Helped by Wall Street, the European Stock Exchanges, after a stalled morning, managed to take the upward path, ending the session with slight progress. In Milan, the Ftse Mib rises by 0,9%, the best price list in the Old Continent, in the aftermath of the 4% rally. In fact, Paris closes at +0,47%, Frankfurt at +0,67% and London by just +0,03%. The closing of Asia was positive this morning: Shanghai +0,51%, Hang Seng +0,85%.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones rose by 0,17%, the S&P 500 by 0,14% and the Nasdaq by 0,12%. The quarterly reports did not sparkle with Bank of America and Wells Fargo which released results in line with analysts' estimates, when instead JpMorgan had beaten expectations the day before.
Macroeconomic data helped sentiment: US initial jobless claims fell last week to their lowest since 1973: down 13 to 153. As well as the truce on crude oil with the oil price slightly up: investors are aiming for an agreement to freeze production at the Doha summit. The WTI rose by 0,67% to 42,04 dollars a barrel. Finally, the governor of the Atlanta Fed, Dennis Lockhart said that the US is not highly vulnerable to global problems and that there will be no rate hike in April. The euro-dollar exchange rate is at 1,1267.
In Piazza Affari, the recovery of the banking sector continues, helped by greater confidence in the effectiveness of the Atlante fund. In fact, the best blue chip is Bper +4,52%, followed by Banco Popolare +3,92%, Unicredit +3,15%, Bpm +3,11%. The director general of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde who spoke of an "interesting approach" which will guarantee the capital increases of the banks and with the aim of unblocking the non-performing loan market. Furthermore, in a joint document signed by the governments of France and Italy disclosed today by Reuters, it is requested that the ESM bailout fund finance a new common fund to support European banks in difficulty.
During today's shareholders' meeting Federico Ghizzoni, CEO of Unicredit, stated that the bank has a commitment of up to one billion and must not exceed 20% of the total fund. The quota of one billion, underlined Ghizzoni, is therefore "a ceiling". As for the duration, the banker reiterated that it is “5 years, renewable from year to year up to another three. "It is certainly not a non-repayable investment - he specified - but an adequate return is expected and it is one of the reasons why we entered". In Siena, where the meeting of Monte dei Paschi was held, CEO Fabrizio Viola said that the bank is ready to accelerate the sale and recovery of non-performing loans using the parachute of the Atlante fund. Furthermore, the president Massimo Tononi specified that Monte dei Paschi continues to evaluate the hypothesis of an aggregation as requested by the ECB, but compared to recent months "there is a brake on the market for aggregations" due to the many uncertainties on the banking sector. The aggregation process, according to Tononi, could be facilitated by a possible success of the Atlante fund project.
In evidence Saipem +3% which in addition to the oil trend, benefits from the ECPI contract signed with TAP, Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) for the supply, construction and installation (EPCI) of the offshore section of the project, a submarine gas pipeline, with a diameter of 36 inches (90 cm), which will cross the Adriatic Sea joining the coasts of Albania and southern Italy, with a length of about 105 km and a maximum depth of about 820 meters below sea level.
The worst stock on the Ftse Mib is Stm which dropped 2,2% after the profit warning of the Chinese Taiwan Semiconductor which triggered tensions across the chip manufacturing sector. Luxury is also down, among the worst in the Ftse Mib are Ferragamo -1,88% and Luxottica -1,7%. The sector discounts the news from the British group Burberry which announced a 1% drop in revenues between September 2015 and March 2016 to 1,41 billion pounds lower than expected and has revised downwards its forecasts for the current year . Among the securities most affected by sales are Poste Italiane -1,82% and Finmeccanica -0,64%.
