It may not have been a great day for Milan and, in general, for the western stock markets, but Avary Square is celebrating, perhaps a little quietly, a new high as of September 1, 2008. Today’s performance isn’t great (+0, 38%), but it’s enough to reach and cross a rock 26,500 points and touched 26,558 points. Brighter Frankfurt (+0.72%), followed by Paris (+0.36%), while London (-0.35%) is experiencing below-expected GDP growth and declining industrial production. Outside, Wall Street is advancing twice as fast (Dow Jones -0.26%, S&P +0.03% and Nasdaq +0.17%).

Uncertainty about the state of the pandemic due to variable delta and the future of monetary policies are weighing on sentiment. Doubts have been heightened by the wave of macro data in recent days, which has seen employment improving and inflation growing at a steady pace. Today, industrial production in the Eurozone in June fell 0.3% compared to May and disappointed consensus expectations (+0.6%). On an annual basis, the reading rose 9.7%, a sharp slowdown from +20.6% recorded in May.

In the US, producer prices for US final demand rose 1% in July compared to June, beating the consensus (+0.6%). Core producer prices increased 1% (consensus +0.5% m/m) and personal consumption prices increased 1%. Weekly applications for unemployment benefits fell by 12,000 to 375,000, which exactly matches expectations.

Among commodities, gold is barely moving at $1,751 an ounce (-0.08%), while oil is losing ground in the wake of a series of lower-than-expected industrial production data: WTI is trading at $68.97 a barrel (-0.39%) and Brent is trading at at $71.17 (-0.41%). In the currency, EUR/USD lost another 0.07% and fell to 1.172, the cross between the dollar and the yen fell to 110.33 (-0.05%) and the pound, weakened by disappointing macro data, changed at 1.382 (-0.31%). The BTP/Bund spread is 100 basis points. (All rights reserved)