Markets

Naturgy Australia

Naturgy Increases Its Current Presence In Australia By More Than 50% With Two New Contracts

Naturgy signed last week with Snowy Hydro its first energy sales contract with a retailer in Australia to build a 218 MW wind farm in Victoria. Some days later, the company has increased its presence in the country with the award by the Australian Capital Territory of 107 MW wind farm and a battery energy storage system of 20 MWh. With both operations, Naturgy doubles its presence in the region, reaching a renewable capacity of near 600 MW and becoming the Top-3 independent wind energy producer.


Russian oil 777x400 1

Best Month For Commodities In Over 4 Years

In August 2020, commodities had their best monthly performance since April 2016 and second-best monthly performance in the past decade (based on the Bloomberg Commodity Total Return Index). Each major segment of commodities contributed positively to the strong performance, led by Energy (+11.2%). Natural gas was the best performer in that segment, with a 47.6% gain.



Veolia

Veolia Moves In For Suez : Win/Win

Veolia’s proposal for a timely and transformative combination with Suez could lay the foundation for accelerated growth. Analysts at BoA Global Research think stakeholder interests are aligned and that a mutually attractive deal scenario is now more likely than not. A growing ESG thematic tailwind adds to the appeal and we upgrade Veolia to Buy.


Bankia

Bankia And Caixabank Will Create The Largest Bank In Spain, Streets Ahead Of BBVA And Santander

Bankia and Caixabank have communicated that they are at a preliminary talks stage for a possible merger that would be carried out through an exchange of shares. For the time being, no agreement has been reached. The merger would create a lender with total assets of €664 Bn (according to data from Q2’20). So it would be the leading Spanish bank by volume of assets. It would combine a network of offices (including those of CaixaBank’s Portuguese subsidiary) with 6,700 branches and staff of over 51,000.



Gold

A Moment In Markets – Was It A Shift In Sentiment?

Mobeen Tahir, Associate Director, Research, WisdomTree | On Tuesday, 11 August, gold fell by over 5% and silver retreated nearly 15% prompting investors to wonder if there had been a material shift in market sentiment. Are defensive hedges no longer required? How important are gold and silver as risk sentiment improves? A glance towards the wider market, and indeed economic fundaments, can help answer these questions.


Inditex results

The Apparel Retail Sector Has A 15% Upside Potential, Partly Due To Inditex

Alphavalue Research | The industry is still a question mark: the shift to online purchases, to what extent buyers will need to see, touch and feel a product before making up ones’ mind. However with a 15% upside potential, the sector is nearly at acceptable prices. This is entirely due to Inditex (27% upside) and M&S (25% upside but best avoided). The fact that Zalando or Next do not trade wildly above their target prices may also indicate that a Buy window has opened. Time to dip a toe again. 



Repsol biofuel

Repsol Produces Airplane Biofuel For The First Time In The Spanish Market

 

Repsol produced Spain’s first batch of biojet at its Puertollano Industrial Complex, becoming the pioneering company in the manufacturing of this sustainable aviation fuel in Spain. The first batch consists of 7,000 tons of aviation fuel with a bio-component. This will prevent 440 tons of CO2 emissions from being released into the atmosphere, which is equal to 40 Madrid-Barcelona flights.