The Financial Times goes Japanese. And Ferrari is listed in New York. On a day with little movement on the stock markets following the vote in the Greek parliament, it is the corporate front that has regained the limelight as the quarterly season continues.
According to Marketwatch reports, the Japanese group Nikkei has announced that it is acquiring the Financial Times from the Pearson publishing group for 160 billion yen ($1,29 billion), while in the meantime the German group Axel Springer has denied its interest in acquiring the business newspaper as recently reported by the FT himself who cited two sources close to the dossier.
In the meantime, the European lists closed slightly moved around parity: Ftse Mib -0,20%, London -0,18%, Frankfurt -0,07% and Paris +0,08%. In the Eurozone, consumer confidence is lagging behind, falling by 1,5 points to -7,1 in July, with a more marked drop than analysts' expectations. In the UK, June retail sales surprisingly fell by 0,2%. The Btp-bund spread improved to 115 basis points.
The Asian Stock Exchanges performed well: Tokyo +0,44%, Shanghai +2,43% and Hong Kong +0,46%. Wall Street opened the session mixed. Moods were affected by the record data on applications for unemployment benefits, which fell to their lowest since 1973: 255 units against expectations for 278. A collapse that has not occurred for 42 years and which has triggered new market speculation on the timing of the Fed's interest rate hike.
Still on the macroeconomic front, the Conference Board's super-index of the economy rose by 0,6% in June above analysts' expectations. At the same time, the Chicago Fed's National Economic Activity Index came in at +0,08 points in June versus -0,08% in May. Of the 85 indicators used to measure economic activity, 48 made a positive contribution in June. In particular, the improvement in the indices relating to industrial production and those relating to employment should be noted.
WTI oil drops 0,37% to 49,01 dollars a barrel and gold remains below 1.100 dollars an ounce at 1.093 dollars with a slight increase of 0,17%. The euro-dollar exchange rate rose by 0,44% to 1,0977. “The enormous volatility on the currency market persists, which, however, struggles to find a guiding theme and is therefore characterized by dollar-centric dynamics which, however, alternate both in buying and selling, only in part on the basis of data arriving from the – explains Davide Marone, currency analyst DailyFX (FXCM) – A clear example of this is the Eurodollar exchange which this morning was widely bought (on sales of greenbacks) coming one step away from the significant resistance in the 1,1035 area and was then sold in the afternoon driven by the excellent data on US Jobless Claims (255k vs 280exp) which therefore favored strong dollar buys dragging the exchange rate back to short-term supports at 1,0975”.
On the stock front, sales hit Amazon pending the accounts that will be published after the stock market closes. All eyes are on Ferrari, which has filed the documents with the SEC to launch its own IPO, which will lead to landing on the Nyse with a maximum share of 10% of the capital.
In Piazza Affari, the declines are led by Cnh Industrial -2,01%, Telecom Italia -2% which has announced redundancies for 1700 units, Enel -1,51% penalized by the judgment of Citi: the energy group, according to analysts, is overvalued by the market as room for cash flow growth is limited and confirmation of the current dividend policy will have to go through an increase in the pay-out with effects on debt. The broker therefore prefers A2A, Terna and Snam. At the bottom of the Ftse Mib also Atlantia -1,05% and Finmeccanica -0,93%.
