CAC Pares Early Gains, Up Slightly In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - After a positive start, French stocks pared most of their gains on Friday with investors focusing on corporate earnings updates and regional economic data, in addition to tracking the developments on the trade front.

The benchmark CAC 40 was up 3.45 points or 0.04% at 7,825.45 a few minutes ago.

Stellantis is declining 2.1%. ArcelorMittal is down nearly 1%, while Air Liquide, Dassault Systemes, Schneider Electric, Hermes International, L'Oreal and Sanofi are down 0.4 to 0.8%.

Legrand is up 2.75%. Kering is gaining 1.75% and Renault is up 1.5%. Edenred is advancing 1.3%, while Unibail Rodamco, Veolia Environment, Credit Agricole and STMicroElectronics are up 1 to 1.1%.

Carrefour, Accor, Pernod Ricard, Airbus, Eurofins Scientific, Bureau Veritas and Michelin are up with modest gains.

Eurozone construction output declined at the fastest pace in nearly two-and-a-half years in May after recovering sharply in the previous month, first estimates from Eurostat revealed.

Production in construction declined 1.7% on a monthly basis in May, reversing an upwardly revised 4.3% growth in April. Moreover, this was the quickest downturn since December 2022, when output had fallen 2.2%.

Year-on-year, the growth in construction output moderated to 2.9% from 4.7% in April.

Construction output in the EU27 declined 1.3% monthly, while it grew 2.7% annually in May.

The euro area current account surplus increased sharply in May largely due to the rise in services surplus, the European Central Bank reported.

The current account balance showed a surplus of EUR 32.3 billion in May compared to a surplus of EUR 18.6 billion in April.

Data showed that surpluses were recorded for goods, services and primary income, while secondary income was in deficit.

During twelve months to May, the current account surplus totalled EUR 333 billion or 2.1 percent of euro area GDP. In the same period last year, the surplus was EUR 364 billion or 2.5 percent of GDP.