Morgan

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…

JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists say don’t expect an upbeat corporate earnings season to drive stocks higher because much of the optimism has already been priced in after this year’s record gains. A research team led by Mislav Matejka wrote in a report that profit expectations for the first quarter have been lowered during the reporting period, which lowers the threshold for U.S. companies to exceed expectations. Strategists said that after excluding technology giants, S&P 500 companies’ profits are expected to decline across the board. At the same time, investor positions look “very stretched,” Matejka said, with major stock indexes hitting record highs on optimism about economic growth and interest rate cuts. He said: “The stock market has performed well post-earnings, suggesting investors are more optimistic than the pessimistic earnings forecasts conveyed by sell-side analysts. We need to see significant earnings acceleration to justify current stock valuations “It’s reasonable and we’re concerned that this may not happen.” Matejka said that so far, half of U.S. companies have performed below market expectations on the day of earnings reports. Despite a 10%…

U.S. stock market: The three major U.S. stock indexes collectively fell. The Dow fell more than 1%, and the Nasdaq and S&P fell nearly 1%. As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 422.16 points from the previous trading day, closing at 38461.51 points, a decrease of 1.09 %; the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 136.28 points to close at 16170.36 points, a decrease of 0.84%. ; The S&P 500 stock index fell 49.27 points to close at 5160.64 points, a decrease of 0.95%. In terms of data, the U.S. announced before the market opened that the CPI in March increased by 3.5% year-on-year, which was higher than market expectations of 3.4% and the highest level since September 2023. Most large technology stocks fell, with Tesla falling more than 2%, Apple falling more than 1%, and Google and Microsoft following suit; Meta, Amazon, and Netflix rose slightly. The chip and semiconductor sectors were among the top decliners, with GF and NXP Semiconductors falling by more than 4%, Intel, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and AMD falling by more than 2%; NVIDIA…

“The U.S. dollar is our currency, but it’s your trouble” – As the U.S. dollar has been rising against the backdrop of recent declines in expectations of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut, this famous quote from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Connally more than half a century ago seems to be coming back again. It has become a major problem for many policymakers in emerging markets… Many investors in the foreign exchange market have recently been paying attention to whether the Japanese government will intervene to prevent the yen, which has already fallen below the 153 mark, from weakening further. But in fact, in emerging markets, many economies face exchange rate pressures no less than Japan. Some locals said the foreign exchange market has become a key battleground, as the dollar’s recent surge has put tremendous pressure on an increasing number of emerging economies to intervene. Market data shows that as investors continue to buy gold and the US dollar, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index weakened for the third consecutive day on Friday, approaching the low of the year. Almost…

As the first-quarter earnings season of the U.S. stock market slowly opened last week, JPMorgan Chase , which has always been bearish on the prospects of U.S. stocksAnother pessimistic warning. JP Morgan strategists are not optimistic about the outlook for corporate earnings this earnings season, believing that except for a few technology giants, most U.S. stock companies will see an overall decline in earnings. They also believe that even if U.S. stock companies perform well in earnings, it will be difficult to push U.S. stocks higher because most of the optimism has been digested in advance. Xiaomo Mo’s pessimistic outlook on Q1 earnings season The team of Mislav Matejka, head of global equity strategists at JPMorgan Chase, wrote in a report that they have lowered their profit expectations for the first quarter of U.S. stock companies. Strategists said first-quarter earnings for most companies in the S&P 500 are expected to decline across the board after excluding several technology giants. Matejka also noted that investor positioning looks “very tight” as the S&P 500 index has risen to a record high. He…