Closing with little movement for European stock markets, at the end of a volatile week for stocks, while Wall Street continues close to historic highs. Piazza Affari ends trading in today’s session down 0.2% at 30,283 points, with purchases on Mps (+1.5%), Banca Mediolanum (+1.35%) and A2a (+1.05%) while Interpump (-2%) and Leonardo (-2.6%) fell behind, the latter also held back by Exane’s “underperform” rating.
From the macro agenda came the American data on existing home sales, down 1% and lower than estimates, and the University of Michigan’s consumer confidence index, increasing to 78.8 points, above expectations .
Previously, numbers were released in line with expectations on Japanese inflation (+2.3% on an annual basis, -2.5 monthly), German producer prices, falling more than consensus (-1.2% m/m -8.6% y/y) and UK retail sales fell 3.2% in December, much worse than expected.
Over the next week the focus will be on the ECB meeting, after officials’ latest comments from Davos dampened expectations of imminent rate cuts. Focus also on the Bank of Japan meeting, scheduled for Tuesday.
Also worth following are the macro data on the preliminary US GDP for Q4 and the preliminary readings of the PMI indices, as well as the season of American quarterly reports with the accounts of Intel, Netflix and Tesla. In Italy, STM will open the dance on Thursday for the Ftse Mib.
On bonds, the BTP-Bund spread is reduced to 153 basis points, with the yield on the Italian ten-year falling to 3.86% and that of the Bund to 2.34%, while the ten-year Treasury is rising to 4.16 %.
Among raw materials, Brent oil remains unchanged in the $79 per barrel area and is preparing to close the week at the highest levels since the beginning of the year in the wake of the intensification of geopolitical tensions in the key region of the Middle East.
On Forex, the euro/dollar exchange rate was little changed at 1.088 while the dollar/yen was almost unchanged at 148.1.