UK Markets Feeling the Pain

European Markets

The British market is still absorbing the news that Theresa May announced yesterday whereby a snap election will be held. The FTSE100 traded marginally lower on Wednesday as members of the British Parliament at Westminster have approved the government’s decision to hold elections on the 8th of June. The motion put forward in parliament obtained the minimum threshold of two-thirds as 522 members of parliament were in favour of the election being held. The surprise announcement had European markets trading negatively on Tuesday, but the German and French markets have regained lost ground as they were both trading marginally higher at 0.18% and 0.28% respectively.

American Markets

On the other side of the Atlantic, The S&P 500, which is an index that tracks the largest five hundred public companies, traded positively on the market’s open. The latest news coming out of America is the rally held by Trump in Wisconsin, which was a narrowly won state in the presidential election held last November, where he signed the “Buy American, Hire American” executive order. The executive order is meant to crack down on skilled worker abuse. Part of the order is meant to crack down on fraud and abuse of the visa programme used by skilled workers and the other part of the act is meant to give preference to domestically produced products and also for a 220-day study of the US Trade agreements that effectively give foreign companies the right to be treated as domestic companies.

Morgan Stanley Leading the Pack

The American investment bank, Morgan Stanley, has seen profits rise by 70%, after undergoing a restructuring programme. The bank’s CEO, James Gorman, has implemented a strategy whereby the core fixed income and commodities unit were stripped down, cutting hundreds of jobs and reducing the amount of trading inventories. As with many other financial firms, Morgan Stanley has been a net benefactor of the so called “Trump bump” as clients have reshuffled their portfolios in anticipation of higher interest rates. The bank’s stock price was up by more than 2% at the beginning of Wednesday’s trading session.

Vivendi’s Legal Battle Woes

Vivendi, the French media and content giant whose market capitalisation currently stands at €22.72bn, is threating legal action against an Italian regulator after it has been ruled that Vivendi has breached the rules on power concentration as its built up its stakes in both Mediaset, an Italian broadcasting company, and Telecom Italia, which provides mobile network platforms. Agcom, the Italian communications regulator, has instructed the French Media behemoth that it should cut its position in either Mediaset or Telecom Italia after it has breached Italy’s Gasparri Law which is designed to protect media pluralism and prevent a dominant position by one player in the market. As news of the legal action came out, Vivendi’s stock price took a hit of 0.74%.