(Alliance News) - Major European indices are expected to open slightly lower on Friday, with markets likely to pay the price for Israel's attack on Iran, which is further undermining stability in an already tense region.
The Israeli air force launched two waves of attacks against six targets in five Iranian cities, according to state media in Tehran. Among the targets hit were the Natanz nuclear facility and military sites near the capital. Attacks also took place in Tabriz, Esfahan, Arak, and Kermanshah.
The FTSE Mib is down 102.0 points after closing Thursday down 0.6% at 39,948.39.
The FTSE 100 in London is expected to fall by 40.5 points or 0.5%, the CAC 40 in Paris is down 106.1 points or 1.4%, and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt is estimated to fall by 370.4 points or 1.6%.
Yesterday evening in Milan, the Mid-Cap fell 0.7% to 54,383.65 points, the Small-Cap closed down 0.9% at 31,106.99, and Italia Growth lost 0.4% to 8,106.81.
On the Piazza Affari, Eni closed well on the list of companies with the highest capitalization yesterday evening, with a 1.5% increase to EUR13.8580 per share, while continuing with its buyback plan for over EUR50 million.
On Thursday, the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio rejected Banco BPM's request - down 0.2% - not to suspend the public exchange offer launched by UniCredit - down 0.1% - on the Piazza Meda bank. BPM CEO Giuseppe Castagna reiterated that "as the market has always shown, the public exchange offer launched on Banco BPM continues to be unattractive to shareholders and has been so since day one."
The entry of Poste Italiane - down 0.3% - to 24.8% of TIM's capital, which is down 1.2% today and is preparing for a governance reshuffle, has pushed the stock up to EUR0.39 from EUR0.29 recently, despite today's retracement.
At the shareholders' meeting on June 24, as revealed by the daily newspaper La Repubblica, the savings shareholders will propose Emanuele Rimini as the new common representative to replace Dario Trevisan, who will remain as a consultant.
Stellantis fell 2.7%, while Brunello Cucinelli lost 3.0%.
Buzzi fell 1.6% to EUR 44.92 after announcing on Wednesday that Standard & Poor's had upgraded the company's credit rating, raising its long-term rating from 'BBB' to 'BBB+' and confirming its short-term rating at 'A-2'.
Among mid-caps, participation in the takeover bid launched by Banca Ifis - down 1.3% - on illimity accelerated, as anticipated on Thursday by Il Sole 24 Ore. On Wednesday, approximately 8 million requests to participate were submitted, bringing the total to 21.59% of the shares subject to the tender offer, equal to 18.2 million shares, compared to 12.09% recorded the previous day.
The Maire group - up 0.1% - began the placement of approximately 5 million ordinary shares - equal to 1.5% of the share capital - following the achievement of the targets of the 2022-2024 and 2023-2025 incentive plans.
SOL closed up 1.5%, with shares at EUR47.75 each.
On the Small-Cap market, Mondo TV continued to perform well, with a 19% increase, followed by Class Editori with a rise of over 15%, as on the previous day.
Edison's board, up 1%, appointed Bernard Fontana as the company's new director on Thursday, replacing Luc Rémont, who stepped down.
In addition, Patrigest, a Gabetti group company specialising in real estate advisory and valuation services, was appointed exclusive advisor for the management of a portfolio worth approximately EUR 83 million, as announced by Gabetti on Wednesday. The portfolio consists of 12 mixed-use properties located in northern and central Italy. The mandate comes from the BNL/BNP Paribas Italia Pension Fund, through Fondaco Previdenza Immobiliare. Gabetti's share price rose 3.6% to EUR0.75 per share.
Fidia - unchanged at EUR0.0055 per share - announced on Wednesday that, starting June 16, it will proceed with the consolidation of its ordinary shares at a ratio of 1 new share for every 100 existing shares. The transaction will reduce the number of shares outstanding from 746.6 million to 7.5 million.
Among SMEs, Eprcomunicazione soared 15%, followed by Crowndfundme, up 12%.
Almawave is stable at EUR3.22 per share. On Thursday, it announced that Velvet, a family of generative AI models developed by the company, is now supported as "Default LLM" within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Data Science AI Quick Actions, a platform that enables Oracle customers to easily test and deploy foundational commercial AI models.
Circle - down 0.6% - announced on Thursday the signing of a new contract worth a total of EUR 200,000 and lasting approximately 12 months, which is part of ongoing activities to strengthen interoperability and the digital evolution of the national port system.
In Asia, the Nikkei is down 0.9% to 37,821.80, the Shanghai Composite is down 0.7% to 3,380.51, and the Hang Seng is down 0.8% to 23,854.70.
In New York, at Thursday's close, the Dow gained 0.2% to 42,967.62, the Nasdaq rose 0.2% to 19,662.48, while the S&P 500 rose 0.4% to 6,045.26.
Among currencies, the euro traded at USD 1.1535 from USD 1.1581 on Thursday evening, while the pound traded at USD 1.3539 from USD 1.359 yesterday evening.
Among commodities, Brent crude traded at USD 74.50 per barrel from USD 69.34 per barrel at the previous close, while gold was worth USD 3,425.09 per ounce from USD 3,385.70 per ounce the previous day.
In Friday's economic calendar, at 0900 CEST, attention will be on inflation in Spain and at 10000 CEST on Italy's trade balance, while EU industrial production will be published at 1100 CEST.
At 1700 CEST, a speech by Elderson of the European Central Bank is scheduled, while at 1900 CEST, Baker Hughes data on the total number of extraction rigs in the US will be released.
No significant announcements are expected from companies listed on the Italian stock exchange.
By Giuseppe Fabio Ciccomascolo, Alliance News senior reporter
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