Flat closure for Piazza Affari, with the Ftse Mib substantially unchanged (-0.02%) at 23,683 points, in a day of modest increases for European stock exchanges.
Purchases above all on Saipem (+4.4%), Telecom Italia (+4.3%) awaiting developments on the network by the end of the year and Nexi (+2.3%) after the government’s turnaround in relation to the POS rule On the other hand, Finecobank (-1.6%), Leonardo (-1.5%) and Banca Generali (-1.4%) decreased. Euro/dollar in the 1.06 area while on bonds the Btp-Bund spread widens further to 216 basis points.
The sentiment remains cautious, after the sales of the last eighth triggered by the restrictive indications of the central banks, on all the Fed and the ECB. Despite a slowdown in the pace of increases, banks reaffirmed their commitment to fight inflation with new monetary tightening, fueling fears of a recession.
During the day, the vice president of the ECB, Luis De Guindos, said that there will be other increases in interest rates, specifying however that he does not know how long they will continue. The Boj will also meet in the coming days.
On the other hand, data on GDP and US consumer confidence are expected this week from the macro calendar, following the improvement in the German Ifo index for the month of December that emerged today.
Meanwhile, European nations have reached an agreement to limit natural gas prices to 180 euros, ending months of political wrangling. The price cap, which will be introduced to prevent extreme fluctuations in prices, will come into force on February 15th. The prices of natural gas fall by 7% to 107.5 euros per megawatt hour.