Business Square finds the positive sign today, in a contrasted European context and with Wall Street apparently on standby, after the drop on the eve. Investors are moving cautiously waiting to read later the minutes of the meeting of July 27 and 28 of the Fed, from which they hope to draw clues on the timing and modalities of the slowdown in asset purchases.
The Milanese stock market closes up by 0,51% to 26.357 points, thanks to Interpump +2,56% which updates its all-time high and to stocks such as Unipol +2,26%; A2a +2,1%; Inwit +1,96%; Finecobank +1,91%; Leonardo +1,65%; Atlantia +1,4%. On the rise Enel +1%, which seems to collect without damage the "underperform" judgment with which the broker Jefferies started hedging the electric group estimating the company's less optimistic forecasts in the renewable energy sector.
Luxury stocks are in the red, as in all of Europe, following the slowdown in Chinese growth seen in recent days. On the Ftse Mib the black jersey belongs to Moncler -2,63%. The session is also negative for many stocks of the Agnelli group: from the parent company Exor, -0,97% y Ferrari -0,98% and Cnh -0,56%. However, the opposite sign for Stellantis +0,76%. The big banks are doing well, up fractionally and the secondary closes in green: lo spread between ten-year BTPs and Bunds it is 103 basis points (-0,92%), with a BTP rate of 0,55% (against -0,48% for the German bond):
They recover from the initial weakness the energetics. Eni yields 0,1%, but Saipem e Tenaris they appreciate by 0,35%. During the night, the latter announced that an Argentine court had acquitted the CEO and president of the company, Paolo Rocca, of all the charges leveled against him in a corruption case.
Il Petroleum appears volatile, albeit not far from parity, also following the drop in US weekly inventories higher than expected. Brent crude fell by about 0,4% to 68,75 dollars a barrel. L'spot gold it lost 0,35% and traded at around 1781,70 dollars an ounce.
In the rest of Europe they are negative Paris -0,73% and London -0,17%; it is flat Amsterdam; they appreciate each other Madrid +1,14% and Frankfurt + 0,24%.
Meanwhile, inflation in the Eurozone is rising: the annual rate of the area is +2,2% in July against +1,9% in June. Eurostat specifies that last year in the same period the rate was 0,4%. Among the lowest annual rates is that of Italy, 1%.
THEeuro it is stable against the dollar at around 1,17, with the greenback eyeing the behavior of the central bank, after having recently strengthened to its highest level in about four months, in a global economic context made uncertain by the pandemic due to the tough Delta variant. The United States yesterday exceeded a thousand deaths from Covid in a single day as it hadn't happened since March and the Biden administration announced that the obligation to wear a mask on board planes, trains, buses and in airports and railway stations is extended until mid-January.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, yesterday, during a virtual meeting with students and teachers, said that "it is not yet clear" what the impact of the Delta variant will be on the economy. The pandemic "will stay with us for a while" and economic sectors that existed before "will never come back", he added, while admitting that the central bank is evaluating the so-called tapering, but did not say a word about when and how.
To curb the appetite for risk New York Stock Exchange other disappointing macro data contributes today, after those of the previous sessions. In particular, we are dealing with a sharp drop in new construction sites in July, a symptom of a cooling of the real estate market, which was affected by pressures due to prices and supply chains, despite the fact that building permits recovered after the decline in June . The confidence of US manufacturers falls, to its lowest level since July 2020.
In the background remain the Afghan question and the fall of Joe Biden's image internationally, while the US attempt to block access to money to the new lords of Kabul is reportedly underway. According to a reconstruction by the WSJ, last week the White House stopped sending 340 million dollars to Afghanistan, given the advance of the Taliban in the country; in addition, it has blocked access to accounts managed by US banks and the Federal Reserve and is reportedly working to prevent the Taliban from having access to reserves held by the International Monetary Fund, which are worth nearly half a billion.
Ajmal Ahmady, head of the Afghan central bank, who fled the country, claims that the institution of the Asian country has about 9 billion dollars in reserves, almost all abroad. With Washington's move “the amount accessible to the Taliban is perhaps 0,1-0,2% of international reserves. Not very much". Seven of the $9 billion in foreign reserves would be held by the Fed in bonds, assets and gold. There would be no more dollars in cash in the country.
