War winds in Ukraine worry markets. In Piazza Affari the index Ftse Mib, after touching 4% falls during the session, closed down by 2.04% to 26,415 points. Madrid finished down 2.5%, Paris by 2.2%, Frankfurt by two percentage points. Both Amsterdam and London were down by 1.7% at the end, with Moscow moving on decreases between 3 and 2% in the various indices. International tensions have eased slightly thanks to the words of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, who spoke in the afternoon about a possibility of resolving the crisis with diplomacy, but fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine continue to worry investors. The Stoxx 600 indexwhich brings together the 600 major stocks of the Old Continent, after even larger drops it lost the final 1.9%, which translates into 201 billion of capitalization burned in one sitting.
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The spread at its highest since June 2020
The spread between BTP and Bund starts the first session of the seventh with a leap and reaches 171 points and then closes at 169 points with the yield of the Italian ten-year at 1.97%. According to Bloomberg’s findings, this was the maximum since June 2020. In the middle of the morning, the yield gap between the two government bonds widened again, reaching 169-170 points again and then, in a real swing, falling back again to 165. But the yield of our ten-year remained more or less unchanged around 1.9%, thus signaling an appreciation (with a consequent drop in yield to 0.19% and then a little higher, at 0.24%, compared to 0.29% last Friday) of the bund, the safe-haven security par excellence when the red alarm goes on in the markets. So investors are flying towards German quality, buying more bunds, but they are not asking Italy to pay more for now.
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The titles
The Business Square goes to Fr.the banking sector was particularly penalized. SOprattutto Unicredit (-4,23%)our country’s credit institution most exposed in Russia, a country from which approximately 3% of the group’s operating profit. Banco Bpm held up better (-0.65%), which remains at the center of attention as a possible protagonist of the banking risk. Intesa Sanpaolo was also weak, falling by 3.01%. At the peak of Banca Mps which lost 6.03%. The rumors according to which the FTID would have given its green light to the sale of 80% of Banca Carige to Bper have instead given wings to the title of the Genoese bank which, with a jump of 2.28% to 0.7901 euros, practically aligned with the price of the takeover bid announced by the Popolare di Emilia Romagna on the remaining 20% at € 0.80 per share. Male Telecom, down 2.75% on the day of the board of directors on the progress of the business plan. The auto sector sold, with Iveco Group at -3.95%, Cnh Industrial at -3.86% and Stellantis at -2.56%. On the main list, in contrast to Inwit, which rose by 1.79%, and Snam, which gained 0.83%.
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The oil
On the foreign exchange market, risk aversion weakened the euro which also dropped below the threshold of 1.13 and was worth 1.1304 dollars at the close (1.1333 at the start and 1.1393 at the end of Friday) and 130.715 yen (130.71 and 132.17). The greenback is worth 115.629 yen (115.32 and 116.00). After a volatile day, at the close of the European markets, the price of oil started to rise again: the contract cThe April mark on Brent gains 0.37% at 94.79 dollars a barrel and the March expiration mark on WTI gains 0.77% at 93.82 dollars a barrel. The price of gas also rose.
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Between economic policy and inflation
In a longer perspective, all government bonds and bonds but also the price lists stand discounting in advance, as always happens on the markets, the approaching change of pace in economic policy
. In the United States, a first rate hike in March is practically certain, followed by two or three more Fed interventions by the end of the year. Some analysis houses have even hypothesized that they can reach six. In Europe, where inflation is running but not as much as in the United Statesi, where the latest survey was close to 7.5%, the new price has no definite date, but the latest statements by Christine Lagarde, the president of the ECB, were greeted by the markets with nervousness. The rise in rates, even if it announces an economic recovery, is never an easy step for those who invest.
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