Political uncertainty is causing Piazza Affari and the spread to waver. Today Elsa Fornero flew to Wall Street to meet the CEO of the Nyse and some Italian companies listed overseas. Mission: to convince foreign investors that Italy is attractive and that what has been undertaken will not be canceled by the next government.
The spread remains at 324 basis points while Piazza Affari closes Europe's black jersey again today: The Ftse Mib drops 0,86%. Madrid -0,77%. Frankfurt also down -0,22% after the Bundesbank reduced its growth estimates for the German economy in 2013 (+0,4% against +1,6%), following the cut in the ECB's outlook . London +0,22%, Paris +0,11%. Athens +1,09%.
The possibility of pooling the debt of Eurozone countries with the Eurobond project is currently "not realistic", but it could become so in the future when market confidence is fully restored and there is more awareness among euro member states of the consequences of their policies, said Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, today answering questions from the press on possible concrete and definitive solutions to the European debt crisis. The Eurotower could be preparing for a rate cut in 2013, discussed at yesterday's last board meeting. “Unless the situation improves significantly, which is unlikely, we can expect a change in rates in the new year,” said Jozef Makuch, who heads the Slovak central bank and is part of the ECB directorate, defining “very serious ” the ECB discussion on monetary policy.
THEeuro slips another -0,19% to 1,2946 dollars. Gold remains above 1.700 dollars an ounce and WTI oil at 86,30 dollars a barrel.
On Wall Street, the indexes start positive in the wake of the good data on US unemployment which fell to 7,7% in November thanks to the creation of new jobs better than expected. At the close of Europe, the indices moved mixed (Dow Jones +0,33%, Nasdaq -0,50%) after the consumer confidence measured by the University of Michigan slipped by surprise to 74,5 basis points in December from 82,7 points in November against expectations to 82 points.
In Piazza Affari the banks are in the red: Mediobanca -2,33%, Intesa -0,93%, Unicredit -1,30%, Mps -1,11% while Bpm +0,49% goes against the trend after the agreement with the unions for 700 redundancies in relation to the 2012-2015 industrial plan, with the aim of containing labor costs by 70 million. Mediaset -3-13%, Mediolanum -3,08%, A2A -2,83% and Saipem -2,79% are also down.
Eni's CEO Paolo Scaroni did not want to comment on the change in the top management of the subsidiary Saipem following the investigations into alleged crimes of corruption on contracts in Algeria.
On the Ftse Mib Impregilo stands out +3,41% after yesterday's presentation of the new business plan. Fiat +0,84%. Today Marchionne, reconfirmed at the top of Acea, announced that he will cut 1.500 jobs in Poland due to the crisis. Campari +0,62%.
