(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) – A quarterly season in chiaroscuro and the prospect of an increasingly imminent Fed tightening to curb the inflation race penalize equity markets in the last session of the week. The main European indices are in the red, also affected by the realizations on oil, in sharp decline after updating the highs since 2014. Asian stock exchanges are also weak: Sydney left over 2% on the ground after the postponement of the easing of the anti Covid due to fears related to the Omicron variant. Investors are looking for safe havens in a turbulent market and are rewarding US Treasuries, whose yields have fallen below 1.8% for a 10-year maturity, gold and the yen. The Milanese FTSE MIB thus loses ground, in line with the other continental squares. Among the main titles, sales weigh on the auto sector, with Stellantis in the black jersey.
Atlantia limits damages after preliminary accounts
Atlantia limits the losses following the presentation of the preliminary 2021 accounts which exceeded the expectations of the market and of the holding controlled by Benettons. Accounts that arrived in the same week that the agreement with Siemens was announced to take over Yunex Traffic, a global champion of intelligent mobility for 950 million. Furthermore, the closing of the sale of Aspi to Cdp-Fondo is expected by the end of March, while in the middle of the same month Atlantia will hold its Capital Markets Day. In 2021, revenues reached 6.3 billion (+ 19% ) and Ebitda 4 billion (+ 29%), while Equita estimated respectively 6.144 and 3.958 billion against investments that reached 1.1 billion.
Spread firm at 140 points, you realize on oil
On bonds, the spread between BTp and Bund on the secondary market MTS of European government bonds remained stable. The yield differential between the ten-year Italian benchmark and the same German maturity is indicated at 140 basis points, the same value as the closing recorded on Thursday. Without prejudice to the benchmark ten-year BTp yield indicated at 1.37% of the last reference of the eve. The yield of the same German duration remains negative (-0.03%) which in recent days had returned to positive after 3 years.
On the foreign exchange market, as mentioned, the search for low-risk assets by investors rewards the yen, indicated at 128.97 for one euro (129.27 on Thursday at the end) and at 113.86 for one dollar (114.26). The euro is worth 1.1328 dollars from 1.1334 on the eve. The price of oil fell sharply after the surprise increase in US reserves: the March future on the WTI dropped 1.36% to 84.39 dollars a barrel, while the similar delivery on Brent lost 1.24 % at $ 87.27.
Tokyo down, Nikkei closes the week at -2.1%
The Tokyo Stock Exchange closed lower, once again weighed down like Wall Street by persistent uncertainties about monetary policy decisions and the tightening in the United States to curb inflation. The health situation in the country also continues to worry, where with the arrival of the Omicron variant this week a record of new cases per day was recorded in the country (more than 46,000 on Thursday) and new health restrictions entered into force in about a third of the Country, including Tokyo. The Nikkei index of stocks led to a loss of 0.9% to 27,522.26 points, with a decline of 2.1% for the whole week. The broader Topix index fell 0.59% to 1,927.18 points. Among the still heavy stocks Toyota dropped 2.47% to 2,284.5 yen after announcing new production stoppages due to a growing number of Covid-19 cases affecting subcontractors and its operations in Japan.