(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) – European exchanges try to consolidate the gains of the eve after the president of the Fed, Jerome Powell, he called the US economy “very strong”, judging it capable of overcoming the tightening of monetary policy. The US central bank has raised interest rates by 25 basis points for the first time since 2018 and is preparing to do so again at each of the next 6 summits scheduled for 2022. Theuncertainty however, it remains high and traders continue to monitor developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The hope of progress in the negotiations for a ceasefire supported the quotations in the session on Wednesday 16 March, but the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, specified that “the delegations are far from reaching an agreement”.
In Piazza Affari the FTSE MIB is in progress and also the DAX 30 in Frankfurt and the CAC 40 in Paris are moving positively. Among the Milanese stocks with the highest capitalization, Diasorin leaps after the publication of the 2021 accounts. Saipem is also doing well, having won a new contract in Norway worth 325 million dollars, Iveco Group and Interpump Group, while Buzzi Unicem loses ground and are weak the banks.
Oil, purchases are back, Brent rises to 100 dollars
Crude oil purchases are back, after the drop on the eve of the day, with Brent recovering the threshold of 100 dollars. In the session of Wednesday 16 March, with the unexpected increase in US stocks and the hopes for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, prices had approached pre-conflict levels, with Brent in the $ 98 area and WTI in the 95 area. dollars. However, signs of concern have come fromInternational Energy Agency which said markets could experience a shock and lose three million barrels per day of Russian crude oil and refined products by April, well above what has been estimated so far.
Uphill the price of natural gas which moves towards 110 euros per megawatt hour (+ 7%).