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by Fabrizio Patti Milan March 16, 2020 Friday's rebound in Piazza Affari, + 7%, is already far away. Today -8% for the Ftse Mib index. The London and Frankfurt indices are only slightly better.

Sales also on the government securities front, the value falls and therefore the yield rises. That of the Italian BTP reached 2%, before falling to 1.93%. The spread with the German bund is 256 basis points. A month ago the differential was at 130.

The very heavy drops in the Chinese real economy in February weighed on stock exchanges: compared to a year earlier, consumption was down 20%, industrial production was down 13%.

Data that obscure the activism of central banks, which have intervened in the last hours in China, Japan and especially in the United States. With much more force than the ECB on Thursday, but without changing to the stock exchanges. The Fed cut interest rates by one point, that is, by four times the usual cuts, bringing them to 0-0.25%. And it announced a $ 700 billion securities purchase plan. Nonetheless, futures on the Wall Street indices fell by just under 5%.
In Asia and Oceania, the market week began with -9.70% of the Sydney stock exchange and -3% of the Tokyo stock exchange, despite the central bank of Japan having announced a new plan for the purchase of securities and subsidized loans at companies affected by the Coronavirus.

The climate of strong uncertainty is also reflected in the oil price, down 8%, to $ 31 a barrel for the North Sea Brent.

Some answers are expected from the Eurogroup, the meeting of the Eurozone economy ministers, which will be held today by videoconference.