The Paris Bourse addresses the meeting on an optimistic note. The CAC 40 in advance of 0.57% in early trade at 3,411.55 points. After a small rebound by 0.89% yesterday, the CAC 40 is expected to continue its momentum on Thursday and follow the trend set by Wall Street and Asian stock markets which closed on beautiful hikes.
This is the big day for Greece. At 21 hours (Paris time), we know the rate of participation of private creditors in the debt swap. The number must be greater than 75% to avoid a bankruptcy of the country. Last night, more than half of the creditors involved in the transaction was agreed. Greece is not less than 90% participation.
Earlier this afternoon, the President of the ECB, Mario Draghi, should leave unchanged its interest rate to 1% following two consecutive declines of 25 basis points each.
Euro and oil rose slightly
On the foreign exchange market, the euro rose 0.13% to 1.3168 against the greenback dollar. Side of the oil markets, Brent was stable at 124.26 dollars and WTI rose 0.14% to 106.30 dollars.
Investors will also digest of new business publications. EADS (+6.3% to 28.55 euros) announced an increase of 87% of its annual net profit to 1.033 billion euros and an increase of 7% to 49.13 billion of its turnover.
The distribution group Carrefour (-0.77% to 17.48 euros) announced a net profit down 14.3% for 2011 to € 371 million and a dividend halved to 0.52 euro per share , after a difficult year, marked by three profit warnings.
Air France-KLM (-2.20% to 4.09 euros) registered last year a net loss of 809 million euros and an operating loss of 353 million. The airline, whose sales rose 4.5% to 24.36 billion euros, has set a target to stabilize in 2012 its net debt to 6.5 billion euros.
The U.S. company Simon Property will acquire a 28.7% Klépierre (4.94% to 24.55 euros) with BNP Paribas, which held 51% stake in the French property.
The display group and JCDecaux street furniture (0.84% to 20.90 euros) made a leap from 22.7% to 212.6 million euros in net profit after minority interests in 2011, thanks a booming business. Moreover, according to chief executive, Jean-Francois Decaux, the expected benefit this year of holding the Summer Olympics in London, which should generate six to seven points of additional growth in outdoor advertising.
The chemist Arkema (1.65% to 67.83 euros) has revised upwards its medium-term objectives, relying for now on a 2016 turnover of EUR 8 billion and a gross operating income ( EBITDA) of $ 1.25 billion, showing an early 2012 recovery in activity.
France still has destroyed jobs
On the macroeconomic front, 22,600 jobs have been destroyed in the fourth quarter after the removal of 31,500 jobs in the third quarter, according to figures from INSEE. Moreover, the trade deficit of France increased by almost 300 million euros in January compared to the previous month, reaching 5.324 billion euro, Customs officials said Thursday.
Across the Atlantic, one indicator is on the agenda: the weekly claims for unemployment benefits (1430).