After two subdued months, Piazza Affari closes July on the rise and seals growth with today's performance, +1,25%, 22.215 points, the best in Europe. Leonardo flies among the blue chips, +10,6%, after higher-than-expected accounts and the positive revision of the 2018 guidance, while the half-year numbers also support utilities and financials. The other price lists in the euro area are more backward: Frankfurt +0,14%; Madrid +0,17%; Paris +0,37%. London did well, +0,65%, awaiting the decisions of the BoE, which will meet on Thursday and could adjust rates upwards. On the other hand, the Bank of Japan partially disappointed as it today undertook to maintain its ultra-expansionary monetary policy and 10-year rates close to zero, albeit with some slight changes in terms of flexibility, once again cutting inflation estimates. In a busy week for central banks, tomorrow it will be the turn of the Fed to pronounce on its policy.
In the meantime, Wall Street is trying to rebound, with a slight recovery in technology, after the recent declines and the disappointing numbers of Facebook, Twitter and Netflix. Tonight it will be Apple to reveal its semi-annual state of health. A test bed, for some observers, which could prove decisive for the stability of the sector.
Supporting investors' optimism is the resumption of dialogue between the United States and China. According to reports from Bloomberg, some US Treasury officials and Chinese Vice President Liu He are in private contact to try to unblock the impasse and perhaps avoid the next round of US tariffs on 16 billion dollars of Made in China, which could go off tomorrow.
Oil is down, due to the rekindling of fears about an excess supply, with OPEC production which in July would have reached a maximum in 2018, Brent -0,95%, 74,83 dollars a barrel.
The euro-dollar exchange rate moved little, in the 1,17 area, after a series of macro data on which to reflect in the single currency area: inflation in July (flash estimate) is slightly higher than expected (+2,1%) ; unemployment is 8,3% in June, the lowest since 2008; the preliminary GDP figures for the second quarter are weak, +0,3%, the lowest in the last two years. As far as Italy is concerned, the prospect of 1,5% growth also this year seems to be vanishing definitively, after the seven-year peak in 2017. In fact, GDP slows down, +0,2% compared to +0,3% in the previous quarter, (+1,1% year-on-year) and the work of Economy Minister Giovanni Tria it gets even more complicated.
The climate is only partially reflected in government bonds, with inflation slightly pushing the yield of the Bund and allowing the Italian 1,8-year bond to narrow the spread by 229.70% to XNUMX basis points.
Returning to Piazza Affari, the best big names in the session, besides Leonardo, are Intesa +4,11% (which presents its accounts tomorrow); Banca Mediolanum +3,45%; Mediobanca +2,42%; Ferraris 2,29%. The worst Saipem -1,56%; Fineco -1,47%; Buzzi - 1,21%; Campari -1,17%; Prismian -1,04%.
