The recent news of Commerzbank’s possible merger with UniCredit has been greeted with joy by investors, and this optimism is contagious to the rest of the banking sector, with an increase of more than 2% in the prices of eleven of the banking entities that make up the Stoxx 600 Banksthe Stoxx 600 sub-index, which includes the most representative continental banks, on Thursday.
The segment recorded a 1.5% revaluation as a whole, leaving it with a cumulative profit of 17% for the year. In fact, this increase managed to snatch the first position, as the most bullish European sector of the year within the benchmark index, from the healthcare segment, which had been fighting for this first place with the technology sector for weeks. These increases in the banking sector took place on the same day that the ECB made the second interest rate cut of the year (another 25 basis point move).
Italy’s Banco BPM led the session’s gains, with a rebound of around 2.7%, followed by UniCredit, another entity from the transalpine country that rebounded 2.6% during the day. Investec, AIB Group, PKO Bank Polsky, ABN Amro, CaixaBank and Commerzbank are some of the companies that recorded increases of more than 2%. The entity led by José Ignacio Goirigolzarri rose 2.8% on the day, which is the largest daily increase in the last month.
Its valuation has also improved this week, and three analyst houses that monitor its stock market performance have raised CaixaBank’s price target in recent days. Throughout the year, Sabadell leads the increases in Europe, with 64%. The Catalan entity’s shares also gained momentum when BBVA’s intention to acquire the company became known.
For its part, Commerzbank shares rose more than 18% on Wednesday when the German entity’s intention to merge with UniCredit was published after the transalpine company bought 9%, half from the German government for around 702 million euros and the other 4.5% in the market.
