The European lists open today’s session with a rise on the day the Jackson Hole symposium kicks off. After a few minutes, the Ftse Mib in Milan trades up by 0.7% in the area of 22,580 points, on average in line with the Dax in Frankfurt (+ 0.8%), the Cac 40 in Paris (+ 0.6%) and London’s Ftse 100 (+ 0.5%). The positive performance of Wall Street contributes to support the Old Continent, which interrupted the negative streak of three sessions, while the Chinese prices travel mixed after the new government measures to support the economy.
The focus of investors is all on the annual Jackson Hole symposium, which begins today and ends Saturday, August 27. The hearing of the Fed president, Jerome Powell, is expected tomorrow at 16:00 Italian time. In addition to the impacts on the Eurozone economy caused by the energy crisis, operators are concerned about fears about likely more aggressive squeeze by central banks on the subject of interest rates, despite the risks of recession are increasing. Powell recently said that the Fed is trying to cause a recession by raising the cost of money and that it does not think it should, even as it is struggling to calm the rise in inflation to its 40-year high.
The minutes relating to the July meeting of the ECB will also be published during the day, while the German Ifo, the US annualized GDP and the weekly requests for unemployment benefits in the USA are expected from the macro agenda, after the German GDP figure (+ 0.1% qoq in the second quarter).
In Europe, meanwhile, natural gas prices have risen to new highs, intensifying an energy crisis that threatens the euro area economy and global prospects. Germany has approved new measures to limit consumption and Italy is ready to launch an energy saving plan.
On bonds, the BTP-Bund spread reopens slightly down to 230 basis points, with the Italian ten-year yield essentially stable at 3.65%, following the positive messages from Mario Draghi, according to which Italy will succeed , whatever government comes.
Returning to Piazza Affari, among the big caps, Tenaris (+ 2.1%), Eni (+ 1.7%) and Interpump (+ 1.4%) are advancing at the start. The worst are Nexi and Saipem, which both lost 0.3 per cent.