By Johann M Cherian, Utkarsh Hathi and Ragini Mathur<\/p>\n
June 8 (Reuters) – Europe’s STOXX 600 share index closed subdued but above session lows on Monday, as oil prices pared earlier gains following signs of a \u200cpause in attacks between Iran and Israel, while Italian lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena jumped after \u200ca takeover bid from rival Intesa Sanpaolo.<\/p>\n
The pan-European STOXX 600 index ended 0.2% lower at 621.73 points, after hitting a two-week low earlier \u200bin the session.<\/p>\n
Crude prices had climbed as much as 5% after renewed Israeli strikes on Iran and attacks on Lebanon dampened hopes for a quick end to the conflict. But gains later narrowed to about 1% after U.S. President Donald Trump urged the two sides to “stop shooting”, and the announcement of a halt in attacks by Iran’s military helped steady sentiment.<\/p>\n
Italy’s banking \u200csector was the main corporate focus.<\/p>\n
Monte dei \u2060Paschi di Siena (MPS) gained 13% after Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s biggest banking group, announced a \u20ac30.6 billion ($35 billion) unsolicited cash-and-share bid to buy the lender, in what could be one of Italy’s \u2060biggest banking deals. Intesa slipped 1.4%.<\/p>\n
“We would see the deal as positive for Intesa Sanpaolo in the longer term but see substantial uncertainty regarding execution,” said Suvi Platerink Kosonen, senior sector strategist at ING Bank.<\/p>\n
Banco BPM has already proposed a merger with \u200bMPS, \u200baimed at creating Italy’s second-largest domestic operator. Banco BPM shares were \u200bmarginally higher.<\/p>\n
Kosonen said a BPM\u2013MPS merger would leave \u200cItaly with three larger domestic banks, which would appeal to policymakers, while Intesa\u2019s alternative could create a more diverse landscape with smaller players.<\/p>\n
TECH REBOUNDS, ECB DECISION IN VIEW<\/p>\n
Technology stocks also supported the broader market as U.S. tech names rebounded from a sharp selloff late last week.<\/p>\n
In Europe, the technology subindex was the day’s strongest performer, rising 1.3%.<\/p>\n
Investors are now focused on Thursday’s European Central Bank policy decision, with markets pricing in a 25-basis-point rate hike as the Iran \u200cconflict threatens to intensify Europe’s energy crunch and revive inflation concerns.<\/p>\n
But \u200bwith the euro zone economy weaker than during the 2022 energy \u200bcrisis, the ECB faces a difficult trade-off between curbing \u200bprice pressures and avoiding a deeper economic slowdown.<\/p>\n
“The reflation trade, when growth picks up alongside \u200cinflation, is generally positive for stocks. However, stagflation, \u200bwhich the Eurozone is facing, \u200bgenerally leads to a worse outcome for markets,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Johann M Cherian, Utkarsh Hathi and Ragini Mathur June 8 (Reuters) – Europe’s STOXX 600 share index…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,63,85,208854,87,46,223480,6807,18195,223481],"class_list":["post-482591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-europe","tag-il","tag-intesa-sanpaolo","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-monte-dei-paschi-di-siena","tag-oil-prices","tag-stoxx-600","tag-suvi-platerink-kosonen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}