CAC 40 Modestly Higher On Fed Rate Cut Hopes, Easing Political Concerns

(RTTNews) - After opening modestly higher and moving up further, France's CAC 40 gave up some gains subsequently Wednesday morning, but remains in positive territory.

The undertone is fairly steady following the appointment of Sébastien Lecornu as France's new Prime Minister, and optimism about prospects of a larger than expected interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve next week.

Investors are also awaiting the European Central Bank's policy announcement on Thursday, and the crucial inflation data from the U.S.

The benchmark CAC 40, which climbed to 7,823.34 earlier, was up 29.55 points or 0.38% at 7,778.94 a few minutes ago.

Thales is rising more than 3.5% and EssilorLuxottica is up nearly 3%. Schneider Electric is gaining 2.2% and Legrand is up nearly 2%.

ArcelorMittal, Bouygues, Credit Agricole, Airbus and Societe Generale are up 1 to 1.5%. Dassault Systemes, AXA, Vinci, Safran, Vivendi and Veolia Environmentare up with modest gains.

Pernod Ricard is down by about 2.5%. Accor, STMicroElectronics, Teleperformance and Carrefour are down 1.2 to 2%. Kering, Stellantis, Edenred and L'Oreal are also notably lower.