Stock market, lull on markets with oil down, in Milan (+0.1%) good Unicredit. WS positive

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor)- A day of respite for the European stock markets, favoured by the reversal of oil prices in the wake of the hopes linked to the Strait of Hormuz. European indices thus recovered ground after the declines of the previous sessions and closed the first session of the week on a cautious rise: Milan +0.07% to around 44,347 points, Paris +0.3%, Frankfurt +0.5%, Madrid +0.2%, Amsterdam +0.6% and London +0.6%. The Brent remains above $100 a barrel, but retreats more than a percentage point while the US Wti trades below $95 as we enter the third week of the Iran conflict. Volatility remains high, however, as investors continue to reckon with news from the Middle East front. On the one hand, President Trump's announcement: 'The war will end soon'. On the other, the attempts to reach an agreement with Theran for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the tycoon's pressure on NATO countries to contribute to the reopening of this key corridor for the transport of world oil has been rejected by both London and Berlin. Beijing's attitude is also cold.

Meanwhile, investors' attention is also focused on central banks: on Thursday the ECB and on Wednesday the Fed will hold their first post-Iran war monetary policy meetings. The chances of interest rate changes are slim, although the market is betting that sooner or later central banks will be forced to make a turn in their monetary policy to deal with the likely rise in inflation caused by the energy crisis.

Wall Street closed on a positive note despite tensions related to the war in the Middle East. The Dow Jones rose 0.83 per cent to 46,946.41 points, the Nasdaq advanced 1.22 per cent to 22,374.18 points, and the S&P 500 gained 1.01 per cent to 6,699.37 points.
On Friday, the S&P 500 posted its third consecutive week of declines, with the index nowtradingabout 5 percent below all-time highs reached at the beginning of the year. Investors, meanwhile, are looking ahead to Nvidia Corp's Gtc conference, which kicks off today, and to Wednesday's Federal Reserve meeting, from which no rate changes are expected (Cme FedWatch currently indicates a probability of unchanged rates above 99%). An FOMC meeting that 'will be shrouded in uncertainty, as the committee has little clarity to offer on the war front', State Street Markets argues, pointing out that leading indicators are still in the pre-Iran war period.

On the stock market, Meta Platforms stands out after rumours about a workforce reduction plan that could exceed 20 per cent of the workforce, more than 15,000 of the approximately 79,000 employees at the end of 2025. The group led by Mark Zuckerberg is thus aiming to contain costs in order to support its massive investment in artificial intelligence. This also includes the long-term agreement with the AI company Nebius, which could reach up to $27 billion over five years for computing capacity based on the new Nvidia Vera Rubin platform.

In Milan, the focus is almost entirely on Unicredit (+0.5%), which has launched a voluntary takeover bid toexceed its 30% stake in Commerzbank (+8.9%). An exchange ratio of 0.484 Unicredit shares for each German bank security is expected. The exchange ratio of the offer will be determined by BaFin (i.e. the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority) in the coming days on the basis of the volume-weighted average price of Commerzbank and Unicredit shares over the past three months. "We expect the ratio to be 0.485 UniCredit shares for each Commerzbank share, which corresponds to a price of EUR 30.8 per Commerzbank share, or a premium of 4 per cent to the closing price on 13 March 2026," explains the note from the bank led by Andrea Orcel.