MILANO – Milano the last session of a year closed flat (+ 0.01% for the Ftse Mib) which, at this point, goes to archive with a rise of 23%. Mixed the others: Frankfurt salt of 0.34% e Paris 0.16%. Weak instead London ending at -0.19%. The final + 23% of Piazza Affari sees it in the old continent behind only Paris which achieves a + 29.1% of the Cac40, not yet definitive because it will also be open for half a day tomorrow. Frankfurt follows behind with a + 15.7%, even further behind London which gains 14.5%, while Madrid marks a + 7.9%.
Wall Street – which will also trade tomorrow, the last day of a year in which it has struck a series of records – closes in the red, with the Dow Jones losing 0.25% to 36,398.47 points, the Nasdaq 0.16% to 15,741 , 56 points and the S&P 500 0.30 to 4778.80 points.
The indices have returned from days – marked by the low trading volume, typical of the Christmas period – predominantly positive, with investors looking optimistically at the new year, during which they expect the economic recovery to continue and that listed companies continue to record solid quarterly reports. Investors are increasingly convinced that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus will not lead to tougher restrictions and therefore will not affect the recovery. To reinforce the conviction that the recovery can proceed – despite the intensification of government measures to block the infections – encouraging data arrived today, again in the USA, from the labor front with the decline in unemployment insurance claims to 198 thousand units last week, 8 thousand less than the previous week. It is the lowest level for this average since October 25, 1969, when it was 199,250 units.
2021 in Piazza Affari: record number of landings on the Stock Exchange, 49 companies entered Palazzo Mezzanotte
–
This morning, however, the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed the last session of 2021 negatively: the Nikkei index fell by 0.4% to 28,791.71 points compared to the day before, but remaining at its highest since 1989. Compared to the last session of 2020, the gain was 4.9%. The Topix index lost 0.33% to 1,992.33 points. Trading was contained ahead of the holiday and fears over the Omicron variant held back investors. In China, on the other hand, optimism prevails over the expected support measures for growth, such as the extension of some tax incentives on personal income. The Shanghai Composite was up 0.62% and the index Shenzhen Composite of 0.91%. However, the real estate sector remains under close observation, with some bond maturities to be repaid, for example for Kaisa. And Evergrande’s shares quickly lost more than 10% on the Hong Kong stock exchange, in the aftermath of a bond redemption that was not honored by the indebted group.
The protagonist of the opposite sign, also on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, was the debut of SenseTime, the Chinese artificial intelligence company that had ended up in the tug-of-war between Beijing and Washington, when the US had established the blacklist of Chinese companies operating in the sector with the result of preventing the Americans from investing in them and making them postpone ‘Hypo. Then the Chinese public investment troops left and raised their commitment to the operation and guaranteed its success: SenseTime raised 740 million dollars in Hong Kong, which will largely invest in a center for supercomputers in Hong Kong. Shanghai, and on its debut on the stock exchange, stocks rose by more than 20%.
The Petroleum returns to positive at the end of the day, after the rumors reported by Reuters according to which OPEC + should keep production policy steady also in February. The next meeting is scheduled for January 4 and producing countries should continue with the increase of 400,000 barrels. By mid-morning, prices had gone negative due to the drop in imports from China, the world’s largest importer of crude oil. the WTI increased by 0.9% to 77.2 dollars a barrel, the Brent rose by 0.18% to 79.3 dollars.
L’euro closed weak at 1.1320 dollars. The greenback is also gaining ground against the yen at around 115.15. The exchange rate between the single European currency and the Japanese currency was essentially stable in the 130.35 zone. The Bitcoin remains in a weak phase and returns to the area of 47 thousand dollars. The spread between ten-year BTPs and German Bund counterparts it closed slightly up to 135 points, against 134 on the eve of the day and 131.8 at the opening. The yield on Italian bonds rises to 1.172%.
L’oro instead, it is aimed at closing its worst year since 2015: today it is down by about 5% under the pressure of the dollar and of practically stationary US Treasury yields. Spot gold fell 0.4% to $ 1,796.47 per ounce, dropping below $ 1,800. US gold futures fell 0.5% to $ 1,797.10. The precious metal is affected by the gallop of inflation and the moves of central banks in terms of monetary policy.
– .
