THE ROAD TO MONTI IS ALREADY UPHILL
SPREAD BACK TO 490 BP, BPRSA -1,99%
The path is steep, narrow and fraught with dangers even for technicians. Mario Monti, prime minister in charge of Rome, and Lucas Papademos, head of the Greek government, learned this today, at the baptism of fire with the financial markets.
In Piazza Affari, in particular, the FtseMib index closed down by 1,99% at 15.464 after a sharp rise (+1,3% at the beginning of the morning), winning the black jersey of the price lists ahead of London (-0,7%), Paris (-1,28%) and Frankfurt (-1,19%). Even more significant is the rejection on the sovereign debt front, after last week's certificates of confidence in the new prime minister arriving from Bocconi. The yield on the ten-year BTP rose to 6,66%, from 6,33% at the start of the session. The spread with the German Bund widened to 490 points. This morning he was at 450 points. The yield on the shares of Spain (+23 basis points to 6,02%) and France (+8 basis points to 3,42%) also rose. The France – Germany spread is 163 basis points.
The five-year Btp auction was held in the morning. The Treasury has placed all the 3 billion bonds offered at a yield of 6,29%. The request was equal to 1,46 times the securities offered. Last week yields for five-year BTPs had reached a peak of 7,50%. Between September and mid-October, 5,00%-5,50% traveled in the area. What is this setback due to? Partly to the hardening of parties, both in Rome and Athens, where Antonis Samaras, leader of the Greek conservative New Democracy front, has announced that his party will not vote in favor of any new austerity measures, nor sign any commitments with the EU. In part to the macro data which show that the euro area crisis was already infecting the rest of the world in September: the OECD superindex reports a drop of 0,4%, but the data referring to the euro area is double that. Italy is worse than the average – 1%, the German slowdown is even more marked – 1,3%.
BANKS, NEW BEAT. UNICREDIT -6,18%
FIAT SALES IN EUROPE FALL -10%.
In this context, the now discounted capital increase of 7,5 billion by Unicredit (- 10,6 billion the quarterly result, after write-downs of goodwill items and shareholdings for 9,6 billion) provided another opportunity for a reduction : the stock was suspended from trading when it lost 2,6% at 0,8035 euro. In the end, the stock slipped to 0,77 euro at -6,18%.
But the worsening sovereign debt crisis penalized the entire banking sector: Intesa lost 4,13% and Banca Popolare Milano 5,6%. Against the trend, Monte Paschi +1,57%. Fondiaria – Sai -3,27%, Generali saves -0,89%. Weak for the whole session the shares of the car. Fiat – 2,34% (-10% sales in Europe in October), Fiat Industrial -5,13%, Pirelli -2,51%%. Positive sign for Finmeccanica +0,45% in view of the board meeting.
Bitter quarterly for Campari which drops by 7,5% after announcing lower than expected results. Even indigestible for Prelios shareholders, it is suspended due to excess reduction, marking a theoretical drop of 23%.
On the American market, in a session without macroeconomic data, there isn't much to report. Wall Street proceeds slightly down, in line with the opening indications: Dow Jones index -0,1%, S&P500 -0,4%, Nasdaq -0,2%.
