The acceleration of manufacturing in Europe favors the recovery of price lists and puts the problems induced by the pandemic into the background, at least for one day. Thus the stock exchanges of the Old Continent close higher, while in the USA Wall Street travels in tune on the eve of the elections.
In detail: Frankfurt +2%; Paris +2,11%; Madrid +2,06%; London + 1,46%.
Business Square is the best, +2,55%, 18.400 basis points, with oil and banks in evidence. Among the banking stocks the most effervescent is Ps, +8,32%, on the day of the extraordinary board of directors for a possible capital increase, a necessary step in view of a possible merger. And it is precisely this hypothesis that tickles the appetite of investors after the Sun 24 hours wrote about possible nuptials with Unicredit (+3,2%), which however have not been confirmed by the ministry of the economy. In detail, the Italian activities of the institution led by Mustier would be merged with Mps, while the foreign activities of Unicredit would also be destined for integration with a European giant, such as Commerzbank or Société Générale.
Among the big ones, the best is Understanding +4,42%. Encouraging news from the ECB on dividends: Yves Mersch, a member of the board, believes that the distribution of coupons should be evaluated by adopting a 'bank by bank' criterion unless the capital estimates are not burdened by exceptional uncertainty.
In light of asset management with Banca Mediolanum +5,46%. In the rest of the price list shot of Exor +5,65% and Buzzi + 5,2%.
There are only four blue chips in red. The worst is Recordati -3,84%. Bad too nexi, -2,58%, after the co-confirmation of the start of texclusive negotiations for a merger with Nets, a Danish group in the PayTech sector, to be implemented through a share swap. The goal would be to reach a binding agreement in the next 10 days to create a giant in the digital payments sector in Europe, while Nexi is already involved in the merger with Sia in Italy. With this operation, Nexi will be able to expand the scope of consolidation of its business to other countries, but there is a fear, according to a trader, "that it may pay for it at a premium and therefore expensive" and this would explain today's weakness.
Losses for Campari -1,7% and Diasorin -1,49%.
Queen of the Ftse Mib is Saipem, +7,63%, in cash together with Eni +5,84% and Tenaris +5,23%. Even the Petroleum grabs the positive sign, even if the ears remain rather low, due to the gigantic wave of infections in the world and consequent restrictions. Brent is up 0,9% to 38,28 dollars a barrel.
The Italian secondary closes in red: lo spread with the German 135-year bond, it rises to 2,23 basis points (+0,71%), but the BTP rate remains stable at XNUMX%. No surprises came from the Dbrs agency, which confirmed the "BBB high" rating for Italy. The experts have not changed the outlook either, which remains negative.
The currency market is flateuro-dollar (1,163), with the lockdowns of various degrees afflicting the single currency area on the one hand and the uncertainty about the electoral results on the other, which represents a danger for the stability of US stock exchanges in the near future.
Democrat Joe Biden leads in the polls, but with a narrow lead in some key states and this could allow Donald Trump to garner the 270 electoral votes needed to win. A Biden victory would likely weigh on the greenback, due to expectations of a large stimulus package. A surprise Trump victory could trigger uncertainty in the near term. One-week implied volatility indicators for the euro and yen are above 11%, the highest level since early April.
In this context, thegold: +0,6%, $1890,3 an ounce.
Today's session thus cancels a part of the losses suffered by the lists last week. The PMI manufacturing indices for October gave the "open" to the purchases, which show a rise for the Eurozone to 54,8 points from 53,7 in September (the highest since July 2018) and in particular the expansion of the Germany (58,2 points from 56,4). Italy did well (at 53,8 from 53,2 points) which records the highest figure since March 2018 and rises for the fourth month in a row.
The manufacturing sector also gives great satisfaction to China, which in October recorded the maximum growth rate in almost 10 years thanks to the recovery of domestic demand in a market that is rapidly recovering from the crisis caused by the coronavirus.
Finally, encouraging news arrives on some of the many fronts open on the anti-Covid vaccines. Today Josep Baselga, executive vice president of oncology research and development of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said that the company has already “begun to produce millions of doses of the vaccine before knowing if it works because it does not want to wait 6 months. At the beginning of the year we will already have 3 billion doses” and the vaccine will be sold at cost price.
