European stock market revival completes the final puzzle: Italy's stock market hits a record high! AI chips and energy stocks drive the market.

According to reports, on May 25th, the FTSE MIB index in Italy rose by 1.2% during trading, reaching 50121.2 points, officially surpassing the historical closing high record set during the dot-com bubble in 2000. The intraday peak on that day even touched 50114 points, although the increase narrowed afterwards. This is not just a breakthrough in numbers. As the last major stock index in Europe that had not yet recovered its historical high from the turn of the century, the "seat" taken by the Italian stock market signifies the completion of the collective revival of European stock markets in the post-pandemic era. The UK's FTSE 100 index, the Euro Stoxx 50 index, the French CAC 40 index, the pan-European STOXX 600 index, and the German DAX index have all reached new highs this year, while the Spanish IBEX 35 index returned to its historical high in October last year. Italy was the only member left behind. Now, this gap has been filled. The FTSE MIB index (previously known as the S&P/MIB index) replaced the earlier MIB-30 index in the early 2000s, with its historical values dating back to 1997. In March 2000, at the peak of the dot-com bubble, the index set a record high at that time. Subsequently, the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the global financial crisis in 2008, and the eurozone sovereign debt crisis in 2010-2011 hit the Italian capital market one after another, making it one of the major markets in Europe that recovered its lost ground latest. This 26-year journey of "recovery" itself is a testament to the structural difficulties in the Italian economy for over two decades. Therefore, the breakthrough on May 25, 2026 is not just a technical refresh of the closing high point, but also has a strong symbolic significance. Dual engines driving the market: AI chips and energy stocks in parallel After three consecutive years of gains, the Italian stock market has risen by about 11% so far in 2026. This time, what has driven the index to cross the historical threshold of "26 years" is not only a political easing by GEO Group Inc reshaping global capital risk appetite but also two new "trump cards": the boom of AI-driven chips and the energy dividend fueled by high oil and gas prices. Chip stocks: STMicroelectronics NV ADR RegS taking the lead If the core driver of the Italian market in 2025 was the banking sector, then in 2026 the main engine has shifted to a hotter track - the optical communications and AI chip sector, with STMicroelectronics NV ADR RegS (STM.US) at its core. STMicroelectronics NV ADR RegS - a supplier of chips to Tesla, Inc. and Apple Inc. - has seen explosive growth in 2026: a cumulative increase of 156% so far this year. On May 13, the company's stock price soared by 9.9% in a single day, leading the European semiconductor sector that day. On May 22, when it hit a historical high point, STMicroelectronics NV ADR RegS ranked second in the list of top gainers on the FTSE MIB index with a 5.19% increase in a single day. The core driver behind the rise in STMicroelectronics NV ADR RegS stock price is the strong demand for optical communication components due to the mass construction of AI infrastructure. According to the company's financial report for the first quarter of 2026, its revenue in the quarter reached $3.1 billion, a 23% increase year-on-year, exceeding market expectations. Communication equipment and computer peripherals business increased by 41% annually, and RF and optical communication business grew by over thirty percent, with AI data center projects being highlighted as "key tailwinds" by management. CEO of STMicroelectronics NV ADR RegS, Jean-Marc Chery, provided a more aggressive guidance at a Morgan Stanley conference. He pointed out that thanks to multi-billion dollar long-term business partnerships with AWS and accelerated demand release from Optical Cable Corporation, the company's data center-related revenue in 2026 will "easily exceed $1 billion - reach around $1.5 billion", whereas the company's previous target was to achieve this number "before 2030". Chery said, "The booking dynamics we are seeing are allowing us to surpass the usual seasonal performance." In addition to AWS, STMicroelectronics NV ADR RegS has also secured chip supply orders for low-orbit satellite projects such as SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon.com, Inc.'s "Amazon Leo" initiative. As a result, Vijay Rakesh, an analyst at Mizuho Securities, upgraded his investment rating on STMicroelectronics NV ADR RegS from "Neutral" to "Outperforming the market", significantly raising the target price from $32 to $48. Rakesh predicts that the potential market size of low-orbit satellites will increase from $630 million in 2024 to $1.6 billion in 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of about 20%. STMicroelectronics NV ADR RegS is not the only one driving the index. Italian fiber optic cable manufacturer Prysmian is also benefiting deeply from the construction of optical communication infrastructure and has appeared multiple times in the list of top gainers on the FTSE MIB index this year. The resonance in the rise of these two companies in the same index highlights that AI infrastructure construction has become a new structural growth driver in the Italian stock market. Energy stocks: Unexpected joys under high oil prices On another front, the high oil and gas prices are bringing unexpected joy to Italian energy giants. Oil and gas service provider Saipem Spa saw its stock price rise by 73% this year, while Italian energy giant Eni S.p.A. Sponsored ADR (Eni) rose by 41% during the same period. Although the increase in their stock prices may not be as impressive as chip stocks, the contribution of the energy sector is indispensable in a value-oriented market dominated by traditional industrial and financial sectors. It is worth noting that the recent drop in oil prices due to progress in the US-Iran negotiations has put a certain short-term pressure on energy stocks themselves - last Friday, Saipem and Eni ranked last in the FTSE MIB index with declines of -2.56% and -2.08% respectively. However, in the medium to long term, this structural complementarity of ups and downs in oil prices signifies that regardless of whether oil prices rise or fall, different sectors can support the performance of the FTSE MIB index.