Stock exchanges are waiting for peace. Quarterly report on stock market trends (2003)

The war is penalising the stock exchanges of Germany and France, the two champion countries of pacifist thinking. The study highlights how the timid signs of recovery in the stock markets seen last autumn have been swept away by the winds of war. Focusing on the previous eight months and comparing it with July 2002, the study shows that the losses for New York, London and Milan are mainly concentrated in the last four months.  The winds of war have dragged down even those stock markets that had shown signs of recovery and have further weakened the prices of the weaker ones.

The study looks back and analyses the behaviour of the stock markets at the time of the Gulf War. To date, it can be assumed that the stock markets have followed the 1990/91 script. Thus, the Milan stock exchange, like all the world’s major stock exchanges, is suffering the effects of the global economic slowdown and the anticipation caused by the outbreak of war, similar in this respect to all the world’s stock exchanges.