iShares MSCI Italy ETF

EWI

Market cap $708M

European member states backed a free-trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc of South America, including Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Some see it as both a political statement and an economic agreement.

The economists said those losses could be recouped if eurozone members lowered barriers to trade in goods and services within the currency area.

The ECB is very unlikely to raise its key interest rate this year, with a weaker dollar among a number of potential developments keeping eurozone inflation low, Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said.

Germany's export-driven economy faces severe headwinds from US tariffs, euro appreciation, and lost access to cheap Russian energy. German trade surpluses are shrinking, with 2025 exports to the US projected down 7% and overall trade surplus far below 2024 levels.

European stocks are expected to open broadly higher on Tuesday as investors track developments following the U.S.' ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

European stocks are expected to open in broadly flat territory on Tuesday as markets continue to struggle for direction in a holiday-shortened trading week.

The Stoxx 600 notched a new record closing high, buoyed by Copenhagen-listed Novo Nordisk.

Eurozone consumer sentiment unexpectedly weakened in December despite cooling inflation and economic resilience against tariffs, a monthly indicator showed.

The iShares MSCI Italy ETF is heavily weighted to Italian financials, notably Unicredit and Intesa. EWI faces headwinds from rising IRAP taxes, latent windfall tax measures, and NIM pressure as European rates decline, impacting the net income outlook. Consolidation in Italian banking offers mixed prospects; share-based deals, corporate governance considerations, and government intervention dampen potential valuation uplift.

Inflation in the euro zone faces downside risks in the medium term, even as price growth has returned to the ECB's 2% target, European Central Bank policymaker Olli Rehn said, according to a report in a magazine on Saturday.