Within a few hours, in practice the duration of the episode of the Sanremo festival, the title yesterday Meta (formerly Facebook) has left about 200 billion dollars on the ground, about a third of the value of the entire Piazza Affari. It is the market's response to disappointing accounts of the flagship of social networks, the first since the conversion to the Metaverse. a rejection (-20%) justified by the decline in the number of daily users and advertising revenue. But here the metaverse, in truth, has little to do with it: the decline is linked to the new tracking rules imposed by Apple for users via iPhone, which have made it more difficult for Facebook to follow Internet activity to the advantage of Alphabet ( +7,5%). In any case, the blow inflicted on Mark Zuckerberg is destined to mark today's stock market session more than the ECB meeting, in search of footholds not to raise rates, as will soon be inevitable, according to many analysts. And as the Bank of England probably will.
Nasdaq futures are down sharply: Tokyo down
Nasdaq futures are down 2% this morning. S&P futures also down 1,6%
The decline is back in Asia as well, the Bloomberg APACD index loses 0,5% after four consecutive upward sessions. Tokyo Nikkei -0,9%. Sydney -0,3%, Mumbai -0,5%.
Stocks in South Korea and Singapore are up more than 2%, but only because they have been closed for three days and are now leveling off. The long Lunar New Year holiday continues in China: the markets of Shanghai, Shenzen and Hong Kong are not working.
Snap and Twitter also collapsed
US indices positive but upset after the stock market: Dow Jones +0,63%, S&P +0,98%, Nasdaq +0,75%.
Spotify is also under fire, which has lost more than 10%. The effect of the controversy over Jack Rogan, protagonist of the no vax campaign, has not yet been calculated: in the first quarter of 2022, premium users should grow by around 2% compared to the last quarter of 2021.
Snap (-14%) and Twitter (-8%) also fell. Even Alphabet lost 2% after the stock market.
Dollar rises, oil stable
Smooth macro context. The 1,76-year Treasury Note trades at 1,130%. The dollar is back on the rise after three days of decline. Euro at XNUMX on the day of the ECB communications.
Brent oil and WTI in adjustment, down 0,4%. US crude inventories unexpectedly dropped by one million barrels a day, all as expected at the OPEC+ meeting as members agreed to go ahead with planned increases.
Inflation also bites in Europe: +5,1%
Inflation in the Eurozone in January took off to 5,1%. Thus, the hope of a spontaneous slowdown in prices vanishes, as the European Central Bank has been predicting for months. On the contrary, the pressure to raise rates and exit from the bank's expansionary policy is growing. The rise in prices, higher than expected, was caused by the high energy price (+28,6%) together with the increase in food (+5,2%) which nullified the effect of the lower pressure on industrial products . The highest figure concerns Lithuania (+12,2%), while the least affected country is France (only +3,3%).
In Italy too, inflation reached a level not seen since April 1996, well beyond expectations, with energy sources driving the flame. According to the provisional data released today by Istat, consumer prices are up by 1,6% on a month and by 4,8% on a year. Core inflation, excluding energy and fresh food, remained stable at +1,5%, while that excluding energy alone accelerated from +1,6% to +1,8%.
Bini Smaghi: "The ECB will wait"
The data should not push the central bank of the euro to change, at least in the short term, the expansionary stance of monetary policy. The opinion of Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, former member of the directorate: "I believe that before changing policy, the ECB will want to see the data for February and March". But investors still expect a more hawkish stance in the directorate's communications. "I expect we won't see any dramatic changes - comments Oanda's Craig Erlam - but we could see slight changes in tone and language that pave the way for something more significant in March".
The Eurogroup: "Enough stimuli"
An echo of the concerns emerged yesterday from the words of the president of the Eurogroup, the Irishman Paschal Donohue, who, speaking to the European Parliament, underlined that “the increase in inflation is penalizing growth. It is reasonable – he added – to expect less fiscal support from eurozone governments for their economies in 2023 than at current levels, given the improvement in the economic recovery”.
Against this backdrop, the upward trend in government bond yields continued. The ten-year Bund rises to +0,052, the Btp of the same duration rises slightly to 1,437, for a stable spread at 138,50 basis points. Orders for the new BRPEI indexed in May 2033, worth 5 billion euros, exceeded 19 billion.
The euro maintains a good tune against the dollar and tries to grab the 1,13 level.
The Bank of England also meets tomorrow: an upward adjustment of yields is likely.
Milan erases January losses
Piazza Affari, although far from the highs at the end of the session, canceled the losses from the beginning of the year: +0,60%, to 27.388. Lagging behind are Amsterdam (+0,16%) and Paris (+0,36%). Flat Madrid (+0,01%) and Frankfurt.
In great evidence in London Ocado (+6,9%) after the giant of online supermarkets obtained the rank of outperform from Crédit Suisse.
The banks stood out in Milan: Unicredit +3%, Banco Bpm +2,3%, Intesa +1% pending the presentation of the industrial plan on Friday. Mps also rose (+2,3%) in reference to the possible replacement of the current ad Bastianini.
Saipem, the landslide subsides. Now we need to find the money
Saipem settles just below parity (-1,2%) after a first part of the session characterized by high volatility, in a market that awaits greater visibility on the next moves of the company and the main shareholders to define adequate countermeasures after the unexpected profit warning. Yesterday the hypothesis of an Italian engineering hub centered on Maire Tecnimont (-0,9%) and the financial contribution of the CDP filtered through.
Eni sells 0,6% pending OPEC+ choices.
Ferrari show: record sales, 12 thousand euros to employees
Sale Ferrari (+1,4%) after the 2021 accounts, the year in which the Cavallino Rosso delivered 11.155 cars, a new absolute record. “The company – declared CEO Benedetto Vigna – has laid the foundations for a new industrial plan, which will be presented on 16 June in Maranello”. Ferrari will give the 4.500 employees an annual competitiveness bonus of 12.000 euros.
Among the other blue chips, Amplifon (+3,2%) and Interpump (+2%) excel. Orsero shares rip (+4,5%) in the wake of the new guidance. Broker Banca Akros raised its target price to 18 euros from the previous 16 euros, confirming the "Buy" recommendation.
