It's another dramatic session for Western stock markets that closes the third week of war in Iran. In truth, the European markets had initially shown the will to outline a recovery, but the flop opening on Wall Street brought everyone back down to earth: the conflict in the Middle East and the resulting rally in oil, which today flirts with 110 dollars a barrel for Brent quality, continue to worry and weigh on investor sentiment. They cannot even console themselves with the classic safe-haven commodities, on the contrary today their and silver deflates further: the first falls below $4.600 an ounce, the lowest since mid-January, and silver also dropped another 4%, reaching around $70 an ounce, in this case the lowest value since Christmas.
Since the war against Iran began, gold has lost more than 12% of its value, and above all it has lost almost 9% this week alone, in a race to beat the record weekly decline since 1983 (At the time of writing, the prices are not closed), under pressure from rising Treasury yields, the strengthening dollar, and profit-taking by investors who have liquidated positions to offset losses elsewhere. On the contrary, oil, as mentioned, is rising: Brent has gained 53% in the last month And today, as European stock markets close, it's hovering around $110 a barrel, with WTI Crude Oil hovering around $97. Gas isn't faring either: today, the European TTF is taking a breather, falling close to €60/MWh, but it has more than doubled in value since the beginning of the year.
Needless to say, in such a scenario, the markets are still in turmoil: Milan -1,97%, Paris -1,8%, Frankfurt -2%, London -1,4%, Euro Stoxx 50 -1,9%, Dow Jones -0,5%, Nasdaq Composite Index -1%. Piazza Affari falls below 43.000 points, with the BTP-Bund spread soars by 10% rising above 90 basis points, the record since September 2025. The yield on the benchmark 10-year BTP is now approaching 4%, rising to around 3,95%, while that of the corresponding Bund is at 3%. On the positive side, on the Ftse Mib, the only thing to note is the leap in Amplifon +4,2%, which however comes from a sensational somersault a few sessions ago. For the rest fight the banks: Mps -1,4%, Mediobanca +1%, Banco Bpm -2,9%. Inwit's decline continues, already penalized yesterday by the news of the Tim-Fastweb agreement on 5G towers: today the stock lost another 7,5%. Also down Unicredit -3,8% In a time of intense discussion about Commerzbank, Scope Ratings today affirmed its “A” rating with a stable outlook, emphasizing that the tender offer for Commerzbank has no immediate impact on the Italian bank's creditworthiness.
Across the pond, on the day of the Four Witches, Wall Street is still trading in the red. At 17:30 p.m. Italian time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down about half a percentage point, while The Nasdaq Composite Index falls more than 1% below the 22.000 point level.This means that technology stocks are experiencing another difficult session, amid fears of conflict and persistent concerns about the risk of an artificial intelligence bubble: Nvidia -1,4%, Tesla -1%, Micron -3%, Amazon -1%, Microsoft -1,2%, Meta -2%, Alphabet -1,8%. Bitcoin shows a timid reaction but remains below $70.000., although as we write this, it's getting very close. The US dollar is strengthening against the euro, bringing the exchange rate to the 1,156 zone.
