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By Fabrizio Patti 20 August 2020Negative day for European markets, after yesterday's plus sign. For the Ftse Mib in Milan -1%, with a negative balance of 0.8% from the beginning of the week. 35 of the 40 titles of the Ftse Mib are down.
Piazza Affari is in line with the rest of Europe: -1% for the Eurostoxx 50 index, the basket of the main stocks in the Eurozone. 
The day was also bad in Asia. -3.66% for the stock market index in Seoul, South Korea. It is a decline due to the increase in cases of Covid-19, especially in the Seoul area, where the authorities have urged the population to limit the movements. 
Shanghai and Hong Kong were also down, after the Chinese central bank decided not to lower the reference rates of mortgages for those with a more solid profile, believing that it was therefore not necessary to give new stimuli to the economy.
Trade tensions affecting China also weigh heavily. Although a positive signal arrived today: the spokesman for the Beijing Minister of Commerce said that the United States and China have agreed to hold the telephone talks that had been missed last weekend in the coming days.

However, the direction of the markets began to turn negative last night, after the Fed, the US central bank, published the minutes of the meeting at the end of July. Concern for the recovery of the economy emerged, underlining the high uncertainty, and the opposition of some of its members to the purchase of government bonds. This helped bring down the Wall Street indices, which in any case came from the historical record of the day before.
Among the beneficiaries of the race in recent months is Apple, which yesterday reached a record capitalization of $ 2 trillion.
Meanwhile, there is also talk of the Italian Stock Exchange itself. Because the deadline for expressions of interest on Borsa Italiana, currently part of the London Stock Exchange (Lse) group, has been set for tomorrow.
Lse is acquiring the Canadian group Refinitiv. As part of this operation, the European Antitrust raised some findings, in particular for the trading of government bonds, managed both by the MTS platform of Borsa Italiana and by a company of the Refinitiv group.
You could also sell just the MTS platform, where government bonds are traded. Among the candidates is the Euronext platform. The background gave the intervention of CDP as possible, in tandem with Euronext. But possible offers could also come from Deutsche Borsa and the Swiss platform Six.
Gold picks up slightly after yesterday's decline. Today it is trading at $ 1,931 per ounce (+ 0.15%). 
The euro remains at yesterday's levels: one euro is worth $ 1.1838.