The financial story of the day, and it couldn't be otherwise after the US maneuvers in and around Venezuela, is once again oil. Immediately after the January 3 raid in Caracas to capture Maduro and the announcement of Washington's appropriation of the Caribbean country's energy potential, the price of black gold soared, only to retrace in recent trading sessions. Today he is back in rally, with Brent crude hitting $61 a barrel in London, while WTI crude in New York nearly reached $57, up from yesterday's close of $56,4. The impact on Italian oil stocks, however, is modest, not enough to recover from the recent decline. Eni takes a breather (+0,25%) but remains below 16 euros per share, same story for Saipem +0,3%.
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Vola Campari and, once again, Leonardo
Instead, the big protagonists at Piazza Affari are broadly the same as yesterday's session: Campari +3,6% and Italgas +1,6% and once again Leonardo, which continues to benefit from growing geopolitical tensions and took home another 2%. Over the past 12 months, the Italian defense group has gained 123%, 24% in the last month alone, and about 16% since the beginning of 2026 alone, in just a handful of trading sessions. As for Campari, the reason was JP Morgan's positive estimates for its French competitor Remy Cointreau, which boosted the entire European spirits sector, including Pernot Ricard and Diageo. Among the banks, Mediobanca stands out +1,8%Profit-taking on Telecom Italia after yesterday's rally: -1,9%. The FTSE MIB index is weak but at least returns to positive territory (+0,25%) and remains close to the 46.000 mark it has been flirting with since the beginning of the year.
BTPs, record demand for the first issue of 2026
Remaining on domestic financial issues, it should be noted that in 2026 the BTP started with a bang: in the first placement of the year, an issue of a dual tranch of a new 7-year benchmark Btp (maturity March 2033) and the reopening – for a maximum of 5 billion – of the BTP Green maturing in 2046 and with a coupon of 4,1%, the Treasury has received record demand. According to sources consulted by Bloomberg, requests have exceeded 190 billion eurosIn this regard, the spread remains very low, now well and consistently below 70 basis points: today a slight downward adjustment to around 65 points, with the yield on the 10-year BTP below 3,5% at 3,48%.
European stock markets are muted, Wall Street is mixed
In the rest of Europe, the stock markets don't have much else to say: Frankfurt is just above parity, Paris is the same, Madrid does a little better, while London actually loses a bit. Overseas, the Dow Jones opens poorly but then turns positive, led by defense and industrial stocks after President Donald Trump announced his intention to ask Congress for a record military budget of $1.500 trillion for 2027, $500 billion more than the current spending level. Both the Nasdaq-100 and the Nasdaq Composite are in the red, with technology stocks struggling: Nvidia is down more than 2%, Apple is down 1,6%, Micron is down 4,5%, and Sandisk is down 10%.
Macro data are also arriving from the US: one above all, the US trade deficit, six months after President Donald Trump introduced tariffs, is fell to its lowest level since mid-2009, that is, since the United States was just emerging from the financial crisis and the Great Recession. According to the Commerce Department, with exports rising and imports declining, the trade deficit was just $29,4 billion in October, a 39% decrease from the previous month.
Gold, silver and euro/dollar
As for oil, as far as other raw materials are concerned, gold prices are substantially stable, down slightly to $4.450 an ounce, while silver, another major player in 2025 and the very first trading sessions of this year, is a complete flop: having reached the historic mark of $80 an ounce at the beginning of the week, today the precious metal is worth "only" $75 an ounce. And speaking of the dollar, how is its exchange rate against the euro? The trend this week has been moderately bearish for the European currency, which is currently trading at $1,165.
