The race for the new Btp Italia and the drop in the spread are not enough to sustain today's morale Piazza Affari, which leaves 2,11% on the field and drops to 17.034 points, penalized by the return of short selling. Inspired by the title of the well-known television series, it can be said that i Devils are back on the attack, after the removal of the ban on assuming new short positions, decided by Consob in agreement with the other European authorities and which also applies to the markets of Austria (-4,07%), Belgium (-1,69 %), France (-0,89%), Greece (-1,86%) and Spain (-2,51%).
The prohibition it had been introduced on March 17 last year, in the midst of the market crisis and a few days after the historic collapse of Milan (the Ftse Mib -16,9% on March 12), to deal with the speculation that was affecting the stock market. It should be remembered that short selling is a financial transaction which consists in the sale of unowned financial instruments with subsequent repurchase. This operation is carried out if it is believed that the price at which the financial instruments will be repurchased will be lower than the price initially collected through the sale.
In Europe, London limits the damage -0,78%, while Frankfurt, +0,12%, consolidates yesterday's gains. Wall Street, after a weak start, appears to be recovering (the DJ drops 0,1%), dragged by the Nasdaq, thanks to the progress of technological champions such as Amazon, Netflix or Facebook. Investors' attention is focused on the chiaroscuro quarterly reports of major retailers and on the speeches by Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin before a Senate committee. In particular, Powell reiterates his willingness to deploy all the instruments available to the central bank to help the US economy emerge from the crisis. He continues to create nervousness, however, the US-China clash, which now finds the WHO as its new battleground.
In this uncertain climate, Italian government bonds are having another great session. The success of the new indexed Btp Italia, the first with a 5-year term, seems unstoppable and on the second day, retail orders exceeded 4 billion euros. Taking into account the 4 billion already requested yesterday, the overall demand for the security launched to deal with the Covid-19 emergency therefore exceeded 8 billion. Tomorrow there will be one more day of placement reserved for savers and then Thursday 21 closing with the placement reserved for institutional investors. The success is probably explained by the large liquidity available, but also by the desire of people to contribute to some extent to the restart of the country, without neglecting a fair remuneration.
The secondary sector also benefits from this attitude of renewed confidence: the spread between Italian and German ten-year bonds drops to 210 basis points (-3,18%) and the Italian bond rate narrows to 1,63%. We also continue to look with hope at the Franco-German agreement on the funds to be allocated to the recovery, even if the northern countries seem ready to rise up and Brussels must try to keep the various thrusts together in formulating its proposal. Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, in the press conference at the end of the Ecofin meeting, says that the Commission will be even more audacious than Merkel and Macron and will present a recovery plan next week that will exceed one trillion euros with a mix of interventions at grants and loans.
The single currency appreciates and the exchange rate with the dollar rises to 1,0932. Gold in progress at 1742,65 dollars an ounce. Oil is down slightly, after the recent surge. Brent trades at 34,45 dollars a barrel (-1%).
In the business square an oil stock like Tenaris sinks, -8,9%, while the quarterly results send Telecom sinking, -8,63%, which is the worst stock in the sector at European level. Among the banks the most penalized is Banco Bpm, -7,31%. The CEO Giuseppe Castagna, live on Instagram on the Sole 24 Ore account, observes: "The reason why bankers are down today is very clear: they have reopened, and unfortunately I say, the possibility of shorting". The bank also announces that it has so far processed about 100 requests relating to moratoriums and suspension of installments and loans, over 80% of which come from companies for a total amount of suspended capital of around 2 billion euros. It is processing almost 42.000 requests relating to guaranteed loans of up to 25.000 euros falling within the measures of the 'Liquidity' decree. The guarantee of MCC has already been obtained for 27.000 and over 23.000 have already been disbursed for a value exceeding 500 million euro.
Down Bper -5,57%. On the Intesa-Ubi front (-1,47% and -3,87%), it should be noted that the latter believes that Intesa Sanpaolo's PEO has become ineffective as the so-called MAC (material adverse change) impediment occurred due to the Covid-19 and submitted its arguments to Consob. Among well-tuned pharmaceutical stocks in this phase, Recordati tumbles backwards -8,07%
After the leap of the eve FCA sells 4,53%, also following an unprecedented slump in the European auto market in April. In the European Union alone, the drop in car registrations was 76,3%, the worst result since the data was recorded, after the -55,1% in March, according to what was communicated this morning by Acea, the association of European manufacturers. Fiat did worse than the average, -88%.
The holding Exor, +2,21%, is instead the blue chip queen of the list, followed by Enel +1,22% and Buzzi, +0,24%.
