Caution prevailed in Piazza Affari on the eve of the Jackson Hole Symposium, which will officially start tomorrow. There is great anticipation especially for the intervention of the Fed president, Jerome Powell, scheduled for Friday 27 August. An appointment that the market will follow closely, trying to intercept some possible indication on the timing and methods of the reduction in asset purchases (the so-called tapering) by the US central bank. A caution also recorded in the afternoon, with Wall Street opening slightly higher. In this wait-and-see context, the Milanese Ftse Mib index closed the midweek session with an increase of 0.12% to 26,060.27 points.
The sector that stood out today in Piazza Affari was the banking sector. The best in the list was Banco Bpm strong with a gain of 3.5%, followed by UniCredit and Bper which recorded an increase of 3.1% and 2% respectively. Mediobanca (+ 0.8%) is also one of the banks to follow. From the Consob communications relating to significant shareholdings, it emerged that on 20 August 2021 the entrepreneur Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone held a potential indirect stake in Mediobanca equal to 4.953%, including voting rights attributable to shares equal to 3.003% of the capital. and 1.95% which refers to other long positions. Positive session also today for Saipem in Piazza Affari, where it fluctuated around 2 euros (+ 1.4%). The stock of the big Italian oil services company ended up under the lens of Barclays who confirmed the equal weight recommendation but reduced the target price by 7%, taking it from 2.7 to 2.5 euros.
Utilities, on the other hand, are under pressure. The trio of the worst is, in fact, led by Terna which sold 3.8%, followed by Snam and Italgas which left 3.4% and 2.3% respectively on the parterre.
Autogrill stood out from the main basket (+ 4.6%). For Equita analysts, Autogrill received “interesting insights from an article in the ‘Sole 24 Ore’ on air traffic”. In particular, the experts focus on the comments released yesterday by the CEO of Ryanair on the resumption of air traffic, giving indications of 10.3 million passengers in August compared to 9.3 million in July and 5 million in June.