Western financial markets bounced back in this first session of the week, despite the ongoing tensions in the Middle East and Brent oil still above $100 a barrel, although slightly down today compared to Friday's close. This week, In addition to Iran, there are also meetings of the ECB and especially of the Federal Reserve. The government will have to assess the impact of the energy crisis on inflation and therefore on upcoming interest rate decisions. The Nikkei in Tokyo closed in the red in the Italian morning, but then the markets cleared, from Europe to America: Piazza Affari is the most timid, up just 0,07% at 44.347 points. Paris is up 0,3%, Frankfurt 0,5%, London 0,6%, the Euro Stoxx 50 0,4%, the Dow Jones 0,8%, and the Nasdaq 1,2% at 5:00 PM Italian time.
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Piazza Affari loses momentum toward the end. Stm soars, Amplifon sinks.
In Milan, the main topic is the Unicredit-Commerzbank affair, with the Italian bank launching another offer to surpass its German competitor's 30% stake. However, the German competitor still isn't interested: while UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel extends his hand for constructive dialogue, the first rejection comes from Germany: "Offer not agreed." Unicredit shares at Piazza Affari closed with just +0,54%Banks are generally mixed: Banco BPM +0,5%, Intesa Sanpaolo -0,5%, MPS -0,9%. The best performing stock on the FTSE MIB this Monday was STmicroelectronics +2,66%, followed by Brunello Cucinelli and Telecom Italia. Amplifon, on the other hand, collapsed -14,28%. After the company reached an agreement to acquire GN Hearing, a €2,3 billion transaction. Under the terms of the agreement, GN will receive €1,69 billion in cash and 56 million Amplifon shares, becoming the second-largest shareholder in the Amplifon group. In this context, the BTP-Bund spread also improved, now back below 80 basis points, with the yield on our 10-year BTP around 3,73%.
Other stock markets also posted gains. Commerzbank rose more than 8% in Frankfurt.
Equity buying is also prevalent in the rest of Europe. The favorable climate for banks is also pushing Societe Generale up 1,37% in Paris, while Commerzbank is doing even better on the Frankfurt DAX, which on the day of Unicredit's new knock jumped by more than 8%. The euro recovered somewhat against the US dollar after last week's drop to the low 1,14 mark: today it returned to the 1,15 area. And speaking of currencies, it was also a positive session for Bitcoin, which gained 3,5%, approaching $74.000. The situation on Wall Street is even brighter than the European markets: the Dow Jones is doing well, but the Nasdaq is doing even better with tech stocks in one day yesMeta rose by around 2% following the major deal with Nebius on artificial intelligence and rumours of a 20% cut in employees, followed in no particular order by Tesla +1,6%, Apple +1,1%, Microsoft +0,9%, Amazon +0,8%, Alphabet +0,5%, Nvidia +2%, and Micron even +5,3%, but it is a stock that is always subject to significant percentage jumps.
Commodities: Oil weak but Brent holds $100, gold below $5.000
As for raw materials, oil is weakening today but Brent defends the $100 level, remaining at $101-$102 throughout the day. per barrel, while WTI Crude Oil in New York fell nearly 4% and returned to $95-$96 a barrel. Gas prices, however, rose. Safe-haven commodities remained largely unchanged, but gold's slight percentage decline brought it below the psychological threshold of $5.000 an ounce, while silver held steady at $80 an ounce for most of the session, then fluctuated slightly below that.
