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Milano’s Hidden Gems: Italian Winners for EU Portfolios (WOLF EU)
Recorded: March 3, 2026 Duration: 1:25:49Space Recording
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, or good morning.
Good evening, wherever you're from.
Welcome back to the Wolf EU show.
I'm your host Eva, Eva Tronick, and my lovely co-host Alex.
We're just waiting for a couple more people to trickle in fashionably late.
How are you doing guys hello hello yeah
wonder where they are oh i see emilio he popped in awesome how's everybody oh yeah we're just
inviting you guys up to the stage here so i'm just sending you a little uh if you see on the
top of your screens you might see perfect yeah any other speakers
yeah i've got a few more people come here joining in i know a few people are coming late
all good uh as i say um running on italian time
we need some elevator music i i know i don't have any i'm afraid um but you might be wondering
what's all this Italian talk?
So, yeah, we're bringing it back home today, guys.
We are truly Wolf EU.
Sick and tired of the Americans.
No, I'm joking.
Basically, we're going to be covering a lot of the Italian markets and we'll be covering a different country each week as well in Europe.
And I've invited today a few bunch of Italians
from all aspects and perspectives when it comes to the market and it'd be quite interesting to
hear some of these guys experiences what they've done and anything interesting as an outlook.
Alex you want to kick it off with a few headlines maybe just get some backdrop on the Italian market.
kick it off with a few headlines maybe just get some backdrop on the Italian market.
Yeah sure so well obviously the US-Israeli operation Epic Fury entered day four and
that should or could potentially impact a few tickers like ENI, SAIP and of course, defense like Leonardo.
The theme as of 2025 for the Italian market
was financials and defense.
So the FTSE MIB total return of 2025 was up 36%.
So it was the best Italian equity year since 2019
driven by banking, M&A, premium, defense, and fiscal credibility.
As of 2026, we're up more or less 13% when we were checking the numbers.
But obviously, we are in turbulent conditions right now.
And we have a lot of things changing quite fast. Let's see what we are in turbulent conditions right now and we have a lot of things changing quite fast.
Let's see what we are year to date right now.
So year to date, we're down 2.1% on the CMIB.
So we're just tracking it live right now as it's playing out.
Back to you Eva yeah some great um you know
insights there on the actual market overall because we talk about so much about the US
time to shed some light over to the Italians and the European market for sure and of course I know
um you know trade tensions over the weekend. So Middle East wall tensions spike, obviously Brent oil 5.45% and obviously gas as well. So that should be very interesting to sort of visit the
energy sector as well. So that's obviously lifting ENI and Italgas, pressuring European bank stocks
too. We've got Italy's 2025 fiscal deficit hit a 3.1% of GDP, breaching the EU 3% ceiling of the ISTAT data.
So that's weighing in on the BTPs and the banks as well.
So, yeah, quite a few things going on.
And I would love to introduce a little bit of everyone.
We can pass the mic around.
I would love to start off with Gordenzo.Eve.
Welcome to Wolf EU.
How are you doing today?
Hi, guys.
Hello, everyone.
Good evening.
Thank you very much for having me here.
Thank you, Eva.
Thank you, Wolf, guys.
Absolutely.
Going to be excited to hear what you're doing.
And if you want to give a little bit of intro of yourself.
I know you have some incredible work as well you've done in the past.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, many things. I came mainly from the Web3 sector.
So we have seen all the past nine years.
all the past nine years.
Right now, I am working from a technical political side in Italy.
We have done a task force with Bitcoin, blockchain, and digital assets more generally.
And we try to make some stimulations to the politician side in order to uh you know uh make things more smoother um
so yes and i also i am the co-founder of naples eth we are a big italian
community and we do events every year in in naples
this is awesome love that intro fantastic we'll definitely be revisiting um a little bit
about the crypto regulations and the mica stuff as well that recently been introduced to europe so
we'll definitely come back and talk about that next up on stage i'd love for you to give yourself
an intro is uh juan emilio uh if you'd like to give yourself a little intro and yeah we'd love to hear what you've been up to
how you doing guys it's a pleasure for me it's a pleasure for me to be here
um i'm not exactly an italian uh but i'm i'm living here since like 15 years around even more
i think more i'm a trader i'm a i mean i I'm almost a full-time trader and a co-founder of Dirty Center.
It's a platform where you see the positioning on the market,
you know, like quant data and statistic so um i mean i know like i'm more like use i mean i use
i follow more the u.s market but i love uh to follow especially the the mip the FTSMIP, Milano.
I mean, as I'm living here,
obviously I need to follow the economy where I'm living.
And yeah, I mean, I think that in Italy,
I mean, it's like under the radar
because so many people see Italy only like there is a good truth here, or maybe the best one, but nobody thinks about Italy when we're speaking about investment.
And there is a lot of opportunity in Italy.
Absolutely. Fantastic intro.
I've actually seen some very interesting names and we'll definitely be covering some of these tickers today um so i'm very excited obviously um for those who are
listening and who aren't from italy and are interested in investing or diversifying in europe
the milano italia borsa index or the ftmib on your trading view if you want to look that up
is going to be your index there and there's some
fantastic names and you're right Juan yeah we can definitely look at that from technical aspect as
well as well as trading it from a different index as well because I know in the US you can buy
foreign assets under sort of the ADS category so it's direct, but it's like an indirect way of still getting some exposure there.
So fantastic there.
And next up, I would love to invite on the stage,
who's brand new to WolfEU,
is our economist and asset manager, Fabio.
I'm going to butcher this last name.
How do you pronounce your last names?
Scalic Villani. Did I do that right?
Fabio, are you there?
Ciao Fabio, are you there?
There's a mute button on your left corner if you want to
speak. The red microphone button.
Maybe some technical difficulties.
He's still on mute.
All good.
If you want to work out how to unmute,
it is a little microphone button.
If you're having issues, you can drop off.
Can you hear me now?
Yes, perfect.
I'm a novice with all this, with the technology you use.
I'm not sure if you can see me or if it's just an audio.
It's just audio only.
That's great.
Yes, I'm an economist by training.
I have a PhD from the University of Chicago.
I worked at the International Monetary Fund. I worked at the European Central most of the action on the global stage happens.
So I lived in Dubai, in Doha.
I was the chief strategist and chief economist of the Oman Investment Fund, which is a sovereign wealth fund.
I worked also as an advisor to the Libyan Investment Authority after the fall of Gaddafi and, you
know, being an Italian, I keep an eye on my home country.
So what do you want to know?
Yeah, fantastic intro there.
We'll definitely come back around and talk specifics.
I've got a few more people to intro there.
And then we'll come back to you, Fabio.
I'm very excited to definitely listen to your perspective,
especially with everything going on a bit later.
Next up I have on stage is our favorite,
who is a secret Italian who never told me.
Joe, welcome back.
Our quantitative engineer. Hi, good morning welcome back. I'm a quantitative engineer.
Hi, good morning. Yeah, I'm Italian-American. I'm born here, but entirely Italian ethically.
I love it. Awesome. Yeah, Joe's our regular here and excited to hear some stocks or even Italian names traded under UX Exchange we can have a look at too. And of course, welcome
back to the show our most
favorite uh is sandeep from leverage shares how are you doing today hello hello everybody it's
a bit strange to talk about luxury while uh bombs are raining in certain parts of the uh
of the world is even reaching as far as europe but let us keep on and persevere yes uh thank you everybody uh
italy is an interesting place uh even for us we are a european asset asset management firm one
of the largest issuers of leverage products in the lsc and euro next and italians are among our
favorite retail investors many studies show that they are the highest risk tolerance among all
european retail investors
they will take a crazy bet if they have to take a crazy bet and they'll justify it and that is
interesting again we have we have a handful of names one particular name that is pretty important
that we thought was pretty interesting we'll get into it later which is ferrari but yes i'll just uh
we kind of agree i kind of agree with juan with respect to uh how the italian market is looking
for like as we ever mentioned the she mentioned the footsie mib the footsie mib is trading at a
forward p of approximately 10.5 x which is a discount relative to the euro stocks 50 and a massive
discount compared to the s p 500 the btp bund spread has stabilized around 135 to 145 business
points which is less of a sovereign risk and more of an earnings growth story
intesa sao paulo has had the bank i'm talking about the bank isp has the had its best ever uh fiscal year fi25 luxury manufacturer
brunello cuccinelli bc reaffirmed a 10 percent growth revenue growth target for 2026 prismian
is the world's largest cable maker which is needed for electrification data centers etc
and of course you have leonardo ldo which is the core beneficiary of increased European defence spending.
Now, again, Italy is well known for its luxury names.
And considering the fact that one of the largest consumers of luxury goods, China,
has been going through multi-year difficulties in spending,
it is quite remarkable that the Italian market has been holding up so well.
Awesome intro there.
I just have to read a very quick disclaimer here for you guys and please put your mic on mute if you aren't speaking just to
eliminate some noise um yeah so nothing we share on this space is professional financial advice
it's purely for educational purposes and these guys have been invited here today to help you
learn and do some research of your own. An investor should always carefully consider a fund's objective risks, charges and expenses
before investing. A fund's prospectus and summary prospectus contain this information
and other information about any of that from income shares, ETPs, from leveraged shares especially,
and to obtain a fund's prospectus key information document, please visit their website at incomeshares.com.
And a funds prospectus and key information document
should always be read carefully before investing,
especially in the European Union.
As you all know, we have the KIP and all these key documents as well
from whatever fund that you choose to do your research in.
So, yeah, Alex, would you like to kick off the show today with
whatever you're looking for? Absolutely. Well, we were planning to cover a few different topics
here, everything from a little bit more macroeconomic to also some more simple things
that maybe a European would be interested in knowing about
the countries in Europe and how people are thinking about investing. And it was pretty
interesting there that Sandeep mentioned that Italian retail investors tend to be a little bit
more willing to take a risk. So I was thinking I should begin and ask Emilio and just ask him about
kind of how he sees the Italian trading climate, the community, and sort of if there's a particular
age group that seems to stand out when it comes to interest in trading.
comes to interest in trading?
Well, here in Italy, when we're talking about the Italian community,
I mean, it's not like in America or in other countries.
It's like people are more investors, you know?
You don't hear like so many traders around.
Investors, yes.
Like people's here, even when they are like 18 years old already,
they start like making something that they call pack.
It's like they are investing every month in, I mean, in an ETF or, you know,
or some kind of stocks that are like for the long run.
You know, it's like almost all my friends, when I speak about trading, they are like, you know, like they are more like long term investor.
And the community is not that big i know some
communities but they are more like a friendly community you know um what is the other thing that about the risk yeah so um it was mentioned earlier that italian retail traders tend to be
um they are they accept a little bit more risk is that something that you have seen
amongst your peers that they accept more risk you mean when they're invested? I mean, yeah. I mean, when we're talking about risk, the situation right now is a little bit dangerous for Italy, especially as the, I mean, Italy is really heavily concentrated in banks and energy.
in banks and energy so that means that it has highly sensitive when we talk about interest rate
that is like the most famous thing right now when we talk about interest rate oil and gas price
and the credit condition so the situation right now is not like it's like in the end, when we're talking about Italy, we can say that it offers attractive valuation right now.
As Sandeep said, the dividend yield is really good,
but it's so sensitive to macro.
And every geopolitical situation is so sensitive.
But the opportunities in the end are real.
The only thing that really matters is the risk management.
Absolutely.
We always appreciate hearing from real boots on the ground.
I see that Gardencio here has his hand up.
Go ahead. Go ahead.
Let's see, maybe there is some issue with the microphone. Gordon, are you there? Gordon, you?
He's unmuted, but I think...
Yeah, we can't hear you.
No audible.
It's weird.
Perfect.
There you go.
Yep, here I am.
So, what is the question exactly?
This is the question exactly.
So we're just continuing from the conversation regarding how Italians look at risk.
How Italian traders take risk or how they act, what is their attitude towards risk?
Exactly.
What are some trends you have seen or maybe just from experience,
how is the typical Italian trader or investor?
How does he think about, does he look for smaller cap opportunities
or does he look for a little bit more stable options?
What have you seen?
But taking into account that I am, you know, I have established so-called Società di Consulenza
Finanziaria.
So it's an advisory to high network individuals and companies.
So my view is a little bit skewed. So my experience does not reflect, I would say, a sample of the Italian investor space.
Tendentially, Italians are risk averse.
So if you consider that most of the wealth of Italian household is held in real estate and bank accounts.
So like bank, you know, like a short term bank deposit.
Cash heavy?
Yeah, cash.
So why?
Because that reflects entrenched weariness vis-à-vis markets, and for good reasons, because in the past there have been scandals, in the past there have been, you know, unclear, let's put it this way, deals.
And we have a definition in Italy for the unaware investor, retail investor, which dates back to the 80s, if not earlier.
We call it the park of cows to be milked.
That's the underlying concept.
So the more adventurous, like the more sophisticated investors tend to prefer government bonds. 40, 30% of their assets, they try to invest in the stock exchange with a medium-term view
and obviously trying to stay low on the risk spectrum.
It has been changing.
There is a trend that I noticed. Younger generations are more adventurous, if you want. They are more risk takers. often at least once a year in this event that for example will take place this
weekend in in various by organized by diamond partners there you have the it's the crypto sphere.
They have also, you know, until recently,
the investor who ventured into equities tended to prefer Italian stocks because they thought they knew better.
So banks, utilities, and a few blue chips.
Now they have internalized the concept of diversification, so you have a more European,
a pan-European view with a little bit of appetite for emerging markets. The US
currently is not exactly on the radar screen for a number of reasons, not least
not the least one of them pertaining to the exchange rate. So, tendentially, Italian savers, Italian investors,
don't like foreign exchange risk.
So, this is the overall view.
You have to, once you look at the Italian market,
you must keep in mind that Italy is an asset class in itself. from the rules prevailing in countries like France, Germany, UK, or even, I don't know,
Netherlands, Belgium. Italy is a peculiar market. You need to know it in order to make rational choice and to ride the waves of boom and bust.
And it's an economy plugged in, very heavily plugged in,
the European context and in the global context,
because what really keeps Italy going is the export sector.
Italy is one of the top exporters in the world.
It exports 650, roughly, billion euros a year.
And so that is the strength of the country. Unfortunately though these
these big exporters are rarely listed on the stock exchange so that's the
challenge that the Italian stock market does not reflect the strength or weakness of the
Italian economy.
That's very interesting.
Very interesting.
It was a lot of information there.
And I think we can try Gordensio again, because his hand is up.
Gordensio, are you with us?
Seems to be some technical difficulties with Gordensio.
If you want, you can leave and then join again,
and we can see if that solves the problem.
Perfect. I think in the meantime I also saw Juan's
hand up there too so if you want to go for it while we invite Gardenzio back.
Yeah, yeah because Fabio has been talking about how hard, I mean you need to know here.
how hard I mean you need no here yes yeah you're back sorry
we'll listen to Juan first and then we'll come back to you
um no Fabio been talking about how I mean that you need know here um how to invest in all this
stuff you need know how it works here because uh there is a lot of bureaucracy
it's not easy here like you need to know everything because you need um when you
even when you're paying tax and all this stuff it's not easy you know so it's like it makes
things harder here so usually people really go to banks and they leave their money there.
Yeah, I understand.
This is a theme we have seen in many European countries.
I can't hear you anymore.
Can you hear us now?
Is that my problem or is it a general problem?
We can hear you. We can hear you.
Hello?
One second, I'll send them a message.
Okay, let's move to Gardencio because I heard that his microphone is back on track.
Yes, yes, we are back. Hopefully, thankfully.
So a few things.
I mostly agree with what my previous speakers said about Italy.
And that's true.
That's true.
But at the same time, Italy is very competitive.
Even if the people that is holding the most of the capital is an old person
and that usually tends to be conservative and as fabio said earlier real estate is one a strong
example but right now i need to tell you something very important right now we are facing transformation, a movement of wealth between generations.
Plus, we are quite famous for creating our product with really good precision.
Mostly Leonardo, as we said earlier.
So even if there is some conservative Italian people, at the same time,
there has been an important wealth redistribution right now. Those ones sometimes have some
tendency to be more speculative. Yes, that's it. Fantastic. Now, Italy has a lot of interesting pictures that are worth keeping track of, like ENEL
is Italy's largest utility in electricity generation distribution, doing things like a bit of renewable energy across Europe, Americas, Africa.
And obviously these kind of stickers, they're interesting because of the grid investments.
And Europe obviously is lagging behind quite a lot when it comes to grid infrastructure.
It's going to be very important. We talked about that in previous episodes, just to be able to be competitive against
Russia, China, and even to just even catch up with America when it comes to, you know,
getting some sort of, yeah, just data centers and such
and so
these kind of
stickers are obviously going to be interesting
then we have
ENI which is oil
and gas
chemicals
focus
there is obviously the LNG situation and obviously tickers like that
is going to be affected about what's going on in Hormuz right now. ISP, which is Italy's
largest retail and commercial bank, strong in the wealth management sector.
Our focus there is to continue the wealth management growth part of things and maintain
capital buffers and it's continued growth in those areas.
We've got the UCG, which is Pan-European Bank with major
footprints in Germany, in Austria. And there we have focused on commerce. So, German, and then just obviously just the macro situation.
So Italy has a lot of interesting sort of sectors that can be interesting
alternatives based on what's going on with the European situation.
So I see Juan has his hand up.
Maybe Juan wants to enlighten us a little bit more about these topics.
Go ahead, Juan.
Yeah, I want to add one thing,
because before you've been talking about the potential risk
and geopolitical situation,
that in the end, like Italian, even if has,
I mean, how I say it's so sensitive to geopolitical risk,
you can really, like, use some stocks to, like,
like, to get in the, i say this like um like to protect yourself
you know like there is some stocks how you say like any okay um any is e and i um it's a really
good stock um when we're talking about this trade of Ormos, that is really critical, especially in Italy.
It's about 20% of the global supply past through it.
It makes Italy a little bit dangerous because it depends a lot of natural gas okay so after that
they couldn't Russia import okay any escalation directly impact energy price
and inflation the thing is that what really matters is more than how long it takes.
You know, like about this situation, I mean, more time this situation is going,
inflation will rise more significantly and grow could, I mean, could like slow. So there is some stocks
that I really love that they can benefit from all this situation. The one is ENI, any, it benefits from higher oil price margin and dividends are getting
better the only problem is about the volatility and obviously because the
situation with the oil Leonardo benefit indirectly from grazing defense budget
during geopolitical tension.
The only problem, it depends too much to the government.
And the other one is ENEL.
E-N-E-L.
With this situation about oil, it could face higher gas input costs.
Alto is a renewable exposure exposure reduce the vulnerability so in the end it's like
it doesn't like benefit directly but i mean it could um it could it could help you to get like
more defensive in your portfolio you know absolutely i do agree that eni eni under the
milan exchange for you guys um so they're obviously the integrated oil and gas as well as the ep and
lng trades as well um and obviously being operations in over 60 countries and more they are very strong
in africa, actually,
the Congo, Nigerian and Mozambique area and the Mediterranean, of course.
So their edge is the African Mediterranean portfolio exposure. So partially insulated from the Hormuz disruption, I'd say. And I know Fabio earlier talked about the export being Italy heavily relying on this as well.
And we have big names like, is it Prismian, P-R-Y?
They're one of the largest cable manufacturers.
In fact, they are the world's largest cable manufacturer for high voltage power cables.
So that's the subsea and underground and fiber optic as well so not just
your internet but all other things as well and they're valued at around the 25 to 30 billion
euro market cap and that basically for them that's the structural winner for every gw of the offshore
wind and grid upgrade which is what alex was kind of saying about the energy I know some of you guys mentioned the energy as well it's very interesting how the Italian market is so sensitive to the banks
obviously with that the majority of the the beta if you like for the index as well
Gordanzio I know you wanted to touch on that earlier on or did was it something else you
wanted I know you had some technical issues earlier on did you want to speak and shed some light uh on this as well
because i know that affects majoring crypto as well yes so basically from in italy from the
standpoint of the crypto and regulation micar and dlt pilot pilot regime. Basically, just recently,
there were a few ETP listed on the Euronext professional segment
that is called ETF Plus.
So basically, ETF Plus, it's a segment,
a professional segment that the Euronext Milano has.
It's basically allowing professional investors to get access on crypto for the first time.
Previously, everyone was going on centralized exchanges and someone on some decentralized exchanges. But now, for the first time, on these markets,
they have crypto, ETP, ETP.
So basically, there are a few professionals launching this,
especially Bitwise, 21Shares, Wisdom3, CoinShare,
and also BlackRock.
They have listed on on the italian stock
exchange um a bitcoin ethereum staked ethereum actually so it gives you some kind of uh more
return polka dot polygon chain link and many other and many other crypto.
So yeah, this is cool because it's like one year of work
and they finally get out with this product.
But it's not available to a retail.
It's only available to institutionals and investors.
But it is still something, you know? You know what I mean?
It's the start.
That's very interesting.
Thank you for shedding light on that.
I know we have CryptoCam as well from the UK perspective.
Does that also apply to the UK
or is that generally for all Europeans as well, this MICA?
And it's only to institutional or I guess the high net worth.
Yeah, I was going to expand a little bit more on those, the points that we just made.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant coverage.
I mean, yeah, Mica, which the markets and crypto assets is key regulation and it comes
into full effect in the middle of summer.
in the middle of summer. I believe it's at the end of Q2. So, yeah, there's a rush to bring these
I believe it's at the end of Q2.
products into not strictly retail investors' hands at the moment, but on the institutional
side for sure. What is probably one of the most fascinating things about these products that were
released in Italy on the 9th of February was that they're actually a major mix and a diverse bag of exposure.
Ethereum staking was mentioned. There's also Bitcoin and gold ETFs that have been released
on the 9th of February there. And yeah, there's a growing, I think it was, I forgot who the researcher was who did the research here.
But the crypto exposure for institutional clients is expected to rise by 23% in Italy by the end of this year. So there's a growing demand and this has grown exponentially over the last three years in Italy.
So, yeah, it's a market which is not slow to innovate. Obviously, we mentioned about
a year on from when we saw one of Italy's largest banks add exposure to Bitcoin ETF products. Now
they're obviously bringing some of those products inland and hosting their own. So it'll be
interesting to see if some of those banks want to buy up the exposure to the crypto sector via those ETF products.
But yeah, it was a nice summary.
I thought I'd just add a few different bits to that.
Awesome. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Yeah, a lot of people aren't aware of this.
And also, I know we'll definitely cover that in more depth on a UK show as well.
So I guess for a question for Fabio, actually, I know you manage a lot of
obviously high net worth clients and institutional side. Do you also see a big shift in change for
your clients as well? And are they getting more exposure? Do you also have like a framework that
people could work with as a normal regular investor as well.
Fabio?
Oh, I can't hear you.
I think we're having some technical issues.
Sometimes I lose the connection and I can't hear anything.
Ah, okay.
Yeah.
Apparently now I'm able to be back. What is the question? I didn't, I didn't fully understand it. The question is, I know you work with a lot of high net worth
clients and even institutional level. For, I guess for the regular, I would like to see the
differences if your clients are also shifting a bit more into crypto exposure, but also
for the regular investors, could you provide a framework they could possibly also work
with within the Italian market?
Honestly, the short answer is very few people show any appetite for cryptocurrencies.
Our typical client is a middle-aged man, more rarely woman, essentially in his 50s, maybe even 60s,
who want to
assure
a future,
you know,
retirement for himself,
but most importantly
his children,
because there is a lot of uncertainty
over the future future so they say
I want to make sure that my children can make me dance and so be as I said Sure. Cryptocurrencies are more, you know, the, you know, a taste for cryptocurrency
is usually displayed by younger investors. Investors, yeah.
In their late 30s, early 40 40s there are some crypto enthusiasts and
don't get me wrong it's not totally it's not a complete desert but I would say
that the if I have to make a statistics out of my experience, between 5% and 10% of investors are really interested in cryptos.
They are curious. They ask. They want to know.
They obviously ask whether the Bitcoin will go up or down.
Is it a good investment?
But when push comes to shove, they don't invest.
They tend to be very conservative.
Conservative, yeah.
No worries.
I see Cam's hand up there.
Would you like to ask some questions?
Yeah, I think he's kind of, Fabio kind of covered it in the last sentence there.
I just wanted a question to you, Fabio.
Would you say that the average, in your experience personally, would you say that the average
Italian investor is less risk-adverse?
Obviously, you're talking about the slightly middle age to later age, obviously, wanting
to secure their wealth going forward.
Yeah, risk-aversion is linked to age. The older the person, the more risk averse he is. You have to keep something in mind which gives a lens through which interpret this risk aversion a lot of these high net worth individuals are entrepreneur
so their risky investment is their
manufacturing business it's their firm so they are risk taker when it comes to their
are risk taker when it comes to their business they are risk averse when it
comes to their savings and that's normal so if you look at this attitude in how
can I say holistic fashion it makes sense they take risk in one area and reduce or keep the risk lower in the area.
That's why most people invest in government bonds, say, or keep their money into the bank account. that if you need money for your company, for your firm,
the bank will lend you against government bonds collateral.
So that is also linked to the, how do I say,
buffer, liquidity buffer that they build to run their business I'm not sure if you if
it's clear but if you want I can be more yeah I can be more like yeah tell me
they use they use that to lower the interest rate, right? They use their personal savings in case of emergency in their family business, let's say.
So if you go to a bank and ask for a loan backed by equity investments, they say no.
equity investment they say no if you ask for a loan giving as collateral your
government bonds holdings they say yes in a nutshell so that's why they keep
to mostly safest assets.
Awesome.
Good insights there.
And I'm sure we can definitely revisit that as well
on another time there.
Sandeep, I would love to come back to you
as I know you wanted to shed some light
on some specific names you're interested in as well.
I'd be curious to know what they are.
Well, for some time now, we have been very interested in Ferrari,
which is basically a Veblen good.
It's refined as a Veblen good, VE, B, L, E, M good.
It's a type of luxury item for which demand increases as the price increases.
And Ferrari has done that very, very well.
It's basically the epicenter of the kind of luxury goods that Italy sort of contends against France for in other areas.
But at least in the area of automobiles, Ferrari has a lot of pull here.
but at least in the area of automobiles ferrari has a lot of pull here now again i will preface
this by saying that ferrari has not done very well in the year to date that's primarily because
there is a little bit of a very sentiment on luxury spending but it bears remembering that
ferrari is still going strong it has a very strong order book lasting for the next 10 years.
And most of the buyers are pretty much, how do you put it, immune from any notion of a price increase.
It maintains its EBITDA margins north of 38%.
It justifies its premium valuation at 45x per PE.
It justifies its premium valuation at 45X per PE.
So it has an upcoming set of EVs being launched, again, catering solely to the luxury segment.
And essentially, it doesn't really matter how many cars it manufactures.
It continues to make a lot of money on it, and it pays out a very decent dividend.
So this is a particular stock that unfortunately a lot of at least when
we create these products they kind of suffer from the trajectory of the stock underlying stock which
hasn't been very positive but again despite all that it's a pretty good company to look into
and now you already talked about prismian which was one of the i
one of one interesting stock i was looking at uh another thing to look at is campari uh
compare has just acquired curvoisier i don't know how to say this properly and uh
curvoisier beverage company and it is showing margin accretion in early data.
And they are being sort of positioned as benefiting from a premiumization rebound.
So tying into the whole idea of luxury consumption, which Italy and France are sort of fighting over.
And Italy has sort of an edge in creating value around so we already talked about Bruno Brunello Cuccinelli 10%
revenue growth as I mentioned another thing to sort of look at is probably Monte Depeci
MPS there is some early talk that this is basically a third pole of Italian banking
basically a third pole of italian banking uh and it might be reshaping the landscape alongside the
likes of bank of bpm and bper which is an interesting argument uh that is also an interesting
stock to look for and of course i mean if you're talking about banking i think we have to mention
uni credit uh it has a surplus cap it has surplus capital of what 9 billion euros so whether it
will go for mna in by looking at depressed uh european markets elsewhere maybe even germany
or maybe it will try to do domestic consolidation remains to be seen so some interesting names uh the
luxury theme is strong uh surplus capital as again uh like i said uh like i shared in the
via an article that i shared in the comments here while the younger generation is looking
more and more less and less risk averse i'm sorry i was about to say more and more risk
from which is not the same thing as less discovers uh but accrued capital the the traditional model of a crude accruing capital
and building value waiting to pounce on opportunistic buys or long term or that will lead to
long-term strategy strategical alignment seems to be going strong anyways which is a little
bit of a positive signal for select names in the Italian market.
Fantastic names there as an overall coverage.
I saw Gardenzio's hand up there. Did you want to add on to that?
No, just a few things. I'll need to go in a few minutes.
No worries.
But I agree with Sandeep, absolutely.
Well, generally speaking,
the armamentary arms and airplanes from Italy's sector will continue to go,
unfortunately,
because we are not in a geopolitical good position.
Secondly, from what I can see
from the startup point also, there is something
that is moving in Italy and there are a few startups that are working into the tokenization
direction, everything that regards the financial sector, mostly the fintech one, from stable
coins to stocks and whatever.
So there are also some good startups in Italy.
I must recommend to have a look because we know very well that the blockchain and Web3
will be the core center for the next, I don't know, maybe forever.
Anyway, it's something really important
that will shape the economy and the capitalism
itself in the next years. So I suggest you to keep an eye. And yeah, this is most of it.
And thank you very much for having me, everyone. Thank you.
Thank you for your insight. It's very interesting.
And yeah, the whole crypto story in Europe is obviously one to track this year.
Looking here, yeah, Ferrari is looking, yeah, it's down a bit, but it's looking quite, it didn't get as affected by the situation currently,
let's put it that way.
So it's going to be an interesting one to track.
Obviously, Leonardo is moving higher here slowly on the news.
It's going to be interesting to track that as well.
Let's see here.
I think Cam had his hand up earlier,
or maybe it was just me who saw something.
I got my question out there, so we're all good.
so we're all good uh juan has his hand up let's go
Juan has his hand up. Let's go.
no i want to add something to that italy i mean has been for like 10 15 years like
comes i mean like in a consolidation area you know like um something that i mean it was like
something that is not attractive is why also a lot investor um didn't see really italy like a
nice place to invest but after 15 years around the fib breakout and right now it's like it's out of I mean out of performance other index
so far I mean in the short term I can see a little bit pullback for some situation and
positioning that I'm seeing but for the long run I think it has a lot room. And taking in consideration some stocks are, I think, keys for a really diverse type portfolio.
Because usually people have like 90% exposure in the United States.
90% exposure in the United States, but it's not the best thing to do, especially with all this situation and geopolitical risk.
Yeah, I absolutely agree on that because I actually find some of these Italian names that we've also spoken about today, including one I've just found, TRN as well, which is more about electricity and transmission grid
as well. They're looking far healthier than some of the US market names. I'm actually very
surprised that I haven't done more research onto this. And I think I might be picking up some names
today for sure myself. I would like to invest a guest who just popped up here onto our spaces and
who are very familiar with as well from the Wolf Financial team here.
Monitif Wealth, if you're there, I would love your take on the Italian market
and maybe some exposure if you'll find interesting or anything on the radar for you.
Hey, guys. Good morning.
Good morning.
Yeah, so I have a lot of exposure outside you, as I think, to what the last commentator said.
It's really important not to put everything into just the U.S. basket, though that has been the most productive for a very long time.
But doing so, you know, you concentrate risk and you certainly give up opportunities where, you know, there is a lot of growth in places, maybe not at an index level, but certainly in specific sectors. and very strong engineering expertise that is critical even to the U.S. supply chain of many industries.
So typically how I add positions in other countries is I start with the ETF as a placeholder.
I start with the ETF as a placeholder.
And while I'm doing that, I go and look at the index components
and start researching what I'm comfortable with.
So I've had EWI position for a long time as a U.S. investor.
And I added ENI, which was my first individual stock. So I do have access to be able to buy in Milan because
I use brokers that I have permission to do that. So my oldest position in individual stock is ENI.
You know, obviously, you know, integrated oil major. I have positions in much of all the European oil majors.
So this was an easy addition.
That was my first position.
My second position was the launch of Russia's war on Ukraine.
You know, after that, I started researching defense, you know, exhaustively and I added Leonardo and Fincantieri.
These are the obviously the mega defense players in Italy.
And since we went off on this, you know, on this crazy run on data center and power, I added Prismian about a little over a year ago.
And my latest ad has been Avio, A-V-I-O, which is a rocket motor supplier now.
a rocket motor supplier now you know rocket motors uh there's a significant production uh
uh you know capacity shortage around the world especially as we are using up you know missiles
for both offense and defense and um avia which uh is part owned by leon, though they've been dropping their ownership stake recently.
So that's one I added recently.
And the one I'm looking to add is Tenaris.
Tenaris is going to be interesting.
They are, I think, the largest supplier of oil field pipelines in the world.
And the way we are going with all the destruction happening from the war, there's probably going to be a resurgence in demand.
So I'm probably going to add that this week or next week.
So that's typically what I do.
And I gave you the list of my holdings.
But yeah, I have interest in every country.
I don't care, you know, what reason, but not every country.
Every major industrial country, I find there is valuable, you know, sectors and industries that have worldwide power, right? Prismian is a great example, you know, sectors and industries that have worldwide power, right?
Prismian is a great example.
You know, whenever you need undersea cabling or utility-grade cabling,
it's world number one.
There's just no way around it.
And they have manufacturing facilities in many countries, including the U.S.,
so they do bypass sanctions in that sense so that's that's a that's
that's important and leonardo is another example of you know uh you know you can call it a prime
because they are part of almost every major you know uh large defense program even in the US. And of course, they are majority stakeholder in DRS here,
which they bought years ago, DRS Electronics.
And then when DRS acquired RADA, Leonardo spun it off as a listed company
while holding 80% stake.
So anyway, those are my thoughts on Italy.
Awesome take there.
I do have a few things that the audience did flag up.
They're saying that Leonardo might be a bit overpriced
just due to, obviously, the geopolitical headwind.
Do you see that as sort of a short-term gain
rather than a long-term gain,
or do you think they have more sustainable future plans in maintaining their growth?
Well, it is a slow-growing, you know, giant.
But you have to remember, you know, for the first time in a very long time, you know,
Europeans are taking control of their own, you know, defense spending, production,
refurbishment, you know, replenishment. And just by, you know, their own local needs,
they will spend almost the entirety of that money, with small exceptions, locally, right? So perceptions locally right so every so every one of these there's this probably you know
a dozen major uh you know defense companies defense conglomerates in europe and they will
be part of pretty much any program that that that that that europeans come up with but these guys
also have a lot of interconnections and subsidiaries so they tend to
you know they tend to participate in almost all of the defense spending programs across the world so
it might be slow growing uh it might it might be high but but you know find you know pick it up
when the they do tend to fall in price on a regular basis and then move back up.
So find a place where you're comfortable with and invest.
I mean, my cost basis is much, much lower, so I can comfortably say that, I suppose.
But I still think that the growth of European defence is barely in the second inning or third inning.
And I think there's a long way to go.
Absolutely agree on that.
And that's why we're going to be covering a different European country every week.
There's just so many to cover.
On that note, I actually would love to know, do you see other, well,
I actually would love to know, do you see any particular European countries that stick out like a sore thumb in terms of advantage over other European countries more so than others?
Or maybe perhaps Italy has a far better edge in some ways?
Well, I think Italy has a history, great industrial capability background and engineering capacity and excellent industries, right?
We've gone through a list of so many of them.
But, you know, it's not completely unique in Europe.
For me, you know, I think they all have different reasons to be, you know,
part of your portfolio. France is an interesting example, right? It's very easy to hate France
and US because they don't, you know, toe the line all the time. But that stubborn independence
has created a massive defense industry that survived through ups and downs and is now thriving, right?
Germany, of course, is just an industrial powerhouse.
Most people, you know, just look at the large car companies and that's all they see.
and that's all they see.
But there's a lot more to Germany than that.
But there's a lot more to Germany than that.
Spain, you know, recently,
is a big surprise when Indra,
how will you pronounce it?
I apologize for my pronunciation there.
You know, won a major contract with FAA
to refurbish the radar systems.
You know, I've had Indra for a while now,
and nobody talked about it.
Nobody mentioned it.
But there's properties like this
in every country in Europe,
and if you're willing to take the time
to research it,
you're going to find that
these are not just large companies, but these
are critical suppliers all around the world, including to U.S. And to ignore them is giving
up a very valuable opportunity for, you know, investing in reasonably priced companies and participating in, you know, upside while still diversifying.
So we certainly should have a space on France if you guys have not done that yet in Germany.
And then, you know, and then maybe do, you know, rest of Europe once.
Yes, we are definitely going to be doing a space.
Actually, next week we're going to be doing
the Germany space next Tuesday.
We'd love to have you join for that.
And then after that we'll be doing a French
one as well. I think lots to cover
especially on the German space
that I'd love to certainly
cover with a few other special guests
as well. Yeah, thank you so
much for covering that so a few
ticket names there obviously we covered e and i and uh teneres is ticket symbol t-e-n-10 under
the milan exchange um so obviously they're the manufacturer seamless for welded steel pipes for
the oil gas wells for casing tubing line all sorts of pipe stuff um and their edge is the global leader in premium OCTG and strong backlog
for the shale north sea and the mid east so they're obviously focusing on the higher oil
pricing and that's driving the rig count and the capex expansion in the low carbon pipes as well
so yeah explains Italy's industrial role in the in the global energy sector and security supply chain.
And I would like to, he's been a bit quiet, I'm so sorry.
We have so many guest speakers here today.
Joe, do you have any, you know, tickers that you're looking for?
Any sort of things on your radar?
You're totally good, don't worry.
I was enjoying listening to the people that
actually live there talking about it. One thing that I've looked at it before and I
never pulled the trigger and I'm glad about it is something that's very connected to Italy
I suppose is the fashion industry. And so a name like Christian Dior, a name like Ferragamo. And they really had
their moment right after COVID, right where everybody got their stimulus check and just
bought design instead of what it was supposed to be used for. But those names are actually
kind of heading back down. And they're also, it's reflecting in the fundamentals as well. It's not
just like how Ferrari is coming down right now, but it's like, okay, you could kind of,
you could see the margins are staying high. They, I'm trying to type them up.
The Ferrari's margins are staying high. Ferrari's profits and sales are staying steady,
yet the stock price is coming down okay
that's opportunity um whereas a name like Ferragamo you actually do have them just not keeping up
pace like they did in 2020 2021 around those areas turning um a net loss last year in 2024
actually excuse me in that loss in 2024 and just way way way off their highs and so that could
signify a broader theme in the uh italian markets in the foreign markets where these kind of names
like christian dior like um farragamo aren't getting the the love and the attention and
perhaps for good reason too if their profits and their growth isn't staying steady rather the names
that we were talking about before these industrial industrial names, these energy names, are really picking
back up and seeing the true love, seeing the true profits, and getting the attention that
they rather deserve. It's rotation. It's just the way that it goes. DRS, Leonardo is also,
they're shining a bit right now. In terms of the technicals, they had a nice breakout.
You do want to see the speed continue.
Pullback isn't really something that you would want to see in a chart like this.
You would want to see a more straight shot up to the 50s before any sort of consolidation.
We're not really seeing that right now.
So on the prices, Leonardo looks a little not attractive on
the on the technicals but in the overall theme of you know defense with the current situation um
and also with the european defense budget i believe 900 billion and most of it is for
intelligence kind of reconnaissance type things drs is positioned better in that scenario rather
than like you know like Lockheed
Martin making a jet or something like that they're positioned better for the intelligence but that's
um the way that I'm approaching this kind of stay stay with that energy right um prismary I've I
keep I think of you guys say it and I try to untize it and never say it. But a company like that, right, the cable providers and the energy providers,
more so than secular growth and things like that with the fashion.
Yeah, love your insights there.
So a couple of more of the luxury names then on the retail side that we haven't really covered.
I like that.
So some different diversified names
there. One that's been coming up from the
audience, actually, and I don't know too much
about it, is the... I'm going
to butcher this. I'm not Italian, but Fincantieri
FCT,
which is, I believe they build
ships and naval vessels.
If anybody would like to shed some light
on that.
I think I'm in a relatively good position to comment on Fincantieri because...
Yes, please.
No, I'm laughing because I'm the president of the local football team in Castellamare di Stabia,
where one of the major operations of Fincantieri is located.
So I'm plugged in into, let's say, the atmosphere.
No, Fincantieri is definitely a very good, one of the major luxury ship builder and it has about 10 years of portfolio orders so it's say safe back
he tried to enter the US market they were building a cruise ship in Florida, if I'm not mistaken, but it didn't go well.
So they made substantial losses on that project.
But in general, having learned the lesson, I think that they have a bright future in front of them.
Fincantieri, again, is one of the largest shipyards in Europe and beyond
and is specialized in the upscale market for cruise ships
and also for military vessels.
Wow, fantastic.
I love that.
Yeah, they seem very passionate about a great CEO from them as well.
So probably a great company for you guys to do a bit of research on.
So, yeah, they have actually apparently a 57 billion euro backlog in leader in defense as well.
So serving the Italian and U.S. Navy contracts and obviously the cruise luxury sector as well.
So fantastic names that we've covered a lot today.
I want to thank all of our incredible guests here today.
Please do give them all a follow.
They've got incredible information and posts on their accounts
and some of them do even manage a lot of the wealth there as well sandeep do you have anything
to touch on before we wrap up uh well uh i hope to see more and more italian investors of course
take a little more risk in the market and they should be a little more bullish on their own
companies stocks because the contrary Italy doesn't get a lot of conversation going on for it
because Germany and France sort of dominate the bulk of the conversation but as many people have
mentioned for example Fincry uh somebody talked about pink
country here what nobody knows is that fincan has been designing warships for the indian navy
for the last 20 years including the its aircraft carrier and and will have a part in the design
design of the next 200 warships being manufactured in India. So all these little things that
Italy does, they do add up. If Italians were a little less conservative about
the forward outlook of the stocks, they'll probably be doing very much, much
much better in the market and in the European, in the broad European market as well. By the way, a lot of the labor force in Fincantieri comes from the Indian subcontinent.
So it's really amazing. It's a very multicultural company from that point.
If I'm not mistaken, Fincantieri has a pretty large office in Western India.
taken Fincantiri as a pretty large office in Western India uh more or less everywhere they
they have major deals and major yeah so Fincantiri is a long long trusted partner in fact Leonardo
designed some of uh many of the guns on Indian warships are designed by Leonardo and manufactured
locally and then improved upon locally so
italy has a lot of edges here but you know the market is relatively muted compared to the broader
european market which is which is interesting odd
love that thank you so much guys for that today so i think we're going to have to leave it here
i'm afraid it's been such an honor
to have all of you guys and your expertise and we'll definitely revisit italy again in the future
as well on a future show um so next week we'll definitely be covering more of the german market
so we can have a look at how that um definitely you know pertains to how italy works as well um on thursday we're actually going to take a
different uh dive into the market where we're going to look at wealth fund management like a
paid you know professional actual fund manager versus a self and do-it-yourself investor so what
the differences are i know there's been a lot of spec you been a lot of talk of not professional financial advice,
but next Thursday, we actually are going to bring some professional certified financial advisors.
And we want to take a different look as to how retail investors can, you know, is it going to be paid investment or not?
How can you outperform, right?
So it's always a question where retailers are like,
I'm not sure if I should pay for a financial advisor
or not. So we want to have that take on.
Alex, are you still there with us?
Oh, Fabio, I think your
mic is on.
No, I'm here.
No worries there.
Juan, did you want to touch on anything
last minute here before we wrap up? You're talking to me? No, there. Juan, did you want to touch on anything last minute here before we wrap up?
You're talking to me?
No, Juan.
Okay, then I leave because I need to go into another call, okay?
No problem, Fabio. Thank you so much.
All the best. Take care.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Yeah, sorry, Juan. Yes, I can hear you now. Thank you, bye bye. Can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you now.
Can you tell me that question again? Are you here?
Oh, I was just asking if you wanted to touch on anything else before we wrap up here.
um no i saw some tickers on the comment section uh post italiana is like a
a really um defensive value stock and has really attractive dividend um
it's a problem but when we're talking about dividend that I mean, when you're taking one dividend in stocks because you want stability.
So the good thing is that the government owns a really big stake on this.
So it makes that company a little bit more stable.
The only problem is that it's not like one stock that you can expect like high returns but when
we talk about dividends it's really i think it's a really good company and what fabio say before
that some people are like um going to the banks or like trying to be conservative some people's really a lot of people's they put their
money on post italiana a lot of them because uh post italiana is like um it's like a saving um
it's i mean they give like a financial save saving like a service, like including poster saving,
insurance, payment system.
Like they have a lot of things, you know.
Yeah, so it's more of a safe haven for them.
And it's like a steady growth, nothing crazy, you know, not like tech or anything.
They paid a decent dividend for the long term relative to what this
traded at right now around the 21.89
euro here that's ticker symbol pstm there for you guys and i think alex is having a bit of a
technical issue there but just to wrap up basically so we've talked a lot about the names
the euro stealth outperformer so that's the footsie mib 22 year-on-year moody's upgrading that and record
low unemployment but not without risk so today's context is basically homo's crisis is a live test
of the energy dependent for the italian economy short-term headwinds to banks utilities tailwind
and of course names we've mentioned to eni leonardo um and race g tick symbol g psd as the posto italiana um we have so
many names there trn srg so fantastic spread of names that you guys can have a look at um for your
research and yeah i think that's about it from us. Sandeep, do you have anything, last remarks from us?
Not much, guys.
I mean, like I said before, Italy is a bit of a sleeper hit in the European continent.
Among the universal stocks, it has a couple of interesting standouts that might do well as the year progresses particularly in the electrification space and financials so look forward to those awesome so i posted here in the nest here uh sandeep's article and if you guys
are obviously overwhelmed with so many tickers and you're like oh what were the names you guys
mentioned please do retweet this space and you can come back and listen to some of the names and do your
research and we'd love to have you guys back on on thursday apart from that i want to give all
the speakers here an incredible thank you or grazie mille as they say in italian and I want to say thank you for coming today and
tuning in. Fantastic show as always
guys and your time
and have a great day guys
Thank you so much
Arrivederci
Arrivederci
as they say
