Stock markets in the Old Continent closed on the rise, while Wall Street continued to be mixed on the eve of the Federal Reserve’s decisions. On Piazza Affari, Ftse Mib increased by 0.95% to 34,262 points, with Iveco Group (+3.1%), Bper (+2.8%), Banco Bpm (+2.4%) and Eni (+ 2.4%) at the top while STM (-3%) and Campari (-2.1%) fall behind.
Focus on central banks, after the Bank of Japan meeting and awaiting the institute led by Jerome Powell. Japan’s central bank has ended the era of negative rates, raising the cost of borrowing for the first time since 2007 and removing yield curve control.
The FOMC will leave financing costs unchanged, but will release officials’ updated projections on rates (the so-called dot-plot) and could announce news on the budget, as part of the process of reducing liquidity on the market.
During the day, the German Zew index for March jumped to 31.7 points, while new housing construction in the US was higher than expected.
On bonds, the BTP-Bund spread is close to 125 basis points, with the yield on the Italian 10-year bond at 3.7% and that of the Bund at 2.45%.
Among raw materials, Brent oil exceeds 87 dollars a barrel following the Ukrainian drone attacks against Russian refineries and the supply cuts announced by Iraq to compensate for the failure to reduce production in recent months.
On the Forex, the euro/dollar exchange rate was little changed at 1.086 and the dollar/yen was close to 151 yen per dollar, with the Japanese currency penalized by the absence of signals regarding further rate increases by the BoJ.