Markets cautious ahead of tonight's announcements from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who will speak to the US Congress but has already ruled out an early rate tightening. Bitcoin continues to fall, which has now almost halved the value of the historical record set a few months ago, when it exceeded $50.000: today the cryptocurrency is worth less than $30.000 (a negative record since January), a further drop from the $33.000 reached in yesterday's session. Gold is also weak, below 1.800 dollars an ounce, while the price of oil is weak but positive, with Brent above 75 dollars a barrel and Wti above 73 dollars. Piazza Affari closes, recovers in the final and closes slightly down at 25.300 points, just worse than the other European lists which still close up (Frankfurt +0,2% and Paris +0,28%). Little move opens on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones index in fractionally negative territory and the Nasdaq around +0,1%.
In Milan contrasted bank stocks: Finecobank, Mediobanca and Banca Generali are among the best with an increase of close to 2% for the first and around 1% for the other two, but among the worst performers in the Ftse Mib are Banco Bpm and Bper, which lose more than 1% as well as Saipem. Bpm bank inter alia, it communicated the completion of Project Rockets, which implies the conclusion of the securitization of a portfolio of non-performing loans worth 1,5 billion euro, which will allow the gross NPE Ratio to fall to 6,3%, against 24,1% in January 2017. The Btp-Bund spread remained unchanged, closing at around 105 basis points, the same value at which it had opened the session. The euro depreciates slightly against the dollar: today it is trading at 1.19071. Illimity, the bank founded by Corrado Passera, presented its strategic plan to 2025, which envisages a total profit of over 240 million and above all an alliance with Andrea Pignataro's Ion group, which will acquire 9,99% of the capital through a reserved capital increase. Unconvinced investors: title -5% on the Star segment.
Atlantia corrects the shot: after the green light for the sale to Cdp and the increase in the target price with a Buy recommendation from Kepler Chevreux, which yesterday had raised the share, today it loses almost 1%. On parity Stellantis, Poste Italiane in red after the presentation of the 2020 Integrated Report and the inauguration in Landriano (Pavia) of the largest hub of Italy for e-commerce and express courier services. In negative territory too Intesa Sanpaolo, who has just signed a new contract with FS for a 200 million euro loan for 3 years.
