THE LAW OF THE SPREAD ALSO AFFECTS MONTI
TODAY THE EUROZONE DATA: LURKING RECESSION
Prime Minister candidate Mario Monti's honeymoon lasted the space of breakfast. Close to yesterday's 11am BTP auction (five-year bonds assigned at 6,29%) the dark clouds gathered over the sky of the price lists, especially over the Milanese one. A difficult and nervous day came out of it, in which Piazza Affari returned to wearing the black shirt of the Stock Exchanges. Things went no better on the government bond front: in the evening the spread returned to 490. At the same time, the CDU, Angela Merkel's party, voted on a motion which provides that a country can leave the euro and remain a member of the European Union. To understand the anti-German mood in Athens, it is enough to evaluate the effect of the Greek motorists' toll strike on the motorway managed by Hochtieff, which caused 100 million damages.
FORECAST. All stock market futures are in the red, with the exception of the Zurich Stock Exchange, despite Moody's decision to put the credit rating of Crédit Suisse under observation. Under pressure especially Madrid and Milan. Keep an eye out for Frankfurt: the data on German GDP will be announced in the morning. A slowdown of 0,5% is expected. Italy risks a negative figure. Analysts polled by Bloomberg expect eurozone GDP to have risen by only a meager 0,2%. Better to venture on the price lists with an umbrella. And many are following the advice coming from Deutsche Bank: choose triple A corporate bonds, better stay away from sovereign debt,
FINMECCANICA IN THE SHOWCASE.Moods will also be conditioned by the numbers of Finmeccanica that the company has decided to make public in the morning. Analysts are delighted to assess the extent of the devaluations decided by CEO Giuseppe Orsi and the plan for the disposal of the holding's assets, starting with the US subsidiaries of Drs at the center of a board that should have been particularly calm, because, according to rumors , the president Pier Francesco Guarguaglini would have deserted the meeting due to disagreements with the line adopted by CEO Orsi. Whether it is gossip or not, Finmeccanica is preparing to launch a robust slimming cure. After the Unicredit announcements, it's the second act of those great autumn cleanings that are characterizing this round of numbers. But there is a difference: the bank in Piazza Cordusio, beaten by the market, is about to ask for (a lot) of money. Finmeccanica is ready to repay debts.
IT'S RAINING IN WALL STREET AND TOKYO.
Once again Wall Street confirms its sensitivity to news, this time negative, arriving from the Eurozone, Italy in the lead. The Standard & Poor's 500 closes in the red – 0,78%, followed by the Dow Jones -0,61%; the Nasdaq stops at -0,80%. Negative session also for the Asian Stock Exchanges: the Nikkei is down by 0,77%, the Hang Seng of Hong Kong by 1,25%. Meanwhile Prada is preparing to go shopping on the stock exchange of the former colony in which it is listed: the company of Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli will acquire, in the IPO, 20% of Sitoy group, a Chinese company licensee of the group for which it creates some parts of his leather bags.
WARREN BUFFETT GIFTS 5,5% OF IBM
AT 81, THE FIRST TIME IN HI TECH
Warren Buffett, 81, is confirmed as the only protagonist able to surprise the markets. This time more than usual. The Omaha sage, in fact, scored a $ 10,7 billion heist by acquiring 5,5% of IBM. And here is the surprise. So far, Buffett has avoided trying his hand at tech stocks, confessing his allergy to investing in an industry he doesn't know. But for Big Blue Buffett made an exception, for a precise reason: "There is no other company in the world - he declared - that has explained to the market with equal clarity what it intends to do and with what objectives".
UNICREDIT, MAXIMUM INCREASE AND BIG CLEANING
HIT ON THE TITLE, CRT AGAINST PERFUME
Cold shower for Unicredit (– 6,14%) in Piazza Affari. In the morning the board of directors had approved the capital increase of 7,5 billion euros. “totally guaranteed by the consortium that assists us” as assured by CEO Federico Ghizzoni. The increase will be submitted for approval to the shareholders' meeting on 15 December. But the rain in sales can also be explained by the quarterly accounts which close with a loss of 10,6 billion, almost entirely attributable to the elimination of the goodwill value of the banks acquired during the Profumo era. Horse medicine for the Italian network: 5.200 redundancies to be made by 2015. The capital increase will lead to capital strengthening: Unicredit's core tier 1 rises to 10,35% with Basel 2 and to 9%, according to the imposed calculations from Basel 3. In 2012 Unicredit will not pay dividends on 2011, while over the course of the plan Ghizzoni underlined that the payout will be "on average higher than that of the sector, of our main competitors" . Meanwhile, Il Sole 24 Ore reports a sensational rumor: the Crt Foundation is allegedly evaluating the hypothesis of a liability action against Alessandro Profumo, after the write-downs on goodwill approved yesterday by the board.
SEAT, NOW IT'S UP TO THE LITTLE ONES TO DECIDE
THE TITLE IS NOW WORTH 3 CENTS
Take or leave. The last turn of the clock has begun to find a solution that satisfies the many protagonists of the Seat Pg case, a company with a largely positive cash flow but one step away from default (limit date November 30) for the maxi-dividend policy undertaken by private equity funds which in 2003 took over control of the former goose that lays golden eggs from Telecom Italia, methodically "plucked" to the point of accumulating a debt of 2,7 billion. After the agreement between the creditor banks and the various categories of bondholders, divided between senior and junior (the 1,3 billion bond issued by Lighthouse to finance the 3,6 billion maxi-dividend at the origin of Seat's troubles), it's up to now it is up to the shareholders to decide on the offer which must be approved by 51% of the capital, three quarters of the bondholders and 100% of the creditors. And here, for a moment, the market counts again, i.e. those 400 minority shareholders, including those who paid for shares at a maximum of 7 euros, reached at the time of the merger with Tin.it. Today those shares are worth three cents. Gianni Tamburi, on behalf of a pool of investors, tries to agree on an improved offer for the little ones.
