Also in 2024 Piazza Affari is a candidate for the podium of the best stock markets at the European level, placing third in performance behind the Madrid stock exchange and, surprisingly, the German market, which marches expeditiously to the top step.The snapshot as of today, when there are about ten sessions left until the end of the year with trading that will be increasingly reduced due to the arrival of the Christmas holidays, sees the Dax up 21.5 percent since the beginning of the year, followed by the Ibex with +17.2 percent, according to Lseg data.

In third position, the Ftse Mib index sees a jump of 14.3 percent, heeled in fourth by the Netherlands' Aex at +14 percent. In the red, however, France's Cac-40, with a negative performance of around 1.5 percent.

The performance of the Milanese bluechips is certainly not comparable to the +28% marked in 2023, when Piazza Affari was the best market at the European level. However, the stock exchanges were coming from the dark period of Covid, and therefore the rebounds of the most penalized stocks were greater last year. "The performance of the Dax is somewhat against the trend if we look at the difficult and complicated macroeconomic and political situation in the country. However, the outperformance is essentially due to one stock: Sap, which has gained 72 percent since the beginning of the year, thanks to the ongoing digitization trend. If we were to exclude this stock, the Dax would underperform the European market," points out, Chiara Robba, head of LDI Equity at Generali Asset Management.Adjusted for this effect, the Spanish Ibex would emerge as the best market at the European level, which has been growing since the beginning of the year in line with that of the S&P 500 Equal Weight.

Driving the Spanish market is the performance of the Iberian economy but also the sector composition of the index composed of 30 percent banking stocks compared to 9 percent for the European STOXX 600 index.

"And since the banking sector is one of the best since the beginning of the year, this exposure has favored the Spanish market," Robba notes.The growth of the Italian market is also linked in particular to the strong exposure on the banking sector, which weighs 30 percent on the Ftse Mib index, thanks to movements related to M&A dynamics.

This is followed by insurance, which impacts 14 percent, and utilities. The latter sector in particular, the operations rooms point out, is perceived as a "domestic" sector, thus sheltered from geopolitical turmoil and macroeconomic trends in a context of loosening monetary policies.Moreover, Robba further points out, "if we look at multiples, the Italian market trades at nine times 2025 forward earnings and is the least expensive compared to other indexes and also compared to the historical multiple, which was 13.5 times. "The dividend yield of the 40 stocks in the Ftse Mib is also attractive in a context of decreasing rates, standing at around 6 percent.

Finally, of note is the negative performance of France's Cac-40, whose downward slope began with French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to dissolve Parliament in June, then aggravated by the negative performance of the luxury and durable goods sectors, which have experienced strong negative pressure on sales and margins as a result of China's slowdown.

(Graphic by Andrea Mandalà) editing Gianluca Semeraro)