It will be a final photo-finish to decide which of the major stock exchanges will cross the mid-year milestone first. In fact, a few hours after the closure of the European markets and the departure of the US ones, the outcome of the match is still uncertain: the lists of the Old Continent, which are now down, rise on average by just under 15 per cent in euro compared to around 13 per cent for New York lists. But if the euro/dollar ratio is taken into account, the MSCI Europe index reduces its progress to around 12 per cent. At this point, the performance of the US market this afternoon will be decisive, undoubtedly conditioned by one of the most awaited data: the new jobs in the private sector in June, already preceded by the comment of Christopher Waller, the member (voting ) from the Fed who said the US Central Bank may have to start tapering its massive stimulus program as early as this year to allow room for a rate hike by the end of 2022.
In short, it will be a shrimp sprint between European stock exchanges sharply down, including Piazza Affari, ei US price lists increasingly resigned to a course correction justified by the recovery indicators of the American economy including, most recently, the boom in the real estate market of historical significance. The race to buy a house outside the city, in a context of supply shortages and sharp increases in building material prices, led by timber, caused a 14,6% jump in the S&P Core Logic Case Shiller index in April, which tracks the value of housing units in twenty urban areas of the United States: it is the strongest increase year over year since 1988. As far as Europe is concerned, it is undoubtedly thewindow dressing operation of managers, committed to reaping, wherever there are, the fruits of a good semester. This explains the sudden slowdown in the auto sector, one of the cyclical sectors that stood out the most in 2021: Volkswagen, which today drops more than three percentage points, still closes in the six months with a margin of 39 percent.
At first glance, moreover, the redemption of many stocks emerges in the European markets oldeconomy. Among the banks, for example, the case of Bpm bank which, despite today's drop (-1,21%), scores an increase of 49,5% since the beginning of the year, ahead of Banco de Sabadell and Société Générale both with gains of over 40% as, among Industrialists, the French Saint Gobain e Tenaris (+39,9%). The result is that the gap has flattened between US shares, great protagonists during 2020 under the banner of the "stay at home" and those of the Old Continent. Although, for pundits, there may be scope for a European rally today. If we look at the prices of March 23, 2020, the lowest point after the announcement of the start of the pandemic, Wall Street's rise is 95 percent, against 65 for the Eurostoxx. But Refinitiv's forecasts see, after a long time, European companies leading the ranking for profits in the second quarter: +50% against +37% in the USA.
Today's decline in Piazza Affari, once again one step away from 25 thousand, it eroded nearly all of the earnings of the quarter, now reduced to a couple of points, slowing down compared to the two previous quarters (respectively a gain of 11% and 17%) to which must be added the 3% distributed in the form of a dividend. From the beginning of the year, the gain will be just under 14%, a trend roughly in line with the rest of Europe.
For the rest, the world stock exchanges are moving towards positive fifth quarter right away. The MSCI World index will finish it close to historic highs with a gain of around +7%. The MSCI Asia Pacific index recorded a gain of 2,6%. This is the ranking: Taiex index of Taipei +20%, Kospi of Seoul +14%, BSE Sensex of Mumbai +10,3%, Hang Seng of Hong Kong +6,3%, Nikkei of Tokyo +5%, CSI 300 of Shanghai and Shenzhen price lists +0,1%.
Worth noting is the Bovespa index of the San Paolo Stock Exchange which rose to its highest level in the last 16 months, expanding its performance since the beginning of the year to +15% (in Euros). The +11% achieved from June XNUMXst to today is unmatched in the rest of the world.
Fears of a return to movement restrictions raised by the Delta variant they have only slowed down the run of the world stock exchanges, but for now they have not reversed the trend which remains firmly bullish.
