European stock markets are heading for a negative session in the wake of the Tokyo stock market and the closing of Wall Street yesterday. The Eurostoxx50 future down 0,14%. The fall of Meta Platforms weighs heavily.
Yesterday Wall Street closed with little movement, but then all hell breaks loose on Meta
Il Dow Jones it closed down 0,11% to 38.461 points, while the S&P500 recovered 0,02% to 5.072 points. Also above parity Nasdaq (+0,1% to 15.713 points). The day was decidedly positive for Tesla (+12,1% to 162,13 dollars), after the release of the financial results for the 1st quarter of 2024 and the operational indications for the next quarters. Wall Street also appreciated the quarterly report Texas Instruments (+5,64% to 174,81 dollars): the chip giant finished the first three months of 2024 with earnings per share significantly higher than analysts' consensus.
But this morning i futures on the Nasdaq in deep decline (-1,23%) under the weight of Meta Platform (-15%) which lost up to -18% in the afterhours on Wall Street. Mark Zuckerberg's company has forecast revenues between 36,5 and 39 billion dollars for the second quarter of 2024, an estimate lower than analysts' expectations due to the increase in costs of artificial intelligence.
Today in the USA the data is expected GDP for the first quarter (14.30 pm) which could influence the prospects of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. The consensus is for +2,2% q/y (previous +3,4% q/y). Also on the US agenda are data on weekly benefit claims and the trade balance for March.
Biden against TikTok. The US law that provides for new aid to Ukraine and Israel also contains a measure against TikTok. The owner of the famous social network, the Chinese ByteDance, will in fact have to sell the platform to a company in another country within nine months, or at most a year to avoid its use being banned throughout the entire national territory. The United States justifies the measure with concerns that TikTok could share user data with the Chinese government.
In Asia the Nikkei under pressure for the yen
In Asian trading it yen posted new lows for over 34 years surpassing the level of 155 per dollar. There Bank of Japan The monetary policy meeting that will last two days began today: the markets expect that the BoJ will remain firm, after abandoning negative rates in March, but traders will be attentive to any signals to combat the weakness of the currency.
Instead it does yuan offshore (traded out of China) has reached a record high against the yen, complicating Beijing's export-focused growth strategy as Japan's exports become more competitive globally. The yen was down 0,19% against the offshore yuan at 21,39 yen, a record low.
Il Nikkei of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, under the weight of the yen, lost 2,13%. However, the Hang Seng rose slightly by 0,45% and Shanghai by 0,17%. L'South Korea's economy grew 3,4% in the first quarter compared to a year ago, the strongest since the fourth quarter of 2021.
What to follow today
Today Eurostat then it will publish the quarterly data on the public deficit/debt and the ECB its economic bulletin, both will be able to give indications for the ECB's future moves. Also on the agenda are Gfk consumer confidence data for May in Germany and business confidence for April in France.
It will affect the banking sector, in particular Mediobanca and Generali, the fact that last night the European Parliament gave the final OK yesterday at Banking rules on Basel 3 crisis management. A rule in the text will allow to freeze, by extending the provision which expired in 3 by another 2022 years, the value of a significant part of the government bonds in the balance sheets of banks until 2025 for capital purposes. In other words, banks may not consider in the capital the changes in the price of securities held in the "Fair value through Other Comprehensive Income" category where the bonds available for sale are largely included, generally around half of the overall bond portfolio public. In this way the banks' assets will be less volatile compared to any shocks to government bonds. Only the trading portfolio will be subject to market prices, as the amortized cost category is also protected from changes. The measure obviously also affects Italian banks: in particular for Mediobanca there will be no pressure to sell shares in Generali thanks to the changes to the Danish Compromise.
stm closed the first quarter of 2024 with revenues equal to 3,47 billion dollars, down by 18,4% year on year. In sequential terms, net revenues decreased 19,1%, 320 basis points below the midpoint of STM's guidance. Gross margin fell to 41,7% (-800 basis points compared to the same quarter of 2023, -380 bps quarter-on-quarter) and net profit marked -50,9% y/y to €513 million. Yesterday the stock closed with a +5,3% 39,235 euros, benefiting from the results of Texas Instruments, which ended the first three months of 2024 with earnings per share significantly higher than the analysts' consensus.
Eyes up Webuild after the European Parliament approved the Ten-T guidelines last night by inserting the Bridge over the Strait among the "strategic infrastructures". Last night the Webuild Board of Directors confirmed this Pietro Salini as CEO, in examining the data from the first three months of 2024, showed new orders equal to approximately 5,5 billion euros, including 0,7 billion projects for which Webuild is the best bidder. Almost all of the new orders come from abroad in markets such as Canada, the United States and Saudi Arabia. Webuild specified that the order intake represents approximately 50% of the orders expected for the year 2024. Furthermore, the group's short-term commercial pipeline amounts to 72,6 billion euros and includes tenders submitted and awaiting award for 12,7 billion. Based on these indications, Webuild management confirmed the guidance for the whole of 2024. The company estimates revenue growth, which should exceed 11 billion euros. while EBITDA should exceed 900 million euros.
The shareholders' meeting of Amplifon approved the budget offinancial year 2023 – closed with a statutory net profit of 90,6 million euros – and resolved the distribution of a dividend of 0,29 euros per share, for a total amount of 65,59 million euros; there coupon it will be detached on Monday 20 May 2024 and paid from 22 May. Furthermore, the shareholders approved a new plan for the purchase and disposal of treasury shares, up to a maximum amount of 10% of the capital; as of 24 April 2024 Amplifon held 226.199 treasury shares in its portfolio, equal to 0,1% of the capital.
The shareholders' meeting of believe approved the financial statements for the 2023 financial year - closed with a statutory net profit of 346,28 million euros - and resolved to distribute an overall dividend of 0,65 per share, for a total amount of 221,39 million euros. The dividend will be paid in two phases, the first for an amount of 0,45 euros per share, with ex-dividend date on Monday 13 May 2024 and payment from 15 May; the second for an amount of 0,2 euros per share, with ex-date on Monday 14 October 2024 and payment from 16 October. Furthermore, the shareholders' meeting appointed the board of directors for the three-year period 2024/2026, confirming all the directors in office in the previous three-year period
Moncler in the first quarter of this year it saw revenues of 818,01 million euros, an increase of 13% compared to the 726,42 million achieved in the first three months of last year; at constant exchange rates, the increase in turnover would have been 16%. The leaders, pointing out that the macroeconomic scenario is still volatile and the sector is in a normalization trend, specified that the results include the revenues of the Moncler brand, equal to 704,98 million euros (+17%), and those of the Stone Island brand, equal to 113,02 million (-7%).
Fitch raised the rating of Popolare di Sondrio to BBB- with a stable outlook.
