FIAT AND TOD'S MAKE A TOAST IN MILAN: FIGHTING IS GOOD. BITTER HI TECH: APPLE BRAKES, SINKS FACEBOOK
From Wall Street to Asia, the stock exchanges float in an unstable equilibrium: on the one hand the signs of a recession, on the other the stimuli of the central banks and the interventions to revive the stock markets: China is about to widen the opening to operators international exchanges of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The result? Balance in Tokyo -0,01% and Hong Kong -0,12% (Prada down -2,25% despite the brilliant results). Indices at a slow trot on Wall Street: Dow Jones -0,15%, S&P - 0,22%. An exception is the Nasdaq - 0,60%, which is weighed down by a double disappointment.
Slow down the locomotive Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC),, which drops by 2%. Over 5 million new iPhone5s were sold in three days, but some brokers, including Piper Jaffray, were expecting a result closer to 10 million. The halt due to riots which cost 49 injured at a Chinese plant of Foxconn, the iPhone factory, has contributed to unnerving the market.
Meanwhile Facebook it sank on the stock market, where it lost 10% to 20,64 dollars a share after the weekly Barron's questioned the value of the company and set the price of Facebook shares at 15 dollars. Facebook shares lost 46% compared to the $38 set in the IPO. Barron's believes that Facebook stock is not worth buying and that even a $15 valuation is high because it represents 24 times the estimated profits for 2013, compared to 16 times for giants such as Apple and Google which, by contrast, enjoy excellent Health.
In Milan, the FtseMib index fell by 0,7% with sales spread across all sectors. In Europe, the most penalized stocks are those most linked to the economic cycle: construction (Stoxx of the sector -1,5%), raw materials (-1,3%). The London Stock Exchange closed at -0,2%, Paris -0,8%, Frankfurt -0,5%. The Madrid Stock Exchange lost 1%. On the government bond market, the 10-year BTP was traded in the evening at a yield of 5,02%, with a spread of 346, widening by 3 basis points.
The bad day has an explanation: recession. The signals come from macro indications (the German Ifo index at its lowest since February 2010), from the alarm of international institutions (see IMF) but also from micro signals, no less significant: the Financial Times dedicates an article to the cappuccino crisis in Italy and Cortado in Spain: coffee consumption in both countries is down by 5-6%.
The International Monetary Fund "continues to forecast a gradual recovery", but "the global economy is still full of uncertainty", estimates in recent months "point downwards" and global growth is likely to "be a little more weaker than anticipated in July”. This was stated by the director general of the IMF Christine Lagarde speaking at the Peterson Institute in Washington ahead of the institute's annual meeting in October in Tokyo.
Against this backdrop, this morning the Italian Treasury takes the field with the first of three month-end auctions with the aim of taking another step on the road to reducing the spread. Between 3 and 4 billion of zero coupons and between 750 million and 1,5 billion of BtpCi securities (indexed to the euro area) will be offered. The forecasts are also positive because the ministry has focused on biennial zero coupons, i.e. securities that fall within the range of securities covered by the ECB purchase umbrella.
But there is no shortage of tensions on the sovereign debt front, while the eurozone horizon is rippling again: a) disagreements between France and Germany on banking supervision and the attitude to take towards Greece; b) rumors of new budget holes in Athens; c) fibrillation in Madris and in Madrid and Barcelona on the eve of the anti-deficit measures that will precede the request for aid from Brussels.
In the meantime, the outcome of yesterday's auction of 12-month German bonds lends itself to a double reading. Germany placed 1,173 billion 12-month government bonds, much less than the 3 billion expected, but with a negative yield of 0,018%, an improvement (for buyers) from -0,025% in the previous auction, and strong requests ( 5,1 .2 times the offer from the previous XNUMX).
We can highlight the high demand at negative rates which would highlight the "hunger for safe bonds", confirmed by Denmark's return to the sub-zero bond club which placed its two-year bonds at -0,11%; but once again Berlin had to give up placing a large part of the bonds (about 60%) in order to guarantee itself very convenient rates.
As for Piazza Affari, yesterday Telecom Italy has dropped by 2%: the second shareholder, the Fossati family (5% of the capital) is pressing for the network to be spun off.
Meanwhile, the pretenders a Telecom Italy Mobile +0,3%. Hourglass is has a non-binding offer for the entire company. With the presence of Marco Bassetti, former number one of Endemol, as advisor. Participants at this stage of the tender (only later will it be necessary to make binding offers) Cairo Communications, H3g, News Corporation (not Sky Italia) and the Abertis group.
Clessidra's offer, aimed at accessing the data room, is around 450 million gross of the company's 200 million debt (loss in the first half of 35 million). It has collapsed in the media sector Mediaset, down 4,5%. Rcs fell by 2,8%. Hot controversies are good for duelists. Fiat moved up +2,4% after Sergio Marchionne, in reiterating that "Fiat is fine" confirmed the 2012 targets.
The "enemy" Diego Della Valle also toasts: Tod’s it rose by 1,38%. Remaining in luxury it is worth mentioning Yoox which gained 3,2%. Sharp reduction of Finmeccanica, down 2,4%. The subsidiary Ansaldo it gained 0,7%: the advisors for its sale would have been chosen. Black day for StM, which lost 3,5%, in line with the decline in American tech stocks.
Between banks MontePaschi fell by 2,1%, Ubi lost 2,6%, Unicredit -0,8% Understanding -0,6%. It has moved up Mediobanca +1,6%. Weak Mediolanum -1,7%.
