French stocks eked out modest gains on Wednesday, with strong earnings from Alphabet and Amazon.com as well as positive news related to Covid-19 vaccine supplies and U.S. stimulus plans helping underpin investor sentiment.
Google parent Alphabet reported that its quarterly profit rocketed some 50 percent at the end of last year as its digital ad business thrived.
Amazon has delivered its largest quarter by revenue of all time, generating $125.56 billion in sales.
The rollout of vaccines in many countries is gathering pace, with Russia announcing it would be able to vaccinate 700 million people with the Sputnik V coronavirus jab this year.
Mexico plans to import about 870,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine from India in February. Elsewhere, White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients said that 6,500 pharmacies will receive 1 million doses starting next week.
On the stimulus front, the U.S. Senate took steps on Tuesday to open the door for Democrats to push through the Covid-19 rescue package on their own, but bipartisanship was absent.
The benchmark CAC 40 rose 18 points, or 0.3 percent, to 5,580 after climbing 1.9 percent in the previous session.
Publicis Groupe shares surged 6.2 percent. After reporting better-than-expected organic growth in Q4, the advertising agency company said it will hand back all of the salary reductions that 6,000 higher-earning staff voluntarily took during the worst of the coronavirus downturn.
Market Analysis
CAC 40 Modestly Higher On Earnings Optimism
2021-02-03 09:29:41
