CAC 40 Down Nearly 2% As Stocks Fall On Tariff Woes

(RTTNews) - French stocks are reeling under a severe selling pressure on Friday with U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement of sweeping new tariffs hurting investor sentiment.

Trump has imposed retaliatory duties of upto 41% on nations with whom U.S. has no formal trade deals. On European exports to U.S., a 15% tariff has been imposed.

Pharma stocks were coming under heavy selling pressure after U.S. President Donald Trump asked 17 major global pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices in the U.S.

Investors are also digesting the latest batch of earnings updates, and some economic reports.

The benchmark CAC 40 was down 147.94 points or 1.9% at 7,624.03 a few minutes ago.

Teleperformance is tanking more than 16% after the company lowered its 2025 like-for-like revenue growth guidance to the lower end of its prior 2% to 4% range and maintained its recurring EBITA margin forecast of 15.0% to 15.1% at constant exchange rates.

AXA is down 6.7% after first-half profit came in below estimates. Saint-Gobain is declining 5.1% despite reporting a 3.4% year-over-year increase in first-half sales at constant currencies.

Schneider Electric, Accor, Airbus Group, Edenred, Capgemini, STMicroElectronics, Dassault Systemes, BNP Paribas, Engie, Societe Generale, Hermes International, Safran and Unibail Rodamco are down 2 to 5%.

L'Oreal, Credit Agricole, LVMH, Legrand, ArcelorMittal, Thales, Veolia Environment, Publicis Groupe, Renault and Stellantis are also notably lower.

Orange is gaining more than 2%. Danone is rising 1.75% and Orange is gaining about 1.3%.

Data from S&P Global showed the HCOB France Manufacturing PMI came in at 48.2 in July 2025, slightly lower than initial estimates of 48.4 and broadly unchanged from June's reading of 48.1.

Data from Eurostat showed Eurozone inflation remained stable at the European Central Bank's 2% target in July. The harmonized index of consumer prices increased 2% year-on-year in July, the same rate of increase as seen in June. Inflation was forecast to ease to 1.9%.

Core inflation that excludes prices of energy, food, alcohol and tobacco also remained stable in July, at 2.3%.