Markets with little movement and in no particular order, on a day still held back by tensions in the Middle East and lived in anticipation of the Fed's monetary policy decisions. In this context, Piazza Affari stands out as it restarts, after the losses at the beginning of the week, closing the session with a gain of 0,67%, best in Europe, one step away from 22 points. Good performance for Amplifon +3,08%; Juventus +2,32%; Nexi +2,14%; Hera +2,13%. Among the big names in oil, Eni stands out +1,22%.
The banks are recovering slightly. Mediobanca rises by 0,71%, following the entry of Leonardo Del Vecchio with 6,9% of the capital; Generali asset +1,01%, of which Del Vecchio owns about 5%. Main listing losses are led by Moncler -7%. The queen of down jackets is paying the price for the protests in Hong Kong which are affecting the entire luxury sector and could undermine growth in 2019. Prysmian is still down, -2,97%, again following the cut in Corning's estimates for the fiber optic cable business. Among the oil stocks, Tenaris -1,45% and Saipem -0,27% remain in the red. Leonardo loses -1,55%.
The spread improves, with the Italian paper benefiting from the actions of the ECB and the more pro-European attitude of the new Italian government, while tonight the arrival of the French president Emmanuel Macron is expected in Rome. The differential with the Bund drops to 137 basis points (-1,43%) and the yield on the Italian ten-year bond falls to +0,86%.
In the rest of Europe: Frankfurt +0,14%; Paris +0,09%; Madrid +0,31%. Outside the Eurozone London -0,1%; Zurich -0,09%.
Wall Street started down, trading continues in fractional decline also due to the collapse of Fedex, -13,7%, penalized by the US-China trade war. On the Middle East front, Donald Trump has meanwhile asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to "substantially increase sanctions" against Iran, the real responsible, according to the US president, for last Saturday's attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure. Oil is down, Brent 63,83 dollars a barrel (-1,12%), also following the surprise increase in American weekly inventories.
The other gravitational pole of the day is the Federal Reserve, which this evening at 20 pm Italian time communicates its choices. The market expects another rate cut (25 basis points are estimated), the second in the space of a few months and after 10 years of not seeing any of this. Attention will be attracted above all by Powell's assessments of the future, also due to the ultra-accommodating policy of the ECB and the decisions taken last week. However, the economic context of the two realities is quite different and, despite Trump's insistence, Jerome Powell does not seem to have so much room for manoeuvre.
Meanwhile there is already a big news, because for the second day in a row, the Federal Reserve intervened in the US money market injecting 75 billion dollars of liquidity after yesterday's 53 billion. Through the New York Fed, the central bank implemented a so-called "repo" operation through which it temporarily bought assets from Wall Street dealers. The two moves (the first since 2008 of this magnitude) are in response to the fear that the institution is losing control over the reference rate. The Fed said in a statement yesterday that the goal is "to help keep federal funds rates within the 2% to 2,25% range."
Stable the dollar. The euro trades at 1,106. Among the raw materials gold is in green at $1518,45 an ounce.
