Markets with little movement on the second day of Davos, in which the intervention of the Italian premier Paolo Gentiloni is also expected, and on the eve of the first ECB meeting of 2018 which could indicate news on Quantitative easing but above all on rates, after the "gradual" evolution of the communication envisaged by the minutes of the last meeting last December and published last week. Slowly progressing inflation towards the target but still too much below 2% could induce Mario Draghi to adopt a more cautious attitude.
Around the middle of the day, Milan rose slightly above parity, still close to 24.000 points. Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid remained substantially unchanged, while London lost 0,2%. The banks are driving the FtseMib price list: above all Banco Bpm (+3,8%), Bper (+2,6%), Ubi Banca (+2,4%), Unicredit (+1,2%). Highlights too Moncler with +1,6%. Bank stocks are lengthening after the head of the ECB Supervision, Daniele Nouy, explicitly opened the possibility of postponing the application of the new Npl disposal rules proposed by the central institution. “The addendum was subjected to public consultation which ended in December – noted Nouy – We have examined all the comments and legal opinions we have received and will amend the addendum accordingly”.
Instead, it loses heavily Stm, by far the worst stock in the FtseMib with a loss of more than 3%: the Italian-French company is penalized by the cut in the target price by JP Morgan (from 26 to 23 euros) and by the lower-than-expected estimates of the American giant Texas Instruments for the first quarter of the year. Tomorrow Stm will publish the accounting results, as will FCA which today earns 0,6%. Slightly negative Telecom Italia, despite the fact that the president Arnaud Depuyfontaine has confirmed that the Ad Amos Genish remains at the helm of the TLC group.
Positive indications have come from the macroeconomic agenda, which showed a slight slowdown in manufacturing production in Europe, however remained robust, partly offset by the acceleration of growth in the tertiary sector. The euro area deficit/GDP fell to 0,3% in the third quarter and the debt/GDP ratio also fell to 88,1% in the same period. In the UK, instead, the unemployment rate remained at its lowest since 1975, equal to 4,3% on average for the quarter ended in November.
Meanwhile today the euro is trading at a three-year high against the dollar over 1,23 and the weakness of the US currency favors gold, which returns to the area of 1.350 dollars an ounce. Oil, on the other hand, did not move much with WTI and Brent respectively at 64,7 and 69,9 dollars a barrel, awaiting the EIA weekly data on US crude inventories, which could show an increase in reserves after several weeks of decline. Sales on the bond, where the yield of the Italian BTP rises to 1,91% and lo spread with the German Bund widens slightly at 133 basis points.
