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Let's take a look at some stocks on the move today in Europe. I'm Stephen Carroll with Valery title, and we're joined by Bloomberger Porter Chloy, Male Chloy. Good morning. Let's start with a sector then that's been booming recently, precious metals, a jump for Fresnillo. Talk us through what's happening.
Yeah, well, so Frasnillo is a silver and gold miner and it's a really good time to be here. Yeah. Absolutely, it's a really good time at the moment to be mining those two a particular metals. So as silver recently hit an all time peak of eighty four dollars an ounce, So this might not mean much for those of us who do not operate mines, but for context, it was twenty eight dollars anounced back in January. So it's a
massive jump. And as Valerie was mentioning, silver did for today with traders taking profits, there's been quite a lot of volatility, but it's still an incredible run for the metal and gold has also been on a pretty amazing run, with that kind of rush to gold being one of the biggest trades that we saw in twenty twenty five. And this massive rally for precious metals really has several factors.
We've got investors going to those safe havens because of rising geopolitical tensions, and we also have lower boring costs which are a big boost for commodities. And I could continue in twenty twenty six because traders are betting on more rate cuts for next year, and for silver in particular. Unlike gold, it also has some real world applications, so it is being used in solar panels, in AI data centers,
in electronics. So there's perhaps even more room to run for silver and for gold as well, and that will be good for fresnature. As you said, it's a really good, really good business to be in at the moment.
So the miners are having a good day. What it's not having a good day. It seems to be like European defense sector.
Ryan Mattawell is on the back foot again after these peace talks in Florida. Yeah, absolutely so, Ryan mattauld Down also Nardosa, bensold All of those defense names are down
at this morning. So it's the same as we've seen over the last few weeks with investors kind of responding to those developments in those Ukraine peace talks, and so what has triggered that weakness today was Trump saying yesterday that he had made a lot of progress in the talks with Zelensky over that potential peace deal, and Zelenski
saying that the peace framework was ninety percent agreed. It's important to note that there has been no major breakthrough, and there still remains a few sticking points, including what is going to happen to the Donbas region, which is currently being partially occupied by Russian forces. So we are not that much closer to getting a ceasefire. But the fact that Trump and Zelenski are both kind of striking the really optimistic tone is sending those defense stocks down.
As is usual when we've got kind of talks about peace progressing.
Okay, and turning to a company, we don't talk about it very often. International Personal Finance IPF involved in a bi tell us more.
Yeah, so M and A doesn't really stop for Christmas. So we had some bankers working over the last week the US based direct a landing company, base Point Capital has announced that it is acquiring IPF this morning. So IPF is a consumer loan provider and it operates primarily in Eastern Europe and in Mexico. And the deal is valuing the company at four hundred no sorry five one hundred and forty three million pounds. So this follows a
courtship over the last few months. We had an initial approach in July, another in September, and then in November a base Point added a dividend payment to its proposal and so that seemed to have sweetened the deal enough that IPF accepted and investors seem quite happy with the IPF's future as part of base Point, and we have got those shares up quite strongly this morning on the back of that late December m.
Anda the Stock Mover's Report from Bloomberg Radio. Check back with us throughout the day for the latest roundup of companies making news on Wall Street and for the latest market moving headlines. Listen to Bloomberg Radio Live, catch us on YouTube, Bloomberg dot com, and on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.