Good rise for Piazza Affari in the first session of the week. The Ftse Mib index closed + 1.65% at 24,565 points. An assist comes from the easing of Covid restrictions in Beijing. Also from China, this time from the macro front, there is an improvement in the activity of the Chinese services sector in May, with the country’s Caixin index improving to 41.4 from 36.2 in April, while remaining in the territory of contraction.
An important week opens that will lead to the European Central Bank’s monetary policy meeting on Thursday and US inflation data on Friday. The persistence of high inflation and fears of an acceleration of monetary tightening are still at the heart of investors’ concerns. In the euro zone, the ECB has indicated that its deposit rate will return to positive territory by the end of September and traders now expect a 125bp hike by the end of the year. ECB President Christine Lagarde outlined her plan to raise rates out of negative territory a couple of weeks ago, suggesting that the central bank’s deposit rate minus 0.5% is expected to start rising in July and could be at zero. or “slightly above” by the end of September before further increasing “towards the neutral rate”.
Among the blue chips of Piazza Affari, the substantial increases of Stellantis (+ 1.93% to € 14.058) and Nexi (+ 3.83%) should be noted.
Increases in the order of 2.64% and 3.27% respectively for the big banking companies Unicredit and Intesa. The entire banking sector was supported by the rumor about the proposal of an ‘anti-stress’ plan by the ECB for the purchase in case of need for bonds from some member states. Meanwhile, ABI president Antonio Patuelli remarked that M&A between Italian realities is no longer current and we need to look more at operations with European players.
Bper also did well (+ 3.65%) which completed the acquisition of the controlling stake in Carige.