(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) – Tensions in Ukraine advise investors to be cautious, as they ease their equity positions at the start of the week by focusing on low-risk assets such as government bonds and the yen. The winds of war are fueling risk aversion, while commodity prices are rising sharply, starting with palladium and wheat, whose global supply largely depends on Russia and Ukraine, but also oil.
In Piazza Affari the Ftse Mib thus lost 2.66%, in line with Frankfurt (-2.54%) and Madrid (-2.55%). Also bad was Paris (-2.35%) and Amsterdam (-1.88%). Among the Milanese blue chips, sales hit banks in the first place, with gains on Banco Bpm (-5.07%) after Friday’s rush triggered by rumors of a possible takeover by UniCredit (-4.61%). The automotive stocks also fell, with Cnh Industrial at -3.79% and Stellantis at -3.65%, while, as mentioned, the damage was limited by the energy sector: Terna scores -0.27%, Snam -0.47% and Eni -0.59%. To be monitored euro / dollar, down to 1.135 and lo spread BTp-Bund in area 170at the levels of April-May 2020, also due to the purchases of the Bund in the last session, in function of its safe-haven effect in the event of tensions.
News of escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine prompted the Nasdaq to drop 3% and the S&P 500 nearly 2% on Friday. This morning, however, futures on Wall Street are little moved, if not in a timid rise. This is a sign that investors are navigating on sight waiting to hear about the geopolitical developments on the Ukraine issue but at the moment there are no signs of “panic selling”. Volatility on Wall Street, as measured by the performance of the Vix index, also remains high (above 20 points) but down 2% to 27 points (looking at the futures) compared to the close on Friday.
While the European Union and NATO are discussing possible sanctions to be applied to Russia in the event of an invasion of Ukraine, investors are thus assuming a cautious but at the same time worried attitude, as also emerged from the purchases of safe-haven assets (dollar, gold and securities US state and Germans) in the last trading hours of Friday 11 February.
Waiting for news on this front, the macro data scheduled for this week presents the appointment with US producer prices on Tuesday 15 February, a measure of upstream inflation and for this reason on the radar of investors in this phase, very worried. from the evolution of inflation which in the US travels to 7.5%, as has not happened for 40 years.