Outside the main basket, Maire Tecnimont leaves around 4% on the ground, after the placement of around 0.7% of the total number of ordinary shares at a price of 7.28 euros per share, for a total gross value of around 16, 9 million.
The dollar strengthens, oil falls
On the currency, the euro fell to 1.074 dollars (from 1.077 the day before), while the weakness of the yen continued with the euro/yen exchange rate at 166.75 (from 166.44) and the dollar/yen cross at 155.22 (from 154.42). BoJ governor Kazuo Ueda has sent a warning to the financial markets by speaking of the possibility of corrective intervention on the exchange rate. Bitcoin also drops (-1.41%) to 62,650 dollars. The price of oil is falling, with July Brent just above 82 dollars a barrel and June WTI at around 77.5 dollars, both down by more than a percentage point. Natural gas in Amsterdam also fell to 30.4 euros per MWh. The BTP-Bund spread drops to 134 points (from 135.5 on the day before).
Asian price lists
Asian stocks are mixed after US stocks remained relatively stable at Wall Street . The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo lost 1.5%, but most other markets saw modest changes. The yen weakened further against the US dollar. Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gave up 0.4% to 18,410.20 and the Shanghai Composite index also gave up 0.4% to 3,134.75. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index was unchanged at 7,795.70, while the Kospi in South Korea rose 0.1% to 2,736.20. Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.1%.
The weakness of the yen
The dollar rose to 155.14 Japanese yen from 154.50 yen. Japanese officials expressed concern after the value of the yen slipped to 160.25 per dollar in recent days, pushing the Ministry of Finance to intervene. «Exchange rate moves could have a major impact on the economy and prices, so it may be necessary to respond with monetary policy,” he said on Wednesday. Kazuo Ueda, governor of the Bank of Japan.
A weak yen helps the profits of Japanese companies that get much of their revenue overseas, but rate fluctuations can upset planning, and the yen’s weakness has severely eroded the purchasing power of both households and businesses, making rising costs of food and energy imports, among other things.
