TODAY THE ECB OPENS THE TAPS: THE SPREAD GOES DOWN, GOLD GOES UP. MEDIOBANCA ABSOLVES NAGEL. TRONCHETTI RELAUNCHES IN GTI
The big day has arrived. Today the 22 members of the ECB directorate will have to give the green light to "everything it takes to save the euro" to quote the words used by Mario Draghi on 25 July in London, when the single currency seemed to be sinking. In the meantime, the trend reversal has already infected the markets.
The perception of lower risk on peripheral government bonds has created less interest in German Bunds, a solid investment but with minimal yield. The auction with which the Berlin government offered 5 billion euros of Bund over 10 years at 1,5% was a flop and only 3,6 billion were placed.
Meanwhile, the yield of the ten-year BTP has drastically fallen to 5,49% and lo spread with the 400-year Bund narrowed violently to XNUMX, down 20 basis points from yesterday. Asia is also awaiting the outcome of the Frankfurt meeting. Stock lists, in the meantime, moved little: Tokyo -0,15%, Hong Kong -0,18%.
More significant was the strengthening of the euro, traded against the dollar at 1,2609 from 1,256 yesterday, and above all in a strong recovery against the Swiss franc, traded at 1,204 from 1,201 yesterday. Meanwhile, gold is touching the barrier of 1.700 dollars an ounce. In Tokyo the price is fixed at 1699,30. According to Bank of America, the yellow metal, driven by the expectation of stimuli for the economy, could rise to 2.000 dollars an ounce by 2012.
Wall Street danced around parity: Dow Jones up 0,09%, S&P500 -0,11%% and Nasdaq -0,19%. In addition to the expectation for the ECB, the macroeconomic data in chiaroscuro weigh, starting with the disappointing figure of the ISM index on purchasing managers of the State of New York. On the other hand, there is good news as regards productivity, which rose by 2,2% above expectations.
Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), has begun handing out invitations to an event in San Francisco on September 12, where it could launch the new iPhone5. JP Morgan raised Apple's target price to $770 from $675, with an 'overweight' rating.
Weak closure for Piazza Affari on the eve of tomorrow's crucial ECB meeting. The FtseMib index fell by 0,6%. All the other European Stock Exchanges, on the other hand, closed with slight progress: Paris +0,2%, Frankfurt +0,4%, Madrid +0,07%. Only London is down by 0,2%.
According to rumors reported by the agency Bloomberg, today the ECB is preparing to present, with broad support from all its members, a government bond purchase program for an "unlimited" amount with the aim of countering speculation and calming the spreads between the yields of the more virtuous countries, such as the Germany, and those of peripheral countries, especially Spain and Italy.
Rumors say that the securities purchased will be "sterilised", which means that the ECB will sell other types of assets to withdraw money from the market and counter the risk of inflation. This is a clarification certainly welcome to the German government. Just as the "unlimited" amount of purchases sounds like a declaration of war on international speculation. But also to the resistance, far from overcome, of the president of the Bundesbank Jens Weidmann who will probably vote against the Draghi plan today.
Mediobanca it rose by 0,9%, also helped by rumors according to which it is negotiating the sale of about 3% of Generali, in order to reduce its stake to 10%. Nomura raised the target price to 5 euros from 4,3 euros. Generali it closed down 0,6%.
Meanwhile, Mediobanca's board of directors has "expressed satisfaction with the progress of the Unipol/Fondiaria-Sai integration project and the related recapitalization": the increase in shares on the Stock Exchange increases confidence in the positive outcome of the increase.
“In this context – continues a note – the board has also taken note of the information from the chief executive officer regarding the matter referred to in the investigation at the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office. The unanimous council, on the basis of the information at its disposal, awaits the outcome of the investigations with full confidence” into Alberto Nagel.
On the other hand, there was no talk of reorganizing the bank's shareholdings, as Tarak Ben Ammar specified. The issue, said another adviser, will be addressed in the coming months. It is a question of reflecting on "where will Mediobanca go, a very important institution at a national level but which does not have the same access routes to funding compared to the large international competitors". In this context, the placement of the shareholdings held by the institution will also be assessed.
In the meantime, the "dance" of Rcs the stock was suspended for the whole day and in the final auction it set a price of 2,57 euros, up 29%. Yesterday the sale of Flammarion to the French publisher Gallimard was completed. Field day for the galaxy Pirelli –0,02%, which includes Prelios +6,43% and Camfin + 2,5%.
Marco Tronchetti Provera was ahead of the board of directors of GPI (Gruppo Partecipazioni Industriali, control box of Camfin) by accepting the challenge of the capital increase requested by the Malacalza family. But the operation will concern Gpi itself, not Camfin, thus reducing the financial burden for Bicocca's number one. The board of directors thus resolved by majority vote (one of the directors expressed by the Malacalza group voted against) to grant the chairman the mandate to increase the share capital by a maximum amount of 45 million and thus repay the debt to the banking system (approximately 41 million) maturing in November 2012.
The conflict, however, is far from healed. The board of directors, on a proposal from Tronchetti Provera, also resolved by majority vote to appoint an authoritative expert to formulate a pro veritate opinion, "to protect the correctness of the company's actions" in the context of the "shareholder agreements between GPI itself , Marco Tronchetti Provera Sapa and Malacalza Investimenti involving Camfin, with specific reference to the hypothesized issue of a bond loan convertible into Pirelli shares”. A first step towards divorce.
Leonardo Del Vecchio will sell 7% of Luxottica, of which he controls 66,4%, through an accelerated bookbuilding offering reserved for institutional investors. Goldman Sachs International will lead the operation supported by Unicredit as Co-Bookrunner. The great protagonists in Piazza Affari were, not surprisingly, the banks, which coincidentally are the companies that will have the most immediate benefits from the ECB's intervention.
Equipped with a massive portfolio of government bonds, Ubi jumped 3,4%. Banca Popolare di Milano rose by 1,9%, MontePaschi + 1,3% Pop .Emilia +2,4%. More contained earnings Understanding +0,4% and Unicredit +0,1%. The heaviest loss is of StM , a fall of 5,3%, victim of the double downgrade of Ubs and Exane. Finmeccanica it closed down by 2,5% after new rumors about alleged irregularities by the managing director Giuseppe Orsi, which he immediately denied today.
