Inflation, interest rate hikes, risk of recession, war in Ukraine: indigestible dishes for the markets, which are already heavily weighed down for the year-end dinner. In fact, 2022 was bad for the world stock exchanges, with Wall street ending the worst year since the crash of 2008 and Milan which has lost a large chunk of capitalisation, although falling in line with Europe.
The only one to save London, while Moscow paid a very dear price for the conflict unleashed by Putin.
In this difficult year, the overall capitalization of the companies in Piazza Affari has in fact fallen to 626 billion against the 757 billion at the end of 2021. But it is the relationship with the gross domestic product that best explains the extent of the collapse: according to data processed by Borsa Italian, the ‘value’ of Piazza Affari today corresponds to 33.9% of GDP, against 43.1% a year ago.
Milan, also very weak in the last session of 2022, lost more than 12% with the Ftse Mib index in one year, the same loss as the Stoxx 600 of the main European companies and Frankfurt, two indices experiencing the worst drop since 2018. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 index slipped by 20% and the Nasdaq technology index by 33%, while the Stock Exchange Paris tried to contain losses (-9% total), with Madrid which lost five percentage points in 2022. Very heavy Moscow, down 40% in the last twelve months, despite the fact that the price of gas supported energy stocks for a long part of the year.
At the end of December, the Borsa Italiana markets still had 414 listed companies against 407 last year, the result of 22 ‘delistings’ and 29 new entries, including Civitanavi Systems, Generalfinance and Industrie De Nora on Euronext Milan, in addition to the admission of Iveco after the demerger from CNH Industrial. In 2022 in Piazza Affari the total funding from IPOs was 1,450 million, in addition to 9 capital increase operations under option for over 4.7 billion. There were 19 takeover bids during the year, for a total amount of almost three billion. Intesa Sanpaolo was the most traded share in terms of value, with a total of 62 billion, and Unicredit was the first in terms of contracts, over 5.5 million.
“Barring new exogenous events, we will go forward in continuity to the end of this year, but I can say that many of the entities that were in the pipeline in the second and third quarters of 2022 and who have withdrawn from the listing due to the context, now they are on hold and preparing to return,” he says Fabricius Headmanaging director of Borsa Italiana. “And next year the novelty of the ‘single order book’ and of the unified liquidity pool” of Euronext “should remove any incentive for Italian companies that are considering landing on other European stock exchanges”, concludes Testa to Class CNBC.
Already, Euronext. Since April 2021, Borsa Italiana has joined the large European group which this year confirmed itself as the main stock listing venue in Europe, with an aggregate market capitalization of 23 billion and funding of 3.8. It is also the first group in terms of debt quotation worldwide, with an important contribution coming from Milan. In 2022, the Telematic Market for Bonds and Government Securities (Mot) managed by Borsa Italiana confirmed its European leadership for contracts traded for a value of 642 million, with the segment dedicated to green and social bonds with an ‘outstanding’ total exceeding 383 billion. And the ETF market has reached its all-time high this year.
