After enduring heavy losses
last week, Italy's leading stock index the FTSE Mib regained its
footing Tuesday, rising 2.28% by early afternoon.
Gains in banking shares helped lift Milan's index to
18,962.42 points, including a jump of 9% in the shares of Monte
Paschi di Siena bank, which were hit hard on Monday following
media reports that the institution could be ordered by the
European Central Bank (ECB) to boost capital levels.
The ECB has been conducting a deep assessment of European
banks to ensure their stability and is due to issue its report
on Sunday.
Other Italian banks also reported gains in trading Tuesday,
as UBI rose by almost 5%, Banco Popolare was up by 4.6%, Intesa
rose by more than 4% and Unicredit was up by 4.27%.
Besides financial companies, Mediaset also reported a
significant gain of 4.32% while Yoox rose 4.41%.
At the same time, the spread between Italy's benchmark
10-year BTP bonds and their equivalent German Bunds narrowed to
162.2 basis points by early afternoon, considerably lower than
the opening spread of 178.2.
The yield on the Italian paper fell to 2.5% from the
opening level of 2.6%.
Trading was higher across most European indices, which also
suffered last week's rout by investors who were frightened by
the possibility of global economic slowing.
In Athens, the leading index rose by 0.6% while Paris's
bourse gained 1.68% after early losses in reaction to the news
of the death in Russia of the chief executive officer of Total
energy, once of France's biggest companies.
CEO Christophe de Margerie was killed late Monday night in
a plane crash at the Vnukovo airport near Moscow.
On the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Dax index gained 1.38%
while London's FTSE reported gains of 0.l85% by early afternoon.
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