Italy: FTSE MIB Rises Ahead of ECB Decision.

The FTSE MIB rose to around 52,000 on Thursday, recouping losses from the previous session, as markets focused on the ECB’s monetary policy decision later in the day. The central bank is widely expected to raise rates by 25bps, with attention turning to ECB President Christine Lagarde’s guidance on the policy outlook. Markets will particularly watch for signals on whether further rate hikes may be warranted as rising oil prices add to inflationary pressures. Utility stocks outperformed as European gas prices remained around a three-year high. Snam rose nearly 2%, while its peers Enel, Italgas, Terna, A2A and Hera rose between 0.2% and 1.3%. Financial stocks were also mostly in the green, including UniCredit (+0.6%), Intesa Sanpaolo (+0.9%), Unipol Gruppo (+0.6%), Banca Mediolanum (+0.7%), and MPS (+0.9%).