Shares Retreat in Quiet Trading
April 03, 2011
The MIBtel index lost 74 points to 9839 after falling 27 Friday, while the MIB30 blue-chip index gave up 103 points to 14,682. Less than 300 billion lire worth of shares changed hands. Traders said Italian stocks followed both Wall Street and most other European markets lower. Market sentiment wasn't helped by the fact that many major companies started trading ex-dividend Monday. While that normally wouldn't be a major force in the session's trading, the low volumes may have exacerbated the effect, say traders. One Milan-based investor commented that domestic funds lack new resources for fresh buying, while international portfolio managers aren't interested in moving new money into Italian stocks at the moment. However, equities came off intraday lows amid hope that preliminary inflation figures for July will follow the positive trend of the first data released Friday. Eight major Italian cities will report preliminary CPI data late Monday. Among specific shares, energy giant ENI slipped 60 lire to 6,990. Chemicals company Montedison moved against the trend, with a gain of 88 lire to 1,083 after a reverse stock split became effective. Mediobanca also went against the market, adding 90 lire to close at 8,815.
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