Black Thursday on the markets, with oil collapsing and confidence in the future faltering, due to the growing tone between the US and China on tariffs, the disappointing European macroeconomic data, the bumpy road to Brexit, of the EU political prospects after the long electoral marathon that began today in the Netherlands and Great Britain and will end on Sunday evening.
Piazza Affari loses 2,12% e drops to a three-month low to 20.136 points with all the blue chips down, apart from Italgas +0,07%. Even Juventus, -0,14%, is swallowed up by this red desert, after resisting almost the entire session on the rise thanks to the increasingly probable arrival on the bench of Pep Guardiola in place of Max Allegri. The biggest drops of the day are those of Stm -5,67%; Saipem, -5,17%; Tenaris -4,23%; Unipol -3,95%. But there is no sector that can be saved, from banks to cars.
The session was slightly negative for bonds: the 10-year BTP rate remained stable at 2,64%, but that of the Bund decreased and the spread widened to 275.90 basis points (+1,4%). The great cold touches all of Europe and Wall Street, while oil sinks: Brent 67,8 dollars a barrel, -4,49%; Wti 58,31 dollars a barrel, -5,06%.
Frankfurt -1,77%; Paris -1,81%; Madrid -1,26%; London -1,42%. Trade tensions weigh on the automakers, with Daimler (-6,75%), suffering the farewell of CEO Dieter Zetsche, who left yesterday at the meeting, while FCA loses 3% in Milan. Down Deutsche Bank (-2,54%), whose CEO Christian Sewing called for "far-reaching changes" in the meeting.
In New York the three major indexes are accelerating to the downside and the Dow Jones risks filing the fifth straight week in the red. At the origin of such a widespread distrust is first of all the escalation in the trade war between the USA and China, with the tones becoming more heated. Beijing has said Washington must correct its "wrong moves" for negotiations to proceed following its ban on Huawei last week. Investors now fear that the "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" policy between the two superpowers undermines global growth, mainly affecting the tech sector.
Europe has reason to worry, also in light of disappointing macro data: the German Ifo index and the manufacturing and services PMI. According to Commerzbank, "manufacturing continues to be in a recession, as a recovery in global demand, particularly from China, does not appear on the horizon" and today's data "confirm that the strong growth in the first quarter was due to one-off effects and the economy will be weaker in the second quarter, with Germany that could even see a cyclical decline in GDP”.
Concern lives in the rooms of central banks and the ECB, in the report of the last meeting writes "Global prospects remain subject to the continuous risk of an escalation of the trade war and to the uncertainty linked to the farewell of the United Kingdom from the EU" . Euro-dollar slightly moved at 1,116, even if the greenback reached a two-year high in the afternoon, only to retreat after disappointing data on weekly unemployment. Gold recovering to 1285,93 dollars an ounce (+0,97%).
