Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The FTSE 100 has closed above 7,000 for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a collapse in global markets last year, driven by rising hopes for the world economy after record growth in China.
Singapore-headquartered firm offers one-stop shopstyle service, including ride hailing, banking and food delivery
South-east Asian “super app” Grab, which offers services from ride hailing and food delivery to online banking, is to float in the US in a record deal with a so-called Spac investment company that values the business at almost $40bn (£29bn).
Singapore-headquartered Grab, which intends to list on Nasdaq in the US, has struck a $39.5bn merger deal with US-based Altimeter Growth Corp. It is by far the biggest deal to date involving a special purpose acquisition company (Spac) – a so-called “blank cheque” shell company that raises money first and seeks businesses to buy later – which has become the latest trend in global finance over the last year.
E-commerce firm feels penalty by Chinese regulators means focus on company is at an end
Shares in Alibaba surged on Monday after the e-commerce company said that a record $2.8bn fine handed down by Chinese regulators marked the end of an investigation into anti-competitive practices at the company.
Top executives at the company, founded by the billionaire Jack Ma, told investors that while Chinese regulators continued a wider investigation into the sprawling conglomerates in the country’s tech industry, they believed the multibillion dollar fine announced at the weekend marked the end of the focus on Alibaba. The company is listed in Hong Kong and its shares climbed as much as 9% on the management’s comments.
When Boris Johnson announced the first stay-at-home order, effectively shutting down whole sections of the economy, it was hoped the tide could be turned within 12 weeks. As many months later, lockdown measures are being relaxed for a third time and Britain still faces a lengthy road to recovery from the worst recession for 300 years.
As restrictions ease, the chief economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, warned that despite the reopening of the economy, the risk of a “jobs equivalent of long Covid” remains for workers across the country.
The Securities Exchange Commission is said to have requested further information from major US banks Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, as well as Japan’s Nomura and Swiss lender Credit Suisse about a meeting with Archegos founder Bill Hwang on Thursday.
Financial regulators across the world are monitoring the collapse of the New York-based billionaire Bill Hwang’s personal hedge fund.
The sudden liquidation of Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets that has left some of the world’s biggest investment banks nursing billions of dollars of losses.
The arrival of Covid-19 vaccines promises a return to more normal life – and has created a global market worth tens of billions of dollars in annual sales for some pharmaceutical companies.
Among the biggest winners will be Moderna and Pfizer – two very different US pharma firms which are both charging more than $30 per person for the protection of their two-dose vaccines. While Moderna was founded just 11 years ago, has never made a profit and employed just 830 staff pre-pandemic, Pfizer traces its roots back to 1849, made a net profit of $9.6bn last year and employs nearly 80,000 staff.
Decline wipes billions off Elon Musk’s fortune as investors fear firm is vastly overvalued
A sharp decline in Tesla’s share price has wiped more than $250bn (£193bn) off the value of the electric car company, and dragged down the value of an Edinburgh-based investment fund that is one of Tesla’s biggest backers.
The shares dropped by 7.5% in early trading in the US on Friday to $575 – setting them on course to close down 16% this week and 35% below their record peak of $883 on 26 January.
UK FTSE was down 2.5%, its biggest one-day fall in percentage terms since the end of October
Global stock markets ended February deep in the red, as fears of higher inflation prompted a sell-off in government bonds and spread anxiety across financial markets.
The UK’s FTSE 100 index fell 168 points to 6,483, a 2.5% drop – the biggest one-day fall in percentage terms since the end of October.
Investors are puzzled about why the stock favoured by home-based investors soared by 104%, and then 85% after hours
GameStop shares more than doubled in afternoon trading on Wednesday, surprising those who thought the video game retailer’s stock price would stabilise after a fierce rally and steep dive that upended Wall Street in January.
The shares soared nearly 104% during the session in which trading was halted several times, then jumped another 85% after hours.
Back to bitcoin... and a senior US central banker has insisted that the cryptocurrency doesn’t present a serious threat to the US dollar’s position.
St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard told CNBC that the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency was safe:
“I just think for Fed policy, it’s going to be a dollar economy as far as the eye can see — a dollar global economy really as far as the eye can see — and whether the gold price goes up or down, or the bitcoin price goes up or down, doesn’t really affect that.
“You don’t want to go to a non-uniform currency where you’re walking into Starbucks and maybe you’ll pay with Ethereum, maybe you’ll pay with Ripple, maybe you’ll pay with bitcoin, maybe you’ll pay with a dollar. That isn’t how we do this. We have a uniform currency that came in at the Civil War time.”
Bitcoin poses no threat to the dollar as the world's currency leader, Fed's Bullard says https://t.co/vc0gwcXYd4
It’s also been an exciting day for Italian government bonds.
Rome sold debt at near record-low interest rates today, as investors flocked to the first bond auction since former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi became prime minister.
Rome is set to raise a total of €14bn ($17bn) from the sale of a 10-year nominal bond and a 30-year inflation-linked note, one of the banks managing the issue said, adding demand had totalled more than €82bn.
The final size of the order book is well below the record €134bn in demand the two bonds had initially attracted, with many investors dropping out after Italy cut the return on the issues.
Draghi sells! #Italy attracted >€110bn of investor bids for a new 10y bond it’s offering in a publicly-syndicated sale which is the first since Mario Draghi took over as PM. (via BBG) pic.twitter.com/j7s1YfM5oT
FTSE 100 posts biggest daily gain for over a month as investors buoyed up by vaccine and US economy hopes
The pound has hit its highest level against the dollar for almost three years as global markets were buoyed up by hopes for a faster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Sterling rose by 0.5% to hit a 33-month high against the dollar on Monday, trading above $1.39 on the global currency markets for the first time since 2018, while also rising to a nine-month high against the euro of almost €1.15.
The struggling Texas-based video game store chain has been the focal point of a battle by small traders, using forums such as Reddit, to punish Wall Street hedge funds that have bet on certain stocks falling in value. GameStop shares hit a high of $482 last Thursday but slumped to $80 shortly after the market opened. They recovered to $117 by mid-session, but closed down 60% at $90.
Neil Wilson of Markets.com suggests that large investors may also be driving the silver price rally, rather than it simply being caused by retail traders.
He also warns that such speculation is risky, and usually ends badly for some of those who get caught up:
The fact that such a large and liquid market as silver can be targeted by retail investors says much about the shift we are witnessing, though despite appearances this morning it’s going to a lot harder to squeeze silver shorts as the market is so much deeper and more liquid.
We should also note that some bigger smart money may have be front-running this trade to piggyback the rally and further fuelling the move up. (George Soros: “When I see a bubble forming, I rush in to buy, adding fuel to the fire.”)
Allianz’s Mohamed El-Erian has tweeted that GameStop and silver are not the same kind of short squeeze trade (as some WallStreetBets posts have also been pointing out).
El-Erian also cautions that the silver squeeze could undermine the squeeze on hedge funds who shorted GameStop’s shares, as the GME trade depends on keeping retail investors on board (rather than selling to the hedge funds).
.#GameStop and #silver are not the same for those pursuing the short squeeze trade The silver market is much larger; Existing shorts are smaller; Some of the #HedgeFunds that are short #GME are said to be long silver Bottom line: A dissimilar trade that eats away at #GME gains https://t.co/TMfpkr7QDE
The dramatic struggle over video game chain’s shares suggests markets must now contend with a breed of angry, young, networked investors
When Ben, 28, a software engineer from Leeds, bought two shares in US games retailer GameStop for £460, it was for one reason, he says: “When they make the film about this in years to come, I’ll know I was there at the frontline with a bunch of idiots on the internet, trying to bring down Wall Street.”
For Emma Rivers from East Sussex, who invested £1,400 in the same company – having known little about it a few weeks ago – it has all been about sending a message that capitalism has had its day.
App helping to fuel share-buying frenzy allows ‘limited buys’ after a $1bn cash injection to safeguard trades
Shares in companies including videogame retailer GameStop soared again on Friday, as an army of small investors taking aim at Wall Street regained access to amateur share trading platform Robinhood.
The app, weaponised by activist small investors to trap hedge funds in a “short squeeze” that has cost them $20bn on paper by some estimates, had suspended buying of stocks such as GameStop, cinema chain AMC and BlackBerry on Thursday.
Facebook says group, which has 157,000 members, was taken down for allegedly violating policies unrelated to stock price surges
Facebook has taken down the popular Wall Street discussion group, Robinhood Stock Traders, in a move that its founder described as backlash for conversations buoying shares of GameStop Corp and other companies this week.
GameStop, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc and BlackBerry have been at the centre of a market battle as individual investors coordinating on social media including Reddit, and using trading apps such as Robinhood, bought shares and squeezed hedge funds that had bet that those struggling companies would tank.
Small investors mounting an assault on Wall Street speculators suffered a setback on Thursday as trading platforms banned them from buying more shares in GameStop, spawning conspiracy theories, political intervention and at least one lawsuit.
Amateur trading app Robinhood stopped users from investing any further in GameStop – a US chain of video games stores – and seven other companies on Thursday, after an extraordinary rise in their value, spurred by users of the chat forum website Reddit, that cost some hedge funds billions of dollars.
The White House has said it is “monitoring” the extraordinary surge in the share price of ailing video games retailer GameStop and other companies amid a surge of bets by small investors discussing their investments online.
Wednesday’s announcement by the press secretary, Jen Psaki, came as the Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission said they were “aware of and actively monitoring the ongoing market volatility in the options and equities markets”.
International Monetary Fund says there are concerns about share price bubble
Governments and central banks must maintain their pandemic rescue programmes or risk triggering a stock market crash, the International Monetary Fund has said.
Warning that there were legitimate concerns about a share price bubble, the Washington-based organisation said that without continued low interest rates and government subsidies it was possible a “correction” in stock markets would occur.