Musk says has found new CEO for Twitter

Disappointing quarterly results from Disney and ongoing worries over the banking sector weighed on US shares Thursday, though the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite extended its run to over 8-month highs.  In Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 Index was little changed as losses in miners were outweighed by gains in household goods firms.  On the corporate front, ING Groep reported better-than-expected profits, Deutsche Telekom increased its guidance for 2023, and ThyssenKrupp raised guidance for free cash flows, while Bayer’s earnings decreased. 

Summary for 12.05.2023 

• Most Asian equities fell on Friday, capping off a week marked by soft economic readings and a worsening outlook for the year. However, Japan’s Nikkei blazed past its peers on a batch of strong earnings, particularly from Nissan Motor and Honda Motor, which rose 4% and 5%, respectively. 
• Shares are set to open higher in Europe and the US on Friday, as investors digest earnings, US data, and fresh concerns over the US banking sector emerge. 
• Oil prices fell further on Friday after wiping out all of their gains for the week, as disappointing economic signals from China and concerns over a potential US recession cast doubts over crude demand this year. 

• Weekly jobless claims ticked higher in the US on Thursday, while a Labour Department measure of producer prices notched its slowest rate of growth since January 2021, providing new evidence that inflation is slowing and the Federal Reserve may pause interest-rate hikes next month. 
• Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari on Thursday reiterated that he would support more interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve until inflation returns to the central bank’s 2% target. 
• The Bank of England raised the bank rate by 25 bps to 4.5% yesterday, marking the twelfth consecutive rate increase, in line with market expectations.  The central bank sees inflation falling to 5.1% in Q4 2023, compared to 3.9% in the February forecast, and meeting the 2% target by late 2024.  The economy is stalling in Q1 and Q2, but to rise 0.25% in 2023, compared to a 0.5% contraction in February.  
• President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy postponed their meeting on the debt ceiling set for Friday as their aides continue negotiations. The delay signals that staff-level talks on energy permitting reform and government spending have yielded progress, according to people familiar with the talks. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this week acknowledged that there are choices to be made if lawmakers don’t act in time. 
• Shares of PacWest Bancorp yesterday fell 23%, dragging down other regional banks, after it reported another sharp drop in deposits. 

• Allianz this morning posted a big jump in first-quarter net profit, rebounding after taking big charges a year ago for a SU funds scandal.  Net profit of €2.032 billion in the three months through March compared with €474 million a year earlier.  The figure fell short of a €2.327 billion consensus forecast. 
• Twitter CEO Elon Musk said on Thursday that he has found a new chief executive for the social media platform and that she will start in about 6 weeks but stopped short of naming her.  However, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk is in talks with NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino to become Twitter’s CEO. 
• Toyota Motor Corp said on Friday the vehicle data of about 2.15 million users was left publicly available in Japan because of setting errors in the cloud environment, for about a decade from November 2013 to April 2023.  Leaked details could have included identification numbers for vehicle devices and the location of vehicles, but there have been no reports of malicious use, the company said.