SAIPEM/MPS, TWO TILES ON CORPORATE ITALY
THE FED CONFIRMS PURCHASES: 85 BILLION A MONTH
After the MPS case, the market's remaining confidence in corporate Italy is severely tested by the collapse of Saipem -34%, after the company's new management drastically revised its profit estimates for 2012 and 2013 downwards. in just one session the subsidiary Eni lost 4 of the 13 billion in capitalization boasted until Tuesday evening, before the profit warning linked to the cleanup operation on contracts and orders carried out by the new management.
At this point, the placement of Saipem shares, which took place two days ago, twenty-four hours before the announcement of the profit warning, contributes to tinge the story in yellow. It was Bank of America Merrill Lynch, according to reports from the trading rooms. to place 9,97 million shares for 350 million euros, at approximately 30,65 euros per share, equal to approximately 2,3% of the share capital. Who sold? Fidelity, the only shareholder with a stake of more than 2% of the capital, and precisely 2,641%, in addition to Eni which holds 42,93%, has denied this. Consob has opened an investigation.
Saipem's collapse had two immediate effects. The landslide of Eni -4,7%, the most important Italian blue chip, which fell by 4,7%. A robust injection of mistrust in corporate Italy, already shaken by the MPS case.
The MontePaschi share -9,4% after three days of recovery, fell heavily again also due to a feeling of distrust towards the Italian stock market on the part of foreign investors. Meanwhile, the investigators have charged the suspects with the crime of criminal association.
At the end of the session, Piazza Affari's balance was very heavy with the FtseMib index losing 3,3%. The decline of the other European lists was much more modest: Paris and Frankfurt lost 0,5%, London -0,2%.
AMERICA
The current GDP growth rate (2,2% in 2012) is not sufficient to reabsorb unemployment in the USA. With this premise, the Fed summit confirmed that it will continue to inject 85 billion dollars a month into the economy.
Not waging war costs money, at least in terms of GDP. However, the highly politically incorrect notation is confirmed by the surprise negative performance of the US economy in the fourth quarter, the first decline since the 2007-2009 recession. According to data from the Commerce Department, GDP fell by 0,1% on an annual basis after having grown by 3,1% in the previous quarter. Economists had forecast growth of 1,1%.
Among the reasons there would be the sharp reduction in defense spending, which has fallen to its lowest level in the last 40 years.
In the evening, the euro/dollar cross is at the highs of the session at 1,356, while gold reacts with a 1% rise to 1.680 dollars.
Wall Street closes down: the Dow Jones index falls by 0,36% along with the Nasdaq, the S&P falls by 0,39%.
Sharp fall and partial recovery of Facebook after the quarterly accounts: the increase in expenses (+82%) pushed the share down by 11%, then corrected to -3%. The expenses are linked to the investments to move the social network to mobile.
ASIA
Busy budget day. Over 250 companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange have announced their quarterly accounts. More than half, 52% are reporting higher-than-expected earnings but 54% have missed revenue growth goals. In short, corporate Japan is reacting to the difficulties of exports by cutting costs.
The Nikkei-0.07% index is just below par. Note the collapse of Nintendo -7,1% after the disappointing sales figures for the new Wii.
FIAT WITHOUT DIVIDEND, THE ACCOUNTS OF STM.
Among the Milanese blue chips, the decline has hit indiscriminately. Only Luxottica survived, up 2,2% after good results, and Ferragamo +0,3%.
After a series of ups and downs, Fiat lost 4,8%: the company released 2012 results in line with expectations and provided indications for 2013 slightly better than the consensus. Fiat ended 2012 with a net profit of 1,4 billion, down 14,5% on 2011 (which included Chrysler as of June 1,3st), thus exceeding the consensus of analysts who estimated a result of XNUMX billion . However, no dividend will be distributed as indicated by the board given that "Fiat intends to maintain a high level of liquidity and that there are restrictions on Chrysler's ability to distribute dividends to its shareholders".
Trading profit stood at 3,8 billion (+18% on 2011 pro forma), on revenues of 84 billion (+12%). The profit is entirely attributable to Chrysler, which earned 2012 billion in 2,4, while Fiat, net of the US subsidiary, lost one billion.
All the banks ended up in sharp decline: Unicredit -3,7%, Mediobanca -2,4%, Intesa -1,6%, Banco Popolare -3,7%, Ubi -3,1%.
StM – 1,6% released the data for the third quarter last night: revenues amounted to 2,16 billion dollars, "above the intermediate value of the guidance". The net financial position grew (1,19 billion dollars) despite the difficult economic situation. There were $544 million in impairment charges for the quarter due to "goodwill and other wireless intangible assets."
