White smoke on the US budget. Republicans and Democrats have signed the agreement which provides for budget cuts, including defense, but also lower contributions to health care reform. The agreement is valid for the next two years, until the expiry of Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, federal agencies have approved the Volcker rule, the rule that prohibits credit institutions from certain particularly risky trading activities, such as those on own account, and in particular drastically limits the speculative activity of banks with customer deposits.
With the approval of the budget, after the positive macro data, another reason to postpone the tapering. By now the thesis prevails that the gradual cut in the purchases of securities by the Fed could be announced on December 18th. The consequences were not long in coming. Asian price lists are down; Tokyo – 0,7% while the yen rises. Also declining Hong Kong and Shanghai, both -1,30%.
The sentiment also explains the slowdown on Wall Street at the end of the sessiona: the Dow Jones index lost 0,33%, the S&P 500 0,27% and the Nasdaq 0,2%. In the spotlight General Motors: after the state's exit from the shareholding, the announcement came that CEO Dan Akerson will leave the group next month and will be replaced by Mary Barra, the first woman at the helm of a large American car manufacturer. However, the title does not show particular reactions.
The main European indices closed in the red: the Cac 40 1,04%, the Dax 30 0,88%, the Ftse 100 0,55% and the Ibex 35 0,52%. The Ftse Mib lost 0,27% to 18.236 points. The euro marked a 6-week high on the greenback at 1,3795 dollars and closes at 1,3772. The euro/yen instead rose to 142,17, the maximum for 5 years, and ended its run at 141,65. Behind the surge in the European currency there is also the expectation that the agreement on the banking union and Mario Draghi's indications according to which, for now, the ECB does not intend to move on the monetary front is close.
BOTS, TODAY THE LAST AUCTION OF 2013. RATES UP SLIGHTLY
The Treasury is preparing to close on a high note. The picture, in view of this morning's Bot auction, is encouraging. In the third quarter of 2013, the Italian GDP remained unchanged after eight quarters in the red. Even industrial production +0,5% in November marks a small increase. The reaction on twitter from Economy Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni was immediate: “Istat certifies that the recession has stopped. Import, export and industrial production are recovering. Still a long way to go but the direction is right”.
on the government bond market the BTP appreciated further yesterday: yield at 4,06% (-6 basis points), the spread with the Bund reaches 222 basis points, levels it has not seen since July 2011: the drop is partly due to the rise in the yield on the German ten-year bond, part of the Treasury buyback, but it's still good news.
Today the Treasury will make securities worth 5,5 billion euros available to investors, against maturities of 7,475 billion, after having repurchased this morning almost 4 billion euros of government bonds (Btp, Cct and Btpei) on maturities between December 2014 and September 2017. In gray market trading, the stock in today's auction traded at a yield of 0,749%, up slightly from the all-time low of 0,688% recorded in the auction a month ago.
BERLUSCONI TAKES A STEP BACK IN MEDIOLANUM
Fininvest sells over 5% of Mediolanum. In a note, the holding company of the Berlusconi family, owner of 35,72% of the asset management company - announces that it has launched an accelerated bookbuilding procedure to place 41,6 million Mediolanum shares with Italian and foreign institutional investors, equal to 5,61 .90% of the capital. The operation is managed by Unicredit Bank in collaboration with Kepler Cheuvreux. The liquidity raised will serve Fininvest to "strengthen its capital and financial structure". Fininvest has also undertaken a 6,42-day lock-up commitment with Unicredit regarding the total shares held at the end of the placement operation. At today's closing price, equal to 265 euros per share, the Mediolanum share package for sale is worth XNUMX million.
STM AND TELECOM ITALIA SHINE
In Milan, he wins the best blue chip palm Stm +4%. Broadcom has surprisingly raised its revenue estimates due to higher-than-expected demand. Telecom Italia also stood out +3,2%. This morning Deutsche Bank confirmed the "buy" recommendation and the target price at 0,90 euro, emphasizing the possible advantages deriving from the break-up of Brazil.
The effect of the letter arriving from the European Commission which renewed the invitation to AgCom to review the resolution of last July which imposed cuts in the unbundling, bitstream and wholesale line rental tariffs deemed excessive (they penalize the Ebitda of TI for 110 million).
Closing the series of significant performances in the main basket is Buzzi +3,2%, rewarded by Goldman Sachs. Bucking Geox +3,7% after Deutsche Bank raised its target price from 2,2 to 2,7 euros.
BANKS, THE BANCA ETRURIA CASE EXPLODES
Still in the spotlight too Mount Paschi +0,94% in view of the meeting on 27 December. The theme of the capital increase is always the subject of discussion. Among the securities in the banking sector, purchases were recorded in the Popolari sector: Bpm +1,34%, Ubi Banca +0,62%, Banco Popolare +0,22%. Understanding unchanged, Unicredit lost 0,48%.
Recommended Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna +1%. The stock was promoted to "Outperform" from "Underperform" by analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. The target price was raised to 8,30 euro from the previous 5,6 euro.
In sharp decline Popular in Etruria and Lazio (-11,6%). Bank of Italy has found that about a third of the bank's loans is made up of non-performing loans. The news could lead to an increase in reserves and/or a capital action. The findings raised by Via Nazionale will be examined by the bank's board of directors this week.
Fondiaria Sai -0,2%, during the session it reached new highs for the year at 2,084 euro.
RENEWABLE ENERGIES RUN
The race for renewables continues. Strong purchases yesterday on Enel Green Power +2,98% which is among the 5 Italian shares in Kepler Cheuvreux's selected list (buy recommendation and a target price of 2,1 euros). “We believe the winning strategy for renewable energy companies is to diversify as much as possible in terms of both technologies and geographies and have a diversified pipeline to be ready to switch from one technology/region to another if a problem arises. The utility that has best managed the challenges of the current difficult macro context is Enel Green Power”.
In the rest of the price list Kr Energy is still up (+18,33%), which marks +55,8% since December 5, the day on which the company announced that it had paid off in advance the debts to the banking system subject to restructuring agreements during 2011. Among the utilities, Enel -1,1%, Snam Rete Gas +0,1% and A2A -0,4%.
TENARIS AND YOOX UNDER FIRE
At the end of the list it is positioned Tenaris -2,4%. Mediobanca Securities confirmed the stock's underperform recommendation and the target price of 13,6 euro, explaining that their rating "is based on a short-term view that focuses on 2014 results, which could be penalized by low volumes, leading to a flat EBITDA trend in the order of about 2,8 billion dollars”.
Down Gtech lost 1%, Campari also down -1,8%. The worst stock of all was Yoox -1,4%.
