Morning News

Enel to Increase Spending, Shareholder Returns Under 2028 Plan

By Nadine PEREIRA
Published on Tue, 24.Feb.2026

Topic of the day

Enel said it would increase spending across its business and target higher shareholder returns under a new three-year strategic plan. The Rome-based energy company set out its goals through 2028, including plans to increase gross total capital expenditure to around 53 billion euros ($62.45 billion). This marks a roughly 10 billion-euro increase on the previous three-year strategic plan that ran to the end of 2027. Enel plans to spend more than 26 billion euros in its integrated business—with the majority being invested across Europe and North America. It also sees more than 26 billion euros spent across its grids unit. Enel expects earnings per share to grow to between 0.80 euros and 0.82 euros by the end of 2028. This compares with around 0.69 euros it expects to report for 2025. Its dividend per share is expected to increase by around 6% on a compound annual growth rate to 2028, from 0.49 euros planned for 2025.

Swiss stocks

The Swiss stock market closed slightly higher on Monday evening, but only just. The return of trade uncertainty following Friday's decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn some of the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump prompted investors to exercise caution. On the Swiss stock market, the SMI ended the session up slightly by 0.08% at 13,871.06 points, with a high of 13,883.82 and a low of 13,826.71. The SLI fell 0.51% to 2,189.42 points and the SPI dropped 0.24% to 19,051.52 points. Of the 30 leading stocks, eight rose, 21 fell and one ended unchanged (Schindler). The day's top performers were Swisscom (+1.8%), Zurich Insurance (+1.3%) and Novartis (+1.2%). Richemont (+0.8%) came in last. The other two heavyweights on the index, Roche (+0.7%) and Nestlé (+0.6%), also added to their gains. Alcon (-0.8%), on the other hand, ended the day in the red. The ophthalmic medical device specialist is due to publish its 2025 results on Tuesday evening. Straumann (-2.6%), Lonza (-2.9%) and Galderma (-3.6%) were at the bottom of the rankings. Partners Group (-8.4%) finished last. The investment manager plans to open an office in Kuwait, thereby expanding its presence in the Gulf region.

International markets

Europe
The major European stock markets spent much of Monday bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line, but they all managed to finish a choppy trading day under water. Germany's DAX dropped 268.72 points or 1.06 percent to finish at 24,991.97, while the FTSE in London dipped 2.15 points or 0.02 percent to close at 10,684.74 and the CAC 40 in France slumped 18.32 points or 0.22 percent to end at 8,497.17. Airbus plunged 3.43 percent, while Volkswagen stumbled 2.54 percent, Bayer retreated 2.01 percent, Deutsche Telekom jumped 1.62 percent, Infineon Technologies rallied 1.53 percent, Deutsche Bank slumped 1.21 percent, Deutsche Post sank 0.90 percent, Vonovia added 0.33 percent and Deutsche Borse fell 0.09 percent. In London, ICG plummeted 4.95 percent, while Entain tanked 3.13 percent, Compass Group tumbled 2.62 percent, Centrica spiked 2.31 percent, Rightmove declined 1.99 percent, Scottish Mortgage dropped 1.95 percent, Tesco improved 0.89 percent, Vodafone added 0.61 percent and Rolls-Royce dipped 0.22 percent. In France, Atos plummeted 8.77 percent, Carrefour surged 3.63 percent, Airbus stumbled 3.48 percent, Worldline soared 3.19 percent, Sanofi jumped 1.48 percent, BNP Paribas climbed 1.18 percent, Societe Generale collected 0.89 percent and Vivendi rose 0.50 percent. In economic news, German business confidence hit a six-month high in February on improving assessment about current situation and upbeat outlook, the Munich-based ifo Institute reported on Monday. The business climate index rose more than expected to 88.6 in February from 87.6 in the previous month to its highest since August. Poland's retail sales growth moderated in January after accelerating in the previous month, Statistics Poland said on Monday. Retail sales rose 4.4 percent annually in January, slower than the 5.3 percent increase in December. The expected growth was 3.1 percent. Sales have been rising since April 2025.

United States
After turning in a strong performance last week, stocks moved sharply lower during trading on Monday. The major averages all showed significant moves to the downside, with the Dow tumbling to its lowest closing level in a month. The major averages ended the day off their lows of the session but still firmly negative. The Dow slumped 821.91 points or 1.7 percent to 48,804.06, the Nasdaq slid 258.80 points or 1.1 percent to 22,627.27 and the S&P 500 declined 71.76 points or 1.0 percent to 6,837.75. The sell-off on Wall Street came amid renewed trade uncertainty following the Supreme Court's decision last Friday striking down most of President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs. Trump announced in a post on Truth Social on Saturday that he would be raising worldwide tariffs to the 'fully allowed' and 'legally tested' 15 percent level from the 10 percent he announced shortly after the ruling.Negative sentiment was also generated in reaction to a nosedive by shares of IBM Corp. (IBM), with the tech giant plummeting by 13.2 percent. IBM came under pressure after Anthropic's Claude announced COBOL capabilities. COBOL is a programming language used widely in business data processing, which is a core business area for IBM. Financial stocks turned in some of the market's worst performances on the day, with the KBW Bank Index and the NYSE Arca Securities Broker/Dealer Index plunging by 4.4 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. Substantial weakness was also visible among software stocks, as reflected by the 3.9 percent nosedive by the Dow Jones U.S. Software Index. Airline, computer hardware and networking stocks also saw significant weakness, while gold stocks bucked the downtrend amid a sharp increase by the price of the precious metal.

Asia
Most Asian stock markets defied the harsh losses on Wall Street on Tuesday and even rose significantly in some cases. After the public holiday break, this is particularly true for the stock exchanges in Tokyo and Shanghai, which traders believe have catch-up potential. The Chinese mainland markets are opening again for the first time after the nine-day New Year holidays and are coming back stronger. It is noticeable that most markets are trending higher over the course of the day. This also applies to the Nikkei-225 in Japan, which rose by 1.0 per cent to 57,386 points after a subdued start.

Bonds
In the U.S. bond market, treasuries moved sharply higher due to their appeal as a safe haven amid the tariff uncertainty. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slumped 5.7 basis points to 4.029 percent.

Analysis
UBS lowers Valiant to Neutral (Buy) – Target CHF 168 (155)
JPMorgan raises BE Semiconductor target to EUR 204 (172) – Overweight
Berenberg lowers Capgemini target to EUR 117 (143) – Hold

Produced by MBI Martin Brückner Infosource GmbH & Co. KG on behalf of Swissquote. All news is acquired with journalistic accuracy. No liability is assumed for delays or errors.

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