CAC 40 Turns Weak After Recent Gains As Trade Tensions Weigh

(RTTNews) - French stocks are exhibiting weakness on Wednesday, changing course after recent gains, as renewed concerns about Trump's tariffs weigh on sentiment.

The U.S. President's order for an investigation into potential tariffs on critical mineral imports, and rising tensions between the U.S. and China following the U.S. government prohibiting Nvidia from selling its H20 chip to China are hurting the mood.

A few disappointing earnings updates, including ASML's weak net bookings, are also weighing on stocks.

Meanwhile, markets await the European Central Bank's monetary policy announcement, due on Thursday. The ECB is widely expected to cut interest rate by 25 basis points.

The benchmark CAC 40, which dropped more than 90 points to 7,243.77 earlier in the session, was down 38.70 points or 0.52% at 7,296.70 a few minutes ago.

Publicis Groupe is declining nearly 4%. Stellantis is down 2.7% and Michelin is lower by about 2.5%. STMicroElectronics, Saint Gobain and Schneider Electric are down 2 to 2.2%.

Accor, Renault, Capgemini, Societe Generale, Thales, Airbus Group, Legrand, Dassault Systemes and Safran are down 1 to 1.9%.

Among the gainers, Bouygues is up 1.8%, while TotalEnergies, Vinci, Engie and Pernod Ricard are rising 1 to 1.5%.

Carrefour, Danone, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole and Orange are up with moderate gains.

In economic news, Eurozone inflation slowed in March, as initially estimated, as energy prices declined for the first time in four months and services inflation softened for the third straight month.

The harmonized index of consumer prices climbed 2.2% on a yearly basis in March, slightly slower than the 2.3% rise in February, final data from Eurostat showed. The rate came in line with the flash estimate released on April 1.

Core inflation that excludes prices of food, alcohol and tobacco, weakened to 2.4%, in line with the estimate, from 2.6% in the previous month.

The euro area current account surplus declined in February, falling to EUR 34 billion from EUR 40 billion a month earlier, data from the European Central Bank showed.

In twelve months to February, the current account surplus totalled EUR 411 billion or 2.7% of GDP. This was up from EUR 299 billion or 2% of GDP a year earlier.