MILANO – Markets continue to look to Federal Reserve with less concern than last week, when the outcome of the FOMC meeting had let through harsher tones that had accentuated the prospect of early withdrawal actions by the US central bank.
President Jerome Powell, in the written version of the speech scheduled for today in Congress, confirms that inflation has accelerated but it is a temporary flare-up, which should return towards the 2% indicated by the Fed itself as a goal once the bottlenecks are resolved in global supply chains that are driving up production costs. On the part of central bankers (Kaplan and Bullard, the ones who spoke), in the meantime, discussions are beginning to be heard about the appropriateness of opening a debate on tapering, the closing of the taps,
After Monday’s run – the Dow Jones was up 1.8%, best day since March – futures on Wall Street are still positive.
In Piazza Affari it is noted the move by Generali: the insurance company strengthened its presence in Malaysia, a market it has frequented since 2015, gaining a majority in the joint venture Axa Affin General Insurance Berhad and in the Axa Affin Life joint venture. Leone also presented the request to the local authorities to acquire the remaining stake in MPI Generali. The transactions are worth € 262 million and at the end of the transactions Generali will be present in Malaysia with two companies, one for the Non-Life segment and one for the Life segment.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange, yesterday in sharp decline because it still had to ‘dispose of’ the sales that had hit the US markets at the close of last week, today it recovered by rebounding by 3.1%. Positive changes also on Chinese markets, weak Hong Kong.
L’euro opens above $ 1.19, pending Powell’s hearing in the US House Financial Services Committee. The European currency changes hands at 1.1902 dollars and 131.45 yen. Dollar / yen stable at 110.44. The roller coaster of the Bitcoin, penalized this time by the squeeze on cryptocurrencies requested by the Chinese authorities: after an initial recovery, the queen of digital assets has returned to lose 5%, oscillating on 32 thousand dollars.
The price of the Petroleum stabilizes after yesterday’s rally. On the Asian markets, Wti Light crude futures lost 3 cents to $ 73.63 and Brent futures rose 20 cents to $ 75.05 at their two-year highs. Both benchmarks have risen in the last 4 weeks due to the recovery linked to vaccinations and in view of the summer driven season. Yesterday, the weakening of the dollar and the elections in Iran, where the arrival of the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi could delay the nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions, thus delaying the arrival on the market of almost 4 million barrels of oil produced by Tehran.
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