Wall Street starts well in the aftermath of mid-term elections, which saw Democrats regain the House but Republicans consolidate their majority in the Senate. A divided Congress therefore looks good for equities, not to mention that the S&P 500 has consistently gained ground in the year following the midterm elections since the 50s. The Vix – also known as the index of fear – drops by 12% towards 17 points. It is a sign that investors are reacting well to the election result or at least to the fact that it was as expected. Caterpillar runs (+2,6%): betting on economic growth and easing of trade tensions. In the case of tech stocks, there is no scenario where the government will prosecute groups like Amazon for being too big and too influential. After the first few minutes of trading, both the Dow Jones, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq rose. And with them the European lists: the Ftse Mib closed with +1,42% at 19.540,94 points, Frankfurt, Paris and London also did well, but all with lower increases, while Madrid was close to +2%.
Once again Campari is pulling the strings in Piazza Affari, which in recent days has published accounts which, despite the drop in profit in the first nine months, have convinced investors a lot. Today it gains another 3,59% at 7,36 euros per share. Among the best stocks also Pirelli, Poste and Buzzi Unicem, all with increases of more than 3%. Still contrasted, but almost all in positive territory, are the banks: Intesa Sanpaolo raises its head again with +2,67% above 2 euros, on the same Banco Bpm line awaiting the accounts that arrive after closed exchanges and indicate a net profit that has almost tenfold compared to the first nine months of 2017. Unicredit records an increase more contained +1,4% while Ubi Banca, after the accounts they highlighted a record profit in the 9 months, it is among the worst stocks in the basket, even if in the end it limits the losses to -0,58%.
The other stocks in the red are industrial ones, starting with Brembo which slips by 2,5%, then Stm and Tenaris. Snam marks +2,5% on the day of the presentation of the new strategic plan to 2022, which focuses strongly on the energy transition and proposes a dividend increase of 5% over the period of the plan. Speaking of energy, the rally in oil slows down, falling below 72 dollars a barrel for Brent and below 62 for Wti. Spread Btp Bund again below 290 points, to 289, after yesterday it recovered close to the 300 basis points threshold. The euro continues to appreciate against the dollar and approaches 1,15 to 1,147.
On the European front the news of the day is that Andrea Enria won the final head-to-head with Ireland's Donnely and goes up like this at the head of Banking Supervision of the ECB. The Italian economist, former head of the EBA (European Banking Authority) and senior executive of the Bank of Italy, is a moderate hawk and will not give any discounts to Italian banks. For almost a year, there will therefore be two Italians at the top of the ECB: Mario Draghi, who will be president for another year, and Enria.
In the meantime, the shadow of one hovers over the markets scandal that makes Germany tremble: Blackrock would have set up in the Teutonic country (but also in other European countries including Italy, the indictment claims) a maxi dividend scam which according to investigators' estimates could have penalized German taxpayers by over 55 billion euros . Not to mention the fact that the chairman of the super-advisory board of Blackrock in Germany, Friedrich Merz (who at the time of the disputed facts had not yet assumed this position, however) he is the candidate to succeed Merkel at the helm of the Cdu, and possible Chancellor candidate in the 2020 elections.
