Piazza Affari closes the month of February with yet another very volatile session. The Milan Stock Exchange halved the drops at the end thanks to the good resistance of Wall Street after a weekend of escalation of tensions linked to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. On Saturday, the European Union, the United States, Great Britain and other Western nations agreed to cut some Russian banks out of the SWIFT international payment system and impose restrictions on the Russian central bank. A move that will inevitably lead to non-payments and the blocking of part of the flow of goods, services and raw materials, with higher and longer inflation. A new scenario that should lead the ECB to a more cautious attitude, as underlined today by Fabio Panetta, a member of the board of the European central bank.
In Milan, the Ftse Mib closed trading at 25,415 points, down 1.39%. A new difficult day for the bankers headed by UniCredit (-10.45% to 11.266 euros), among the most exposed EU banks in Russia. Intesa Sanpaolo was also bad, leaving about 7.5 per cent on the parterre. We look at the effects of the ouster of some Russian banks from the SWIFT system. Meanwhile, the ECB has assessed that Sberbank Europe AG and its two subsidiaries in Croatia and Slovenia are failing or are in danger of bankruptcy due to the deterioration of their liquidity situation. Sberbank Europe AG is based in Austria and is controlled by the Russian Sberbank, whose majority shareholder is the Russian Federation (50% plus one share with voting rights). Sberbank Europe AG is one of seven Austrian banks directly supervised by the ECB. At the end of 2021, the bank had assets of € 13.6 billion.
The automotive sector is also bad today. In Milan, the Stellantis stock lost 3.46%, while Pirelli fell by almost 5%.
Among the bucking stocks, Leonardo’s rally stands out (+ 15.77% above 8 euros) after Germany announced a significant increase in military spending in response to the Ukraine-Germany situation. Germany will invest 100 billion euros in defense and will bring military spending on GDP to 2% each year, from 1.5%. The increase is worth 20 billion more per year. Leonardo is present in Germany in defense electronics through 25% of Hensoldt. “After the 21% rebound of the last week, at current prices the stake represents 10% of the market cap, (equal to less than 400 million against the 600 million of the entry price)”, underlines Equita SIM.
Finally, the strongest signs include Tenaris (+ 2.74%) and Saipem (+ 3.8%) thanks to the jump in oil prices.