agricole, Essilor, Eurofins Scientific and L'Oreal are down 1.4 to 1.6%.

Renault, Edenred, Pernod Ricard, BNP Paribas, Capgemini, Hermes International and Stellantis are lower by 1 to 1.4%.

Publicis Groupe, Bouygues, Danone, Michelin, Air Liquide, Unibail Rodamco, Orange, Veolia Environment and Saint-Gobain are also down in negative territory.

Thales is rising nearly 1.3%. STMicroElectronics is gaining 1.1%, while Airbus and Safran are up with modest gains.

Flash survey results from S&P Global showed France private sector activity showed signs of stabilization in August after a sustained period of contraction.

The headline HCOB composite output index posted 49.8 in August, down from July's 48.6. The flash reading was the highest in exactly a year.

The services Purchasing Managers' Index rose to 49.7, while it was forecast to remain unchanged at 48.5. At the same time, the manufacturing PMI advanced unexpectedly to 49.9 from 48.2 in the previous month. The reading was forecast to fall to 48.0.

"Although there was a slight improvement in the index compared to the previous month, a clear turning point is still not visible," Hamburg Commercial Bank Junior Economist Jonas Feldhusen said.

"On a more positive note, both the manufacturing and services sectors saw less pronounced contractions, which could be interpreted with cautious optimism as an early sign of stabilization," Feldhusen added.

The HCOB Eurozone Composite PMI rose to 51.1 in August from 50.9 in the previous month, beating market expectations of a slowdown to 50.7 to mark the sharpest pace of expansion in the bloc's private sector output since May of the previous year, according to a flash estimate.

The services sector PMI reading came in with a score of 50.7 for August, down from 51.0 a month earlier, while the manufacturing PMI reading for August came in at 50.5, up from 49.8 in July.