More layoffs: Hostess Brands, which makes pre-packaged bread sold through mass retailers, has announced it is closing shop and laying off its entire workforce of 18.500 people. And he accuses one of his main trade unions, the "Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union" of having given rise to a nationwide strike which "brought to its knees the company's ability to produce and distribute own products". It happens in the US. Where the economy continues to send conflicting signals and is struggling to recover, Sandy's permission. Today, the data on industrial production for October (-0,4%) was below the expectations of analysts (expected for +0,2%) while only a few days ago unemployment benefits started to increase again.
The greatest fear is called the fiscal cliff to which the attention of the markets is directed in these days: it is a package worth 600 billion dollars which, according to economists, risks causing the US economy to fall into recession. Negotiations to reach an agreement between President Obama and representatives of the Republican party, led by Congress Speaker John Boehner, began today at the White House on possible initiatives to avoid the barrage of cuts in public spending and tax increases that risk triggering automatically from January 2013, 2003. According to the WSJ, the White House is studying the option of avoiding the automatic go-ahead of horizontal cuts in public spending and the end of all tax cuts granted in 2013 by President Bush, with a smaller and more targeted program of spending cuts and tax increases. It would therefore be a question of postponing most of the more drastic measures needed, including interventions on the Medicare and Medicaid health programs, and the reform of the tax system, to mid-XNUMX.
Wall Street opens flat but at the end of Europe it is in positive territory: the Dow Jones rises by 0,32% while the Nasdaq is on parity.
European markets close in deep red, also weighed down by economic data on the current account surplus, after yesterday's confirmation of the official return to recession: Milan loses 0,02%, Frankfurt 1,32%, Paris 1,21. 1,27%, London XNUMX%.
The explosive mix of the moment leaves no way out for the Stock Exchanges: the escalation of tensions in the Middle East is added to the overseas fiscal cliff, where for the first time a rocket was fired on Jerusalem, not even during the first Gulf War Saddam Hussein had bet the city.
Il Wti oil it rose by 1,28% to 86,54 dollars a barrel. The euro dollar fell by 0,53% to 1,2714.
E then there is the lingering uncertainty about Greece where today default was avoided thanks to the 5 billion short-term bonds sold in recent days by Athens to honor today's maturities. Work continues to find the balance on the sustainability of the Greek debt by 20 November when the new Eurogroup is set in the light of the disagreement between the EU and the IMF which does not rule out a haircut on the Greek debt cut and does not agree to move from 2020 to 2022 debt target at 120% of GDP. Speaking from Germany The president of the Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann Weidmann: The unsustainability of Athens' debt cannot be denied, however one can ask whether it is not the case to consider a cut when the reforms are completed, because the cut of the debt does not solve problems in itself.
In Piazza Affari the decline is led by Bpm -5,21%, worst among the banks which in any case closed the session with a marked decline. Mediobanca -3,64%, Intesa -3,19%, Mps -2,67%, Unicredit -3,29%. In Europe, the road to single banking supervision becomes even more uphill: it is possible that the issue will have to return again to the table of European leaders at the EU summit in mid-December after, according to diplomatic sources, at the last meeting between ministers of finances, a series of knots have emerged that are all still to be resolved. The Btp-bund spread is stable at 354 basis points.
Telecom Italia down -4,68% affected by the uncertainties regarding the entrance of the Egyptian tycoon Sawiris and the future of the network which could no longer lead to a spin-off, with the halt of negotiations with the CDP, but with a solution on the English model of Open reach. The company has denied press rumors that the spin-off would have stopped by now. Both dossiers are being watched for the council meeting on 6 December.
Exor sells 3,90%, the downgrade of Goldman Sachs to neutral from buy weighs. Fiat -1,06% accuses the drop in registrations in Europe of 5,8% worse than the market at -4,6%. However, sales in Germany and the United Kingdom are improving. Meanwhile Volkswagen at global level has marked a record of deliveries in the first 10 months of this year at 7,5 million units (+10,2% compared to the previous year). Autogril -3,74% which denied any negotiations for the purchase of Ssp. Stm -2,08% after the new “split” items of the St-Ericsson jv
