TEST FOR TELECOM AFTER YES IN CAIRO. DEBT ALERT AT MOODY'S
DRAGHI: THE ECONOMY IS WORSENING, CONSOLIDATE WITHOUT NEW TAXES
"The exchange rate is not a goal of our policy, but it is important for growth and price stability," said Mario Draghi, speaking to the European Parliament. "We will have to assess in future projections whether the exchange rate has had an impact on the inflation profile, because it is always through price stability that we deal with these issues", added Draghi who froze the meeting: "There are no signs of improvements in the real economy”. The need to consolidate public finances remains, but not through taxation: "Taxes are already very high in Europe".
After the G20, Japan's diplomatic offensive continues: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced that in the future the central bank could buy foreign bonds, a sign of no small importance for the USA where the premier will go on Friday to meet Barack Obama but also a new move to depreciate the yen. In the evening, Finance Minister Aso partially denied the prime minister, but the feeling remains that the policy of the weak yen has accelerated.
THE INDEXES
Tokyo -0,24% after a lively start. Hong Kong also fell -0,17%. Noteworthy was the decline of Sands China -4,4% and of Galaxy Entertainment, leader of gaming houses in Macao: takings for the Chinese New Year were lower than forecasts, a new sign of the slowdown in consumption in the country of the Dragon.
The dollar-yen exchange rate drops to 93,61, the yen against the euro to 125. The euro/dollar exchange rate is equal to 1,3353 (1,335 yesterday) and jumps to 1,2329 against the Swiss franc.
In Piazza Affari, the FtseMib index fell by 0,5%.
The London stock exchanges -0,1% and Madrid -0,5% were also negative, while Paris and Frankfurt gained 0,1% and 0,4% respectively.
On the government bond market, the BTP ended the session with a yield of 4,39% with a spread of 276, about 5 basis points more than on Friday.
Gold recovered on Asian markets to 1.613,60 dollars an ounce (+0,25%).
Oil slightly up: Brent at 117,41 dollars a barrel (+0,2%)
LA 7, THE WINNER IS… URBAN CAIRO
Yesterday evening, the Telecom Italia board of directors decided, by majority vote, to grant Cairo Communications exclusive rights over the negotiations for La 7 and La 7 D. “The message we wanted to give – commented the councilor Tarak Ben Ammar – is that politics does not enter the Telecom board. We took a decision before the elections in the sole interest of the company”.
Diego Della Valle, who entered the contest at the last minute, doesn't hide his disappointment. "We wanted to build a new model of media company - he declared - which would involve a group of Italian investors, professionals who currently work at La 7 and others who would arrive, to try to develop a television pole consistent with the principles of safeguarding independence of information".
Yesterday Telecom Italia rose by 1,4%. The subsidiary Telecom Italia Media made a leap of 10%.
Meanwhile, during the day, it became known that Telecom Italia itself has joined as a civil party in the trial for receiving stolen goods against Marco Tronchetti Provera on the alleged illegal dossiers collected by Telecom Italia's security when he was head of the company. Tronchetti Provera reacted by saying that he "has given a mandate to my lawyers to evaluate every action to protect my image and reputation also against Telecom Italia".
Lastly, Moody's assigned a long-term Ba2 rating to Telecom Italia's hybrid bond proposal. The outlook on the rating remains negative. The Telco board is expected today.
INSIDE BUSINESS PLACE
Positive cue from Finmeccanica +0,5% which recovers part of Friday's drop. The company has denied that the Indian government has canceled the order for the 12 helicopters the Busto Arsizio judiciary is investigating. But on the investigation front, the trend of consultancy to the ex-wife of Economy Minister Vittorio Grilli, Lisa Lowenstein, takes shape, granted after Mediobanca's no to restructure the lady's debt. Alessandro Pansa pleaded the case in Piazzetta Cuccia, a person according to the investigators "close" to Grilli.
Down MontePaschi -1,6%. Between today and tomorrow, the longed-for issue of the Monti bonds should arrive.
However, the Milanese stock list was weighed down by the descent of the banks: Unicredit ended up down by 1,7% after Bank of America lowered the recommendation to "neutral" from "buy". Negative day also for Intesa -0,7% and Pop.Emilia -1,7%.
Closing up for Mediobanca +1,2%, Banco Popolare +1,2% and Pop.Milano +3,2%.
Returning to Piazza Affari, Generali -0,9%, Unipol -2,3% and Fondiaria-Sai -2,4% fell in the financial sector.
Eni lost 0,2%. Saipem's thud finished down 3%. Today and tomorrow the top management of the company will discuss the 2012 results and the outlook for 2013 with investors. Saipem has already announced the 2012 results last week with a subsequent conference call with analysts. At the end of January, the profit alarm launched by the group's new top management on 2012 and 2013 profits caused the stock to fall on the Stock Exchange, which lost a third of its value.
Italcementi rose by 2,9% after the American broker Jefferies raised its target price to 7,4 euros from 6,7 euros, confirming the "buy" opinion.
