Final in no particular order for the stock exchanges of the Old Continent, with Piazza Affari not far from parity. The Ftse Mib closes trading up by 0.05% to 30,373 points.
Purchases on Stmicroelectronics (+2.7%), chosen from the top picks of Citigroup, Nexi (+2.4%) and Leonardo (+2.4%). At the bottom of the list are Diasorin (-5.5%), Campari (-2.9%) and Bper (-2.2%).
Wall Street is rising fractionally in the last session of an eighth marked by central bank meetings and is preparing to archive seven consecutive positive weeks.
During the day, the preliminary manufacturing and services PMI indices for December for the main European countries were released, which continue to highlight weakness in economic activity. The eurozone composite PMI worsened further to 47 points, with declines in both manufacturing (44.2) and services (48.1).
In the US, the manufacturing PMI fell to 48.2 and the services PMI rose to 51.3. Meanwhile, the president of the New York Fed, John Williams, said that it is premature to think about a rate cut in March.
Of note today is the expiration of futures and options on indices and shares, for the so-called “three witches” day.
On bonds, the BTP/Bund spread rises from its lows since September to around 170 bp, with the yield on the Italian 10-year bond falling to 3.71%.
On the Forex, the euro/dollar retraces to 1.09 and the dollar/yen stands at 141.8. Among raw materials, Brent oil prices lost slightly ground to 76.5 dollars a barrel.
Next week the focus will remain predominantly on inflation and monetary policy. Among the most important macro data, those relating to inflation in the United Kingdom and the US core PCE. The ECB conference on fiscal policy and the Bank of Japan meeting are scheduled.