France CAC40 (PX1) : Back to the top but…

It should be noted that the top 10 stocks (which represent about 55% of the index) belong to very different sectors, unlike the DAX (overweight in industrial stocks) or the FTSE100 (pharmacy and financial), the CAC40 is indeed more composite in its sectoral composition. However, three heavily weighted stocks, Total (10%), LVMH (8%) and Sanofi (7%) can influence the index according to their own fundamental factors, which represents a bias in values.

From a sectoral point of view, we can see that the consumer goods sector represented by luxury goods and cosmetics such as LVMH or Loreal, is one of the most important for the index (18%) behind the industry  (21%), ahead of financials (10%) or energy (11%).

The CAC40's values ​​are often world leaders with a very international exposure, with little dependence on the domestic market and with a fairly strong dollar sensitivity.

In 2017, the CAC40 achieved a performance of 9.3% which was more than offset by a -11% in 2018. As on the other European or North American indices, the decrease is mainly due to the fall of the markets launched in October against the backdrop of a trade war between the US and China, a rate hike policy considered too aggressive by the FED, and more specifically for France, the fear of stopping reforms because of the social protest that has increased at the risk of destabilizing the government.

Since January 2019, the index is rebounding sharply (+ 17.1%), but remains quite volatile in the face of the accumulation of risks on global growth, with the first place of persistence and aggravation of tensions between China and the United States, the return of fears on Italy and a possible hard Brexit.

Instruments: CAC (Lyxor in Euro), C4D (Amundi in Euro), E40 (BNP Paribas Easy in Euro)