Wall Street fills up with sales of new homes and drags Europe and Piazza Affari. The Ftse Mib, which absorbed yesterday's dividend effect, closed on session highs, the best stock exchange in the Old Continent, with a rise of 3,34% driven by the banks. London +1,35%, Paris +2,46% and Frankfurt +2,18% also rose sharply despite the disappointing figure of the Zew, the German confidence index, which collapsed in May to 6,4 points from 11,2 of April. The Btp-Bund spread is reduced by four points to 132 points and a yield of 1,5%.
Greece is also being looked at today in the Eurozone: in the afternoon the Eurogroup spoke about the new tranche of aid and possible debt relief, on which the various creditors are unable to reach an agreement.
Purchases on Wall Street after the data on sales of new homes rose by 16,6% to 619, the highest since February 2008 against a decidedly lower consensus at 523 units. WTI oil rose by 1,10% to 48,61 dollars a barrel. The euro-dollar exchange rate dropped 0,7% to 1,114155 pending a rate hike by the Fed.
In Piazza Affari the focus is on Unicredit which is suspended in the volatility auction and then closes at +4,87%. The board of directors met in the afternoon, from which the change at the top could start with the resignation of Federico Ghizzoni. But the entire banking sector is in the spotlight. In particular, the best stock of the Ftse Mib is Mps which jumped by 10,51% after the Deputy Minister of Finance Enrico Morando hypothesized an increase in the Treasury's share from 4% to 7% due to the payment of interest on the Monti Bonds in shares. The second best stock is Bper +7,88%, followed by Mediobanca +6,08%, Intesa Sanpaolo +6,08% and Generali +5,77%. Meanwhile, the stress test for insurance is coming: Eiopa (European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority) today launched this "periodic exercise" which aims to assess the vulnerabilities of the sector but which however "should not be interpreted as a exam in which you passed or failed".
FCA also regains momentum +3,07% after yesterday's sharp drop (-4%), triggered by accusations in the German press on alleged violations of anti-pollution regulations. Relay in the team of Sergio Machionne's closest collaborators: Reid Bigland takes office as the new Chief Executive Officer of the Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands in place of Harald Wester, who "will be able to devote full attention to the role of Chief Technology Officer of FCA".
Luxottica +0,81%: the company announced the conclusion of the treasury share buyback program for 1 million ordinary shares announced on May 12 and the simultaneous launch of a new treasury share buyback plan up to a maximum of 4 million ordinary shares of the company, corresponding to 0,827% of the share capital, in execution of the resolution of the shareholders' meeting of 29 April 2016. Digital Bros runs out of the Ftse Mib +16,82% after the agreement with the main publisher of Chinese video games.
Among the blue chips, only Telecom Italia -2,35% is in the red, paying Exane's opinion that Enel's competition on broadband could put it in difficulty.
Salini Impregilo falls out of the main basket: -13,62%. Yesterday the company announced the 2016-2019 industrial plan with an Ebitda margin estimated at over 10% at the end of the plan and a contract in Ethiopia worth 2,5 billion euros. The analysts' judgments were not positive. Kepler Cheuvreux reacted to the new business plan by cutting the recommendation to Hold da Buy with a target of 3,90 euros. Bnp Paribas also cut its target price by 2% to 4,6 euros.
