In the afternoon the Milan Stock Exchange widen the losses. The Ftse Mib dropped 3,4%, recording the worst performance among those of the main European markets. In the same minutes Frankfurt scores -1,5%, Paris -1,8% Madrid -2%. The Stock Exchange does even worse Athens, which drops by more than five percentage points.
Also Wall Street opened lower: il Dow Jones loses 0,53%, theS & P 500 0,56% and the Nasdaq loses 0,54%.
THEeuro fell to 1,1864 dollars, the lowest value since March 2006, and then climbed up to 1,1959 dollars. The exchange rate also declined yen, at 143,16, the lowest since early November. The BTP-Bund spread it is up slightly, to 128 basis points.
The factor that weighs the most on the market trend is Greek political instabilityahead of early elections to be held on 25 January. At the top of the polls is Syriza, an alternative left-wing party led by Alexis Tsipras, who in recent months has reiterated several times that the Greek country will not leave the Eurozone.
Despite these clarifications, the German weekly Der Spiegel wrote over the weekend that, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, any Grexit “wouldn't be a tragedy” for the currency area, because by now the risk of contagion in the European region is limited. Berlin later denied these claims and today the EU remarked that joining the single currency "is irreversible".
The other factor destabilizing the markets is, once again, the performance of the Oil prices, down again. The WTI for February delivery slipped to new lows since the beginning of May 2009, at 50,91 dollars a barrel, before recovering to 51,07 dollars (-3,07% on last Friday), while Brent recorded a drop 3,26%, at 54,58 dollars, after having touched a low of 54,44 shortly before.
It is no coincidence that the worst title on the Ftse Mib is that of Eni (-4,3%), weighed down today also by a Citi downgrade. At the bottom of the list they also travel Enel (-3,48%), Where's Banca (-3,20%), Intesa Sanpaolo (-3,10%) And Unicredit (-2,85%).
The best upside is instead that of Luxottica (+1,6%), which – deriving more than half of its turnover from exports to the United States – benefits more than the other blue chips from the fall of the euro against the dollar.
