Opening in the red for the European stock exchanges, with the Ftse Mib of Piazza Affari down by 1.3% to 27,260 points. Subdued in particular Iveco (-2.3%), Mediobanca (-2.2%) and Stellantis (-1.9%) while resisting on A2A parity.
All this after yesterday’s downturn on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 (-0.5%) recovering from its worst session in June and the Nasdaq at -1.2%. Jerome Powell’s words above all contributed to curbing sentiment. During his speech to the US Congress, the Fed president underlined the need to further increase rates, defining two further tightenings this year as a “pretty good hypothesis”. The second part of the semi-annual testimony is scheduled for today.
Today traders await central bank decisions from the UK, Switzerland and Norway, all of which are expected to hike rates. Spotlights particularly on the BoE, in the light of yesterday’s inflation data which showed that pressures on prices remain strong, consolidating the prospect of a terminal rate at 6% at the end of the restrictive cycle.
The US data on jobless claims and existing home sales are also expected on the macro agenda. As regards Italy, meanwhile, the rating agency Fitch has revised upwards the outlook on GDP growth for 2023 from +0.5% to +1.1%, while estimates for 2024 have been cut by 1.3% to 1%.
On Forex, the euro/dollar is close to 1.1, while the exchange rate between the greenback and the yen travels just below 142. Bitcoin remains above 30,000 dollars, after having exceeded them for the first time since April in the wake to speculation of BlackRock’s bid for an exchange-traded Bitcoin fund in the United States.
Among the raw materials, oil (Brent) falls below 77 dollars a barrel. On bonds, the Btp-Bund spread remains flat at 161 basis points, with the Italian 10-year bond at 4.03%.