After last week’s heavy losses, there is no improvement in the stock market this morning. Investors are appalled by the possible arrival of an acceleration on the Fed’s interest rate hike after US inflation data has risen more than expected. To all this is added the fear of new lockdowns.
Piazza Affari pays the heaviest bill, which in the morning turns out to be again the worst price list in Europe. The FtseMib is down by almost 2 percentage points, shortly after 10.00. Frankfurt loses 1.5%, Paris 1.9% while Madrid loses 1.3%. In Piazza Affari the penalization of the banking sector continues with the main banks showing a strong loss: Intesa Sanpaolo drops 4.38%, Unicredit loses 3.49%, Bper loses 3.8%, Banco Bpm 3.4%.
In the context of generalized nervousness, the spread trend also remains in the foreground: the differential between Italy and Germany, which records the tensions on Italy’s debt, is approaching 240 basis points this morning, with the ten-year yield in area 3 , 8%, on the highest level since 2014. Traders’ eyes are on the Fed meeting scheduled for next Wednesday. The expectation is for an increase in the cost of money of 50 basis points, followed by two squeezes of the same size in July and September. However, some analysts fear that, given the inflation levels reached in the US, the tightening could be more far-reaching.
Meanwhile, concerns are also addressed to China where Beijing and Shanghai have resumed measuring infections with mass tests on millions of people. The fear is that the two areas will return to lockdown with repercussions on shipments and supplies globally. Also for this reason, the Asian markets opened the week with a “Black Monday”: in Japan, the Nikkei index lost 3.0%, the CSI-300 index of the top 300 companies in mainland China fell by ‘1.1% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost 3.2%.
Also on the list of best-selling assets this morning is Bitcoin with losses of around 10% that have brought the level below 25 thousand dollars, a value last seen in December 2020.