CAC Modestly Lower On Profit Taking

(RTTNews) - After a positive start, the French stock market retreated Thursday morning, and is modestly lower now with investors taking some profits at a few frontline counters.

The undertone remains a bit positive following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to delay imposition of tariffs by another month on automobiles imported into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada. The move has raised hopes the Trump administration might consider some relaxation or exemptions on other products as well.

Investors are also hoping for an interest rate cut by the European Central Bank later today.

The benchmark CAC 40, which advanced to 8,226.19 in early trades, was down 47.65 or nearly 0.6% at 8,126.10 a little while ago.

Teleperformance is rising nearly 5%. Thales is up 3.6%, continuing to benefit from the decision by the European Union to increase spending on defense and infrastructure.

ArcelorMittal, BNP Paribas, Edenred, STMicroElectronics, Societe Generale, Carrefour, Publicis Groupe, Bouygues, Capgemini, Vivendi, Stellantis, Creit Agricole and Saint Gobain are up 1 to 2.7%.

Unibail Rodamco is declining 4.4%. Essilor and Hermes International are down 3% and 2.7%, respectively.

Schneider Electric, Safran, Airbus Group and L'Oreal are lower by 1.5 to 2%. LVMH, Air Liquide, Renault, Danone and Kering down with moderate losses.

Bouygues is gaining about 1.5%. The company reported fiscal 2024 net profit from continuing operations of 1.2 billion euros, up 21% from last year. Current operating profit from activities was 2.5 billion euros compared to 2.4 billion euros, previous year.

Fiscal 2024 sales were 56.75 billion euros, up 1%. Like-for-like and at constant exchange rates, sales increased 1% year-on-year.

Air France-KLM Group shares are soaring 19% after the company reported narrower net loss in its fourth quarter with higher revenues. The French airline's net loss - Group part was 63 million euros, compared to prior year's loss of 256 million euros. Income from current operations was 396 million euros, compared to loss of 56 million euros a year ago.

Looking ahead, for fiscal 2025, the company expects capacity to increase by 4 to 5 percent and unit cost to increase low single digit compared to 2024.

On the economic front, the HCOB Construction PMI in France fell to 39.8 in February 2025, down from January's 44.5, signaling a deeper contraction in construction activity and the sharpest decline since last September.