Flat session for Piazza Affari, with the Ftse Mib ending substantially on the values of the day before (-0.05%) at 24,718 points. Among the individual securities, purchases on A2A (+2.3%), which published the update of the strategic plan to 2030 during the week, Buzzi Unicem (+1.8%) and Poste Italiane (+1.8%). On the other hand, Unicredit (-1.6%), Campari (-1.45%) and Terna (-1.1%) are down.
The differential between German 10-year BTPs and Bunds rose to 186.5 points, with the Italian yield up 18 points to 3.84%. Crude is about to end the third consecutive week down, with the WTI at 77.7 dollars, in the wake of recession fears and EU discussions on a higher-than-expected price cap for Russian oil.
It was a session with little movement and with limited volumes also for the European stock exchanges, while Wall Street proceeds in contrast with the Dow Jones at +0.5%, the S&P500 unchanged and the Nasdaq at -0.5%. The American stock exchange will close trading early (at 7 pm Italian time) on Black Friday, an important test for sales in view of the Christmas shopping period.
During the day, Istat released November data on consumer confidence, surprisingly up to 98.1 points from 90.1 in October, and business confidence, recovering to 106.4 points after four consecutive months of contraction. An improvement that prompts some analysts to forecast a slighter contraction for the Italian GDP in the fourth quarter than the previous estimates.
Also noteworthy is the upward revision of the growth of the German economy in the third quarter (+0.4% in the quarter against the +0.3% of the previous estimate). Next week, the focus will be on Eurozone November Preliminary Inflation (Wednesday) and the US Job Report (Friday).
The data will help formulate expectations on the next moves by the central banks, after the release of the minutes of the Fed and the ECB in recent days and in view of the mid-December meetings. Yesterday Isabel Schnabel, one of the more hawkish exponents of the Eurotower, dampened hopes for a slowdown in interest rate squeezes. Jerome Powell, number one of the US central bank, and ECB President Christine Lagarde will also speak next week.