Stock exchanges, Piazza Affari defends record highs with eyes on Iran and Mps lengthening. Wall Street on all-time highs

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - Afterthe previous day's rises, the European stock markets closed the session without major shocks, while Piazza Affari regained parity at the end, where the Ftse Mib closed substantially unchanged (-0.04%) and remained above 48,000 points at 48,155.8. Milan thus remains on record, in a European session with some signs of weakness and with Wall Street contrasted but still moving close to all-time highs. In the rest of Europe, Paris (-0.6%) posted the biggest drop, weighed down by selling on luxury stocks as Kering slumped to pay for Gucci's performance in its quarterly accounts and await its new plan. In contrast, Frankfurt (+0.1%) was the best performer. Markets continue to hope for a swift end to the conflict in Iran, with the parties negotiating to extend the two-week ceasefire that expires on 22 April and trying to arrange a second round of talks.

Investors on the one hand remain confident thanks to the news about a "agreement in principle" between the US and Iran for anextension of the truce, reported by Associated Press; on the other hand they have to deal with the warning issued yesterday by the IMF that if the war in Iran goes on much longer with new heavy damage to the energy infrastructure in the Middle East, the global economy risks going into recession with a growth rate of around 2% and inflation of just over 6% by 2027.

Wall Street closed with new highs for the Nasdaq and S&P500, a sign that markets are betting on a US-Iran deal. The Dow Jones dropped 0.15 per cent to 48,463.56 points, the Nasdaq advanced 1.59 per cent to 24,016.02 points and the S&P 500 gained 0.80 per cent to 7,022.90 points. the S&P 500 surpassed its all-time high of 7,002.28 points - touched on 28 January - reaching an intraday high of 7,003.82 points with the session still open. Earlier in the day, the index recorded its ninth positive session in 10 days,erasing losses accumulated since the start of the conflict with Iran. Among the headlines, up was Bank Of America after better-than-expected quarterly results. Similarly, the performance of Morgan Stanley was also brilliant after its record quarterly results (+29% profit to USD 5.5 billion). Broadcom is another of the session's positive protagonists, after Meta Platforms announced the extension of its partnership to make custom chips.

At Piazza Affari, all eyes were on the banking sector and in particular on Mps (+4.6%), today grappling with the shareholders' meeting for the appointment of the new board. After a solidly positive session, the stock accelerated towards the end with the victory at the shareholders' meeting of the Tortora family's list (which nominates Luigi Lovaglio as CEO), making the stock one of the best on the list alongside that of the subsidiary Mediobanca (+4.8%). It was also a positive session for Stellantis (+1.8%), which announced that global deliveries in the first quarter were up 12% to 1.36 million units. Geographically, deliveries in North America are estimated to be up 17% to 379,000 units and in Wider Europe up 12% to 637,000 units.

Also in the spotlight were Avio (+3.1%), Nexi (+5.8%) and Recordati (+1.8%). According to Il Sole 24 Ore, Recordati is the subject of a maxi banking consortium in support of Cvc Capital Partners' bid for Recordati, with the involvement of Mediobanca, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, Jp Morgan and Deutsche Bank, which are engaged both as advisors and as lenders in the €10.9 billion deal for the Italian pharmaceutical company. Opposite sides for oil stocks, which were affected by the drop in oil prices, with Saipem (-0.8%) and Tenaris (-1.5%) seeing losses. Also closing the session in the red were Hera (-2.2%), Inwit (-3.4%) and Moncler (-0.7%), which was partly affected by declines in French luxury goods.