Rise and Shine everyone and Happy May!
We have a big week with the Fed of Wednesday, Apple earnings on Thursday and Job Data on Friday. Not to mention we have the Berkshire meeting on Saturday. We also have the ECB rate decision on Thursday and Australian rate decision on Tuesday.
But, the big news this morning is the takeover of First Republic Bank by JP Morgan. The deal has gone through and JPM just put out the investor presentation this morning. FRC will operate branches as usual today as the deal goes through. JP Morgan agreed to assume bank's ~$92B deposits (including uninsured deposits) and substantially all of its assets, including ~$173B in loans and -US~$30B in securities (but not corporate debt or preferred stock). The deal will be modestly EPS accretive.
After Friday’s run up, the market is giving up some of it’s gains. Treasuries little changed. Dollar index up over 0.2% with solid gains on the major crosses. Gold down 0.4%. Bitcoin futures down nearly 2.5%. WTI crude down 2.2% after losing nearly 1.5% last week.
Asia and Australia
Asian markets mostly higher overnight in very quiet trading with most markets closed for holiday. Japan fared well with the Nikkei and Topix both up ~1%.
China manufacturing PMI unexpectedly fell into contraction territory in April
China tourism and consumer activities rose sharply at start of Labor Day holiday
Alibaba founder Jack Ma takes up teaching post in Tokyo
Europe, Middle East, Africa
Major European markets closed for holiday as well.
ECB’s rate decision on Thursday will depend on two reports coming out on Tuesday - the bank lending report and the inflation report.
The Americas
Carvana creditors propose debt-for-equity swap. This is not great news for the company or the shareholders.
Mexico cuts mining concessions to 30 years from 50 years
OpenAI reportedly completes additional $300M funding round at valuation of $27B-29B
Calendars
(news taken from Reuters, FT, Bloomberg; Calendar from Trading Economics)
