1. Bonds Drop With Tech Futures on Inflation Worries
The selloff in global bonds deepened as the benchmark Treasury yield hit a one-year high and debt from the U.K. to Australia came under pressure. U.S. stock futures slumped, with tech shares once again bearing the brunt of selling as investors rotated to companies poised to benefit from an end to pandemic lockdowns. Across markets, investors are betting on a sunnier outlook for the global economy and the risk that inflation is just around the corner. U.S. data showed fewer-than-forecast jobless claims last week. Commodities also extended gains, with investors piling into metals that can ride faster growth trends. Copper moved closer to a record high set a decade ago and aluminium touched a two-year high.
Futures on the S&P 500 Index dipped 0.4% as of 8:16 a.m. New York time.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index decreased 0.1%.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index surged 1.3%.
The MSCI Emerging Market Index added 1.2%.
2. GameStop Reignites Meme Stock Frenzy With $7.6 Billion Surge
GameStop soared in premarket trading Thursday as retail investors revived the surge in Reddit-favorite stocks, putting it on pace to reap $7.6 billion in market value over two days. The video-game retailer rose as much as 83% in New York. Among other favourites of traders populating Reddit forums, AMC Entertainment advanced 12% premarket after gaining 59% in the first three days of the week, while Koss surged 78%. Nokia Oyj, also a favourite of the meme crowd, climbed 7.7% in Europe, and BlackBerry added 5.3% in early trading.
3. Coinbase Files to Go Public on Nasdaq Via Direct Listing
Coinbase, the biggest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, filed to go public via a direct listing, in what’s anticipated to be a break-through moment for the industry. The company won’t raise any proceeds in the transaction, Coinbase said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. Coinbase’s offering could be the first major direct listing to take place on the Nasdaq. All previous ones, including Spotify, Slack, Asana and Palantir were listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Started in 2012, Coinbase has raised more than $500 million from backers that include Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator and Greylock Partners. It was valued at more than $8 billion in 2018 after a $300 million funding round led by Tiger Global Management.
4. Debt Crisis Threatens Developing Nations: World Bank Head
Developing nations remain at risk of a debt crisis due to the impact of the global pandemic, and the World Bank is working on ways to reduce the burden, President David Malpass said. The Washington-based development lender and the International Monetary Fund are collaborating closely on designing plans that connect debt reductions to freeing up resources for countries to invest in health care and initiatives to fight climate change, Malpass said. A debt crisis is “a prominent risk for some of the countries at the bottom, and that has to do with the difficulty of getting new investment,” Malpass said. “The rest of the world should see that there’s a beneficial linkage” in finding ways to reduce unsustainable debt in developing countries, he said.
5. Facebook, Netflix Face Fresh Scrutiny as India Tightens Grip
India joined the global regulatory push to rein in Silicon Valley technology giants, tightening rules that govern how social media and streaming companies do business in the world’s biggest democracy. The new rules that come into immediate effect will require the likes of Facebook and Twitter to take down unlawful content quicker. Messaging apps can be asked to provide the identity of the originators of unlawful messages on their platforms, implying the likes of Whatsapp may have to break the encryption and dilute users’ privacy safeguards. Streaming services such as Netflix, Google’s YouTube and Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video face stricter oversight over content containing sexually explicit scenes, violence and abusive language.
6. Norway’s $1.3 Trillion Fund Dumped Saudi Shares, Added Qatar
Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund slashed its exposure to Saudi Arabian stocks last year while boosting its portfolio in neighbouring Qatar by almost seven times. Total holdings of shares in Riyadh fell to about $194 million as of the end of December from $420 million the year before. In Doha, exposure surged to $582 million from $80 million. Qatar is now its second-biggest holding in the Gulf after the United Arab Emirates. The shift highlights a turn by the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund in two Gulf countries that were on opposite sides of a spat in the oil-abundant region that ended in January after almost four years.
7. China’s Traders Are Hoarding Scrap Copper as Rally Powers On
The supply tightness that has helped fuel copper’s epic rally is showing signs of spilling over to the Chinese scrap market, with traders hoarding the metal on bets on further price gains. Refined-copper’s premium over scrap slid to 3,934 yuan ($610) a metric ton on Thursday, a 10% drop from Monday, when it hit the highest in eight years, according to data from Mysteel Global. The spread has narrowed as prices of the waste metal climbed after some traders hoarded supplies in anticipation of even more gains.
8. Pfizer-BioNTech Shot Could Help End Pandemic: Israel Study
Pfizer and BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 vaccine was overwhelmingly effective against the virus in a study that followed nearly 1.2 million people in Israel, results that public-health experts said to show that immunizations could end the pandemic. Two doses of the vaccine prevented 94% of Covid-19 cases in 596,618 people vaccinated between Dec. 20 and Feb. 1, about one-quarter of whom were over the age of 60. The researchers matched each vaccinated person with someone who hadn’t gotten a shot, enabling the best analysis yet of whether extremely good results from an earlier clinical trial would hold up in the real world. The Pfizer-BioNTech shot cleared every hurdle. It was so effective, in fact, that outside experts said that with broad enough use it may be possible to halt the pandemic.
9. Fallen Diamond Billionaire Loses Bid to Stop India Extradition
One-time diamond tycoon Nirav Modi lost a bid to challenge his extradition from the U.K. to India, where he’s wanted on charges that he orchestrated the largest bank fraud in the country’s history. Modi is accused of defrauding state-run Punjab National Bank of around $2 billion over seven years. In addition, the one-time billionaire jeweller is charged with threatening to have a witness killed if he testified against him. London Judge Sam Goozee on Thursday dismissed Modi’s argument that he would face an unfair trial if he were extradited to India.
10. U.K. Companies Say Brexit Paperwork Is Biggest Headache
British companies say new customs forms required following Brexit are the biggest hurdle to trading with the rest of the world. About 38% of exporters and 39% of importers identified form-filling as their main hurdle. While half of the exporters reported no difficulties trading internationally, the concerns on paperwork exceeded those about disruption at U.K. borders and transportation costs. The findings add to evidence that friction at ports is weighing on Britain’s ability to trade following after the nation left the European Union’s common customs system. Importers are warning they face even more red tape when new regulations come into force in April and July. Almost a third of the companies moving goods from Britain to Northern Ireland in the past two weeks said volumes have fallen.
Curated from Bloomberg.com
