investment

HONG KONG (Reuters) –Morgan Stanley is cutting at least 50 investment banking jobs in Asia Pacific, three sources said, becoming the latest among global banks to scale back operations in the region mainly due to a slump in China markets. The layoffs affect around 13% of the Wall Street bank’s Asia investment banking workforce of 400 in the region, according to one of the sources. Bankers based in Hong Kong and mainland China are going to be affected the most, they said. All of the sources declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to media. A Morgan Stanley spokesperson declined to comment. Bloomberg first reported the job cuts on Wednesday. The cuts are one the largest to its China-focused investment banking team and follow similar measures by other banks also stung by decline in deal making activities in China amid a slowing economy. In January, Bank of America laid off around 20 bankers in the region, following a flurry of investment bank downsizing by UBS, Citigroup and other boutique firms. Morgan Stanley on Tuesday reported a…

The convergence of interest rate cut expectations is rewriting the narrative of global capital markets. Recently, due to the impact of U.S. economic fundamentals such as inflation and employment that exceeded expectations, market expectations for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates within the year have declined. The “anchor of global asset pricing” has made waves again. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield recently broke through the 4.5% mark and remains above this point. Some market participants are worried that the “nightmare” of 10-year U.S. bond yields pointing to 5% may strike again. Analysts believe that the current asset prices are more reflected in the correction of front-running transactions in anticipation of interest rate cuts. Looking ahead, interest rate cut expectations may continue to swing driven by data and geopolitics, affecting the trend of U.S. bond yields. Multi-maturity U.S. Treasury yields rise The rapid rise in U.S. bond yields has once again attracted market attention. On April 10, local time, as the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) in March exceeded expectations across the board, the market was worried about the prospect…

In March, U.S. stocks continued to perform strongly. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continued to be favored by investors, with large capital inflows, while technology ETFs experienced net outflows. Data show that in March, global investors invested US$126.5 billion in ETF products in the US market. This data is second only to the last two months of 2023 and the third highest monthly inflow since 2021. In this round of buying boom, stock ETFs took over US$96.6 billion, showing that investors still have a relatively positive attitude towards US stocks. In terms of themes, industrial stock ETFs are the most popular, with net inflows of US$1.4 billion. This is the strongest performance of industrial themed stock ETFs since July 2023; raw materials and energy industry ETFs have a net inflow of US$1.3 billion and US$600 million respectively. Net inflows followed closely, and these are industries that are highly cyclical and highly dependent on economic performance. The capital movement in March sent an important signal. Technology ETFs experienced a net outflow of US$600 million, which was the first net outflow since June last…