(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) – The escalation of tensions related to the war in Ukraine, with Russian President Putin suspending Moscow’s participation in the Start program on nuclear weapons control, and the uncertainty on the monetary policy front of central banks, on the eve of the minutes of the Fomc and after the opening of the Finnish Olli Rehn of the ECB to new increases in the summer, led to a new decline in stock lists.
The negative performance of Wall Street, weighed down by the cautious prospects on consumption coming from Walmart and Home Depot, did not then allow a recovery in the afternoon. Heavy closing in New York: the Dow Jones dropped 2.06% at 33,130.38 points, the Nasdaq lost 2.49% at 11,493.55 points while the S&P 500 dropped 2% at 3997.38 points.
Milano is down 0.68%, Paris lost 0.64%, Frankfurt 0.5% as well as London. In the morning, the PMI indices of the Eurozone realized by purchasing managers of large companies were published, confirming the recovery of the services sector while the manufacturing sector was held back by the increase in rates: however, according to Ig, in the light of the data, operators financial institutions “are now convinced that the specter of a recession has been completely avoided even if there are still some uncertainties related to the behavior of monetary institutions which could cause an excessive slowdown in economic activity: the worst therefore seems to be over”.
Wall Street down, eyes on the Fed and the quarterly
Investors are especially nervous as they await the Federal Reserve’s February 1 meeting minutes, which will be released tomorrow. Analysts expect the Fed to keep raising interest rates and then keep them elevated, well above 5%, longer than expected, stoking fears of a recession. Today’s markets are affected by the quarterly results of large retail chains and tensions between Moscow and Washington after Russia suspended the nuclear deal with the United States.
PMI indices above expectations in the US, services in the EU are doing well
European manufacturing activity worsened in February. The flash manufacturing PMI fell to 48.5 from 48.8 in January. However, the manufacturing production index, observes S&P Global, recovered to 50.4 points from 48.9 in January, a nine-month high. the composite index improved to 52.3 points (50.3), benefiting from the performance of services (53 from 50.8). In the United States, the services PMI returned above 50 points (to 50.5 from 46.8 in January), better than estimates. The manufacturing PMI rose to 47.8 points in February from 46.9 points in January, higher than expected, although below the threshold that indicates growth in activity.
