Markets Roundup and Cryptocurrencies

Markets roundup

Markets in Europe closed slightly in the red on Wednesday as investors digested strings of corporate results released yesterday. The losses were led by the media sector. Meanwhile, market watchers also processed Eurozone's economic data releases.

German DAX lost 0.47% at the end of the trading session. Volkswagen was the main loser, declining 1.79% despite reporting record-high sales in 2017.

France's CAC 40 declined 0.36% at the closing bell. London's FTSE 100 finished 0.39% lower, led by the decline of Burberry shares that dropped 9.30% after it released worse-than-expected third quarter sales results.

Earnings report

Bank of America Corp announced a diluted earnings per shares at $0.20 while adjusted EPS was $0.47. The financial giant reported a total charge of $2.9 billion related to the new tax law in the US. Net income for the fourth quarter was $2.4 billion and the revenue rose 2% to $20.4 billion in the same period. The bank announced it gained market share across their businesses while carefully managing credit, risk exposure and expenses.

Goldman Sachs posted net revenues of $32.1 billion and a net profit of $4.29 billion. Diluted earnings per share in 2017 declined to $9.01 compared to last year's annual EPS of $16.29 as a result of the tax overhaul. Excluding tax bill related expenses, the EPS for the year ended December 2017 were $19.76. Despite the challenging environment the bank delivered higher revenue and stronger pre-tax margin.

Cryptocurrencies

After a major sell-off during the last 24 hours, world's cryptocurrency markets, seem to have reached some sort of a bottom – swiping a whole month’s rally. Cryptocurrencies continued with a downward trajectory, following Bitcoin's drop below $10,000 late Tuesday.

An amount of around $140 billion was cleared of global cryptocurrency markets during the course of a day. Currently, total market cap stands at around $510 billion, while a day earlier, the sum of all crypto coins was approximately $650 billion.

Cryptocurrencies started dipping following last week's announcement from South Korea authorities that the country is preparing a bill which will outlaw all cryptocurrency trading. Additionally, crypto insiders followed news on hackers allegedly related to Pyongyang targeting cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea.