General, but not only. From 11 this morning until well into the afternoon, the financial community will be able to listen in streaming to the speeches by Mario Greco (expected conclusion at 12) CEO del Leone, by the CFO Alberto Minali and by the chief insurance officer Sergio Balbinot, plus the session of questions and answers. This will be the key event for the Italian market. The spotlight of global finance, meanwhile, is focused on the currency markets.
In fact, the day opened with a new thud of the yen, favored by the closure of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, stopped for holidays: the currency slipped to 89,67 against the dollar, above 120 against the euro, at its lowest since May 2011. the dollar also weakened against the dollar, at 1,3404, at its lowest since February 29th, under the influence of statements by Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed. For the Old Continent, a revaluation of the currency is looming which risks penalizing exports.
For now, however, optimism prevails. "Financial markets are returning to normal," said Erik Nielsen, chief economist at Unicredit. Even Nouriel Roubini indulges in a certain optimism: “The global and European picture has significantly improved, with increased liquidity – he declared in an interview with Repubblica – The international perception of the risk associated with countries like Italy or Spain has decreased markedly. The next developments for Italy depend on three elements: 1) whether the trend of international liquidity will remain comforting; 2) if the crisis of the real economy and consumption has reached the bottom as appears possible; 3) how the elections will go”.
ASIA
The Chinese Dragon raises its head. The Tokyo Stock Exchange halts for the holidays, the Shanghai price list + 2,4% is the driving force for the entire continent. Supporting the rally is the news that China will increase tenfold the amount of Chinese shares that can be purchased by foreign operators.
Hong Kong scores +0,61%. Li & Fung -15% the supplier of the Wal Mart warehouses is significant, after the disappointing balance sheet figures which show lower purchases by US consumers.
AMERICA
From Morgan Stanley to Citigroup this week the quarterly reports of the large groups will be parading on the catwalk of Wall Street, a sector that has recorded a rise in prices in the order of 30% since the beginning of July.
Meanwhile, the greats of the car challenge each other at the Detroit show. The first to enter the fray is Volkswagen: in his press conference Martin Winterkorn, which aims to consolidate its advance on the US market (+35% in 2012 but from a reduced base) guaranteed that the group will not close any plants in Europe.
EUROPA
Brussels pushes for the great pan-European telecommunications agreement. After Joaquim Almunia, EU telecommunications commissioner Neelie Kroes takes the field with an interview with the Financial Times. During 2013, underlines the commissioner, the EU will remove the legal and regulatory obstacles that make cross-border alliances between the various telecoms almost impossible.
Watch out for the euro quotations after the very strong rise of the single currency on Friday, which rose 1,335 against the dollar (+0,6%), to 1,217 against the Swiss franc (from 1,213) and to 0,827 against the British pound (from 0,820).
ITALY
Meanwhile, Piazza Affari restarts after a record week. The FtseMib index rose by 3,2% in five sessions. The performance since the beginning of the year is +7,5% and assigns Milan the primacy among the European Stock Exchanges.
Taking stock of the 40 Milanese blue chips since the beginning of 2013, we note that only four stocks are down (Diasorin, Atlantia, Buzzi and Snam), the best performance is by MontePaschi with a 32% rise, followed by Banco Popular +22% and Mediaset +20%.
On the secondary market, the yield on 10-year BTPs fell to 4,12%, the lowest since November 2010, the spread narrowed to 254, a drop of 5 basis points.
HOT TITLES
GENERAL. Eyes on Generali's Investor Day this morning, the meeting in London with analysts wanted by Mario Greco to raise the curtain on the Lion's strategies. The "hot topics" will certainly not be lacking after the opening of market credit to the new management. In particular:
a) the new focus of international activities. In recent months, the sale of BSI and of the reinsurance business in the USA has been launched. The new targets could be bancassurance in Brazil and an emerging market like Indonesia.
b) Details of the agreement with Petr Kellner. The curiosity concerns the purchase of the entire stake, 38,5%, in Ingosstrakh, the Russian insurance company controlled by Oleg Deripaska. What are Mario Greco's goals? The most probable hypothesis is that it was a purchase made to be able to negotiate the transfer of the entire package with Deripaska or another partner (the Vtb bank, for example). The Russian market is not targeted by the Lion.
c) Details on the unification of the Italian activities, which will lead to the creation of an operating subholding, Generali Italia, and the extinction of some brands (Ina, Assitalia, Toro).
d) The completion of the Italian team reporting directly to Greco: the CEO still holds, ad interim, the role of Chief Investment Officer and Chief Operations Officer.e) the fate of some share packages which are frozen in some syndicate agreements : in addition to Pirelli (granted renewal for the next 12 months), the discussion concerns RCS, Gemina, Telecom Italia.
PIRELLI. Pirelli is also under close observation which on Friday lost 3,4% after the rejection of Goldman Sachs which cut the recommendation to "sell" from "neutral" and lowered the target price to 8,9 euros from 11,5 euros. Any termination of the trade union pact that governs the company must be given by tomorrow. All major shareholders are oriented towards a renewal of only 12 months. The only uncertainty concerns Allianz: the German group's policy is to "keep your hands free" without making limiting commitments. But, given the duration of the agreement, Allianz could also stay.
ALITALIA/IMSSI. The lock-up on shares expired on Saturday evening. In a week, the company's board of directors will take note of the new budget, characterized by drastic cuts in investments and the spin-off of the "Mille Miglia". It is easy to predict that Air France, the most probable buyer (but an interest by Eitihad, an Abu Dhabi company is not excluded), will not move before the elections. Roberto Colaninno's Imssi shares under tension in the past week: the hypothesis is that of an Alitalia card exchange for an IR France card, recognizing Italian sellers a 30% premium compared to the prices set in 2008.
