After the sprint in Tokyo and while the US lists are closed for holidays, the European stock exchanges consolidate their start-up increases in the wake of Mario Draghi's words today in Brussels. The intervention of the ECB president at the quarterly hearing before the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament was eagerly awaited after last week's market turmoil. Draghi still said today that the central bank "will not hesitate to act" if the outlook were to worsen. The euro weakened against the dollar with the exchange rate falling 1% to 1,1144. In the meantime, the barrel has recovered and confirms the recovery towards 30 dollars: the Wti rises by 1,22% to 29,80 dollars a barrel. While the appetite for risk seems to be returning (for today), gold is clearly lagging behind and losing more than 2,4% to 1207 dollars an ounce.
The Btp bund spread cools down again to 137 basis points while the yield stands at 1,62%. The Ftse Mib closes the rise of 3,19%, Paris +3,01%, London +2,04%, Frankfurt +2,67%.
In Piazza Affari the banks stand out after Draghi's words: Bper +10,13%, Mps +9,21%, Unipol +7,65%, Banco Popolare +7,31%. UniCredit +3,47%. Entente +3,51%. Unipol and Unipolsai (+5,92%) also benefited from the words of CEO Carlo Cimbri who opened the hypothesis of a merger between the two companies in the event that Unipol Banca leaves the perimeter of Unipol. Carige is also doing well (+4,40%) after the open letter from the first shareholder Malacalza Investimenti who has ready a replacement of the bank's top management and operational guidance at the next meeting at the end of March.
The rating agency Moody's has promoted the reform of the CCBs launched by the government last week. In a note, the analysts explain that this is "credit positive news for cooperative credit banks because it will allow them to benefit from a guarantee scheme provided for by law and which will make the CCBs legally required to support each other". Among the best of the Ftse Mib also Yoox +6,73%.
Resurrection of Saipem which leaps 11,8% intraday and then closes at +0,53%, on the day of the reopening of the rights auction. Purchases were prompted by the news that Eni (+2,4%) will invest 4 billion dollars in the first phase of the development of the huge Zohr gas field in Egypt, which has been rated as one of the largest in the world.
Mediaset rose by 4,57% after advertising sales recorded a growth of 1%, resulting in "better than the Italian market". The latter, according to Nielsen data, fell overall by 0,5% while in the television sector alone it rose by 0,7%. In the meantime, however, the Antitrust light has come on, which has launched an investigation into the acquisition by Rti (Mediaset) of shares in Finelco, the holding company of the radio stations Radio Montecarlo, 105 and Virgin. The operation, according to the Antitrust Authority, is "likely to determine the creation or strengthening of a dominant position in the radio advertising sales market, such as to eliminate or substantially and lastingly reduce competition".
