Thursday without verve for Piazza Affari. The Ftse Mib closed down 1.10% at 25,021 points, following the negative mood that is characterizing Wall Street today despite the new drop in the price of oil. Today’s session closes a first quarter of the year with a negative balance for Piazza Affari and all the other European stock exchanges, even if the recovery in recent weeks has made the balance less heavy.
At a macro level, data from France and Italy confirmed the more marked acceleration of inflation in all the main EU countries in March. Indications that increase the pressure on the ECB for a more sudden hawkish turnaround. Meanwhile, from Russia, President Putin has confirmed that from 1 April he will demand payments in rubles of Russian gas and to do so, accounts in rubles will be opened in Russian banks. “If such payments are not made, we will consider this a failure by the customer to comply with their obligations,” Putin said in a televised speech.
The entire banking sector paid duty today in Piazza Affari: decreases of close to 3 per cent for Bper and Banco BPM; Unicredit was also very bad (-2.81%)
Difficult day for TIM. In the last hour of trading, the stock of the largest Italian telecommunications company fell by more than 8%, falling below the 0.33 euro area. According to what Il Sole 24 Ore reports today, the telecommunications company led by Pietro Labriola is studying the possibility of a spin-off of the NetCo network infrastructure to list it. The alternative could be the contribution in a newco, which at some point could be merged with Open Fiber. Meanwhile, the Financial Times points out in a long article that KKR’s ‘buyout option’ is in doubt. US private equity wants to perform due diligence before launching a binding offer, while management is opposed (if KKR decides to abandon or reduce the offer, this would have a negative impact on the share price).
Among the most important signs, Terna stands out with + 3.34%. Saipem also up by 2.78% and Snam (+ 1.51%)
Finally, dense purchases on Generali (+ 3.23%) with Leonardo Del Vecchio who in an interview with Bloomberg News supported the plan for the Lion of Trieste presented in recent days by Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone and believes that it could accelerate the growth of insurance company through a large acquisition.