Stock market: Europe cautious at mid-session as attention turns to fresh US-Iran clash; Milan up 0.08 per cent
Oil prices fall, gold soars
(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - European stock markets are trading cautiously at the halfway point of the session, on what has been dubbed Iran’s ‘economic D-day’ – a day on which the United States is expected to unveil a plan for new sanctions. Tehran has dismissed this threat, viewing it as an “admission of defeat” by Washington, six months after the start of the war. As a result, the main European markets are hovering around the break-even point: after a few attempts at a recovery, the FTSE MIB is up 0.08 per cent, whilst Paris and Frankfurt are trading slightly below the break-even point (-0.1 per cent). Madrid is performing better, up 0.36 per cent. Across the Atlantic, futures on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are down slightly, whilst investors are also bracing for Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh’s speech in Jackson Hole (on Friday) and the publication of Nvidia’s quarterly results (on Wednesday).
Against this backdrop, oil prices are falling further: Brent futures are down 1.75 per cent, whilst remaining firmly above the $90-per-barrel mark at $92.7; WTI is down 2.4 per cent at $84.9. Gold, on the other hand, continues to rise, buoyed by the weakening dollar, hitting a more than three-month high of $4,645 per ounce (+0.9 per cent) in the spot market.
Turning to the equity market, Inwit (+1.2%) remains among the top performers on the Milan stock exchange, following Barclays’ upgrade to ‘Overweight’. Moncler surged (+1.6%), whilst Cucinelli also performed well (+0.7%), in a positive session for the luxury sector (+0.9% for LVMH in Paris). In the banking sector, Mediobanca (+1 per cent) was the top performer, followed by Unicredit (+0.8 per cent). MPS gained 0.4 per cent whilst the market continues to assess the dual takeover bid for Banco BPM (-0.5 per cent) and Banca Generali (-1.05 per cent). At the bottom of the FTSE MIB were Stellantis (-2.7 per cent), Avio (-2.5 per cent) and Prysmian (-2.3 per cent).
In the foreign exchange market, the euro/dollar exchange rate stands at 1.166 (down from 1.167 at the open and close on Friday). The single currency remains broadly stable at 185.7 yen, whilst the dollar/yen cross is trading at around 159.2 (from 159). Gas prices rose by 1.7% to 65.86 euros per megawatt-hour on the TTF platform in Amsterdam.
