(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) – In the aftermath of a recovery session after the Black Friday of the markets, the European stock exchanges return to lose altitude and go towards a lower opening. There are fears for the spread of the Omicron variant which, according to the CEO of Moderna, would be resistant to the vaccines currently used. Asian markets are also doing badly, with Tokyo down despite the better-than-expected unemployment figure (down to 2.7% in October) and weak Chinese markets, despite the recovery in manufacturing activity (the November figure rose from 49.2 to 50.1 points).
The macroeconomic agenda has plans inflation in November of the Eurozone (the first reading was + 4.1% on an annual basis, + 2% without the more volatile goods such as energy and food) and also of Italy (the previous estimate was + 3%, +1 , 1% for core inflation).
Tokyo down, Chinese stock exchanges also down
The Tokyo Stock Exchange has reversed course during the negotiations, after the doubts of the number one of Moderna on the effectiveness of vaccines against the Omicron variant. After having previously ascended with the tace of unemployment in Japan fell slightly in October at 2.7%, above expectations, the NIKKEI 225 index closed down by 1.63% to 27,821.76 points, the lowest level since 7 October; the Topix index fell 1.03% to 1,928.35 points. The Tokyo square was well oriented in the morning, following in the footsteps of Wall Street whose concerns about Covid dissipated yesterday; but the indices plummeted after the Financial Times published an interview with Moderna’s Stéphane Bancel, who believes the current vaccines are less effective against the Omicron. On Chinese stock exchanges, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 2.1% just before closing; Shanghai and Shenzhen were close to equilibrium.
Dollar rises, greenback looks to the Fed
The dollar it strengthened against the euro with the exchange rate at just under 1.13 and always signals a context of tighter financial conditions in the United States than in Europe. The minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting, in fact, highlighted an aggressive stance to stop inflation.
Consensus on the Bund, the spread widens
The Bund has increased support, due to the uncertainty raised by the variant Omicron , despite the reassurances on the danger lower than what was feared at first. The yield on the ten-year German government bond thus fell to -0.313%. The spread between the yield of the Bund and that of the Italian BTp of the same duration, which pays 0.984%, it widened to 130 basis points.
Where were we
On the eve, the lists rebounded after Black Friday which caused drops of around 4-5% for many equity indices. There was a general recovery in shares and Piazza Affari ended the first session of the week with a gain of + 0.7%, driven by banking and energy. In the two sectors, the leaders of the increases were, respectively, Unicredit , which sold 20 billion of non-performing loans, ed Eni , pushed by the rise of the Petroleum, which in London is over 74 dollars a barrel and in New York it has exceeded 70 dollars.