(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) Higher opening for European stock exchanges. Investors heaved a sigh of relief after the news that the American president, Joe Biden, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will meet in the coming days to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis. Thus, after frantic hours and threats of war that ran after each other over the weekend, the hoped-for news of the Biden-Putin meeting arrived, first announced by the Elysée, who organized the meeting and then confirmed by the White House spokesman. who, however, specified that the meeting will only take place if in the meantime “an invasion” of Ukraine has not occurred – by Russia. The Biden-Putin summit will be preceded by that between the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. The situation, however, is fluid, since the context in Dombass remains explosive. In addition, the Kremlin has not yet given confirmation. For the moment, therefore, other news and analyzes are relegated to the background, even if the focus remains on inflation and on future moves by central banks, which could raise the cost of money to meet the cost of living. Initially, Milan recorded an increase of around 0.6%, while the spread rose above 166 points. Wall Street will be closed today for President’s Day. Tokyo, on the other hand, closed down by 0.78%.
At the Nexi Business Square, Exor slips
Nexi’s performance stands out in Piazza Affari. The eyes of the operators are also focused on Exor, with shares in marked decline, after the Agnelli holding company announced last Friday a 746 million settlement agreement with the Italian taxman to resolve the dispute regarding the application of the Participation Exemption on the occasion of the merger between the Italian company Exor and its Dutch subsidiary Exor Holding NV to create today’s Exor. “The news is unexpected, also because it is an issue that arose during 2021 and has a negative impact of about 3% on the NAV”, commented Equita analysts, who in any case recommend buying the shares (opinion of ‘Buy’), as the stocks have a high NAV discount of around 40%. Among the blue chips also Banca Generali is doing badly, recording one of the worst performances of the Ftse Mib caused by the detachment of the dividend. Prysmian and Iveco Group are also below par.
Euro strengthened against the dollar, oil fell
On the foreign exchange market, the euro strengthened against the dollar to $ 1.1384 from 1.1335 on Friday. Oil lost its share: the April WTI futures dropped 0.69% to 89.59 dollars a barrel, while the analogous delivery on Brent slipped 0.43% to 93.14 dollars.