A Deutsche Bank AG flag flies outside the company’s office on Wall Street in New York.
Mark Kauzlarich | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Deutsche Bank on Thursday beat earnings expectations for 2020 as it emerges from the coronavirus crisis, led by a strong performance in its investment banking division.
Germany’s largest lender posted a full-year net profit of 113 million euros ($135.7 million), whereas analysts had expected a loss of 201 million euros, according to Refinitiv. Deutsche reported a 5.7 billion euro loss for 2019 as it underwent major restructuring.
The bank netted a 51 million euro profit for the fourth quarter, compared to analyst expectations of a 325 million euro loss.
The bank’s CFO, James von Moltke, told CNBC shortly after the announcement that it had hit all of its goals for the year.
Higher revenues and cost reductions helped Deutsche’s investment banking division perform well, with net revenues rising 32% to 9.8 billion euros in 2020.
This “more than offset a rise in provision for credit losses resulting from COVID-19,” the bank said in a statement.
Here are the other highlights:
Total fourth-quarter net revenues were 5.5 billion euros, compared to 5.35 billion euros for the same period in 2019, bringing group net revenues for the year to 24 billion euros, up 4% from 2019.
Common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio — a measure of bank solvency — came in at 13.6%, unchanged from the fourth quarter of 2019.
Fourth-quarter loan loss provisions were 251 million, versus 723 million in the final quarter of 2019.
“In the most important year of our transformation, we were able to more than offset transformation-related effects and elevated credit provisions – despite the global pandemic,” CEO Christian Sewing said in the earnings report.
“We have built firm foundations for sustainable profitability, and are confident that this overall positive trend will continue in 2021, despite these challenging times.”
This is a breaking story, please check back later for more.
TOKYO — Asian shares mostly fell Thursday as caution set in over company earnings reports, recent choppy trading in technology stocks and prospects for more economic stimulus for a world battling a pandemic.
Japan’s Nikkei 225
NIK,
-1.03%
slipped 0.5% in early trading, while South Korea’s Kospi
180721,
-1.90%
dropped 1.6%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
XJO,
-0.87%
slipped 0.6%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
HSI,
-1.35%
lost 1.2%, while the Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP,
-1.38%
was down 1%. Stocks rose in Indonesia
JAKIDX,
+0.63%
and Malaysia
FBMKLCI,
-0.25%
but fell in Singapore
STI,
-1.29%
and Taiwan
Y9999,
-0.43%.
Also on market players’ minds is the global vaccine rollout, which is becoming more organized in the U.S., but yet to play out in much of Asia, except for China, where the pandemic started.
“As the rally waned for the U.S. market, Asia markets can be seen left to their own devices into the Thursday session, and it appears that investors may be locking in some of the recent gains,” said Jingyi Pan, a senior market strategist for IG in Singapore.
Wall Street ended with modest gains, with the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.10%
inched up 3.86 points, or 0.1%, to 3,830.17, after swinging between a gain of 0.6% and a loss of 0.3%. The tiny gain extended the benchmark index’s winning streak to a third day.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.12%
gained 36.12 points, or 0.1%, to 30,723.60. The tech-heavy Nasdaq
COMP,
-0.02%
slipped 2.23 points, or less than 0.1%, to 13,610.54. The index had briefly been above its all-time high set last week.
Energy, communications and financial stocks helped lift the market. Those gains were primarily kept in check by declines in companies that rely on consumer spending and technology stocks.
GameStop and other recently high-flying stocks notched modest gains Wednesday. GameStop
GME,
+2.68%
rose 2.7% and AMC
AMC,
+14.71%
climbed 14.7%. The stocks have been caught up in a speculative frenzy by traders in online forums who seek to inflict damage on Wall Street hedge funds that have bet the stocks would fall. GameStop plunged 60% on Tuesday, and AMC Entertainment lost 41.2%.
“There’s a tug of war that’s been brewing for a week or so now, that markets are ripe for a correction and whether the events of last week are a precipitating event,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group.
Stocks have been mostly rallying this week, an encouraging start to February after a late fade in January as volatility spiked amid worries about the timing and scope of another round of stimulus spending by the Biden administration, unease over the effectiveness of the government’s coronavirus vaccine distribution and turbulent swings in GameStop and other stocks hyped on social media.
That volatility has subsided this week, with Wall Street focusing mainly on corporate earnings reports while it keeps an eye on Washington for signs of progress on a new aid package.
Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on support for President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package, but investors are betting that the administration will opt for a reconciliation process to get the legislation through Congress.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude
CLH21,
+0.63%
gained 15 cents to %55.84 a barrel. Brent crude
BRNJ21,
+0.51%,
the international standard, added 6 cents to $58.52 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar
USDJPY,
+0.13%
inched down to 105.02 Japanese yen from 105.06 yen.
American Airlines on Wednesday said it will send furlough notices this week to about 13,000 employees as a second round of federal payroll aid is set to expire next month and travel demand remains in tatters.
“The vaccine is not being distributed as quickly as any of us believed, and new restrictions on international travel that require customers to have a negative COVID-19 test have dampened demand,” American’s CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom wrote in a note to staff.
Rival United Airlines last Friday sent similar furlough warnings to 14,000 staff members.
The latest $15 billion Congress approved for U.S. carriers late last year required airlines to recall the employees they furloughed in the fall and maintain payroll through March 31. It was the second round of Covid aid for the industry; Congress gave airlines $25 billion last March to keep them from cutting employees through the fall.
Airline labor unions are now seeking $15 billion more in federal payroll support for the industry to keep jobs through Sept. 30 and American’s Parker and Isom said they back another round of aid.
“We are fully behind our union leaders’ efforts to fight for an extension and we will lend our time and energy to support this effort in every way we can,” they said.
Fresh from reporting record annual losses of $34 billion, U.S. airline CEOs last month warned they didn’t expect a strong rebound in air travel in the near future.
Employers are legally required to give staff notice about possible layoffs or temporary furloughs generally 60 days in advance. The notices do not guarantee that recipients will ultimately lose their jobs.
American is offering early retirement programs for employees who have been in their workgroups for more than 10 years, including up to $150,000 in a retirement health reimbursement package and some travel benefits. It is also rolling out leaves of absence for a year or 18 months with partial pay.
“Obviously, issuing these required WARN notices isn’t a step we want to take,” Parker and Isom said. “Tens of thousands of our colleagues have faced extreme uncertainty about their job security over the past 12 months, and that’s on top of the emotional stress all of our team has faced during an incredibly difficult year.”
American’s CEO Parker warned staff last week that the carrier is still overstaffed for current demand projections and that furloughs could be on the way.
GameStop shares were flat in premarket trading on Wednesday as traders waited to see if the short squeeze fueled by retail investors on Reddit could be revived.
The stock had been down by more than 11% earlier on Wednesday morning but swung into the black shortly after 5 a.m. ET. The stock was last trading around the flatline at $91.44.
Shares of the bricks-and-mortar video game retailer surged 1,625% in January and 400% just last week, as traders led by Reddit thread WallStreetBets piled into the stock.
But the momentum collapsed earlier this week. Gamestop stock dropped 60% on Tuesday and it has lost more than 70% of its value since Friday.
Keith Gill, AKA Reddit’s DeepF——Value, posted on Tuesday that he is still not selling despite suffering a $13 million loss that day.
AMC Entertainment, another heavily shorted stock that was also targeted by Reddit traders, was up by around 6% in premarket trading.
Robinhood and other retail trading apps continue to limit some buying of a collection of stocks pursued by the Reddit thread. Many Wall Street hedge funds began short-covering toward the end of last week after taking significant losses in the squeeze.
Short selling is a strategy in which investors borrow shares of a stock at a certain price on expectations that the market value will fall below that level when it’s time to pay for the borrowed shares. Buying back borrowed shares to close out a short position, whether for a profit or loss, is known as short-covering.
U.S. stock futures rose slightly in overnight trading on Tuesday, after a strong market rally as the Reddit trading mania continued to unwind.
Dow futures rose 60 points. S&P 500 futures gained 0.4% and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.4%.
Strong earnings from Amazon and Alphabet helped futures. Amazon reported earnings nearly double Wall Street estimates; however, the stock move was tempered by news that Jeff Bezos would step down as CEO.
Shares of Alphabet gained 6% in after hours trading after the technology giant reported 23% revenue growth and topped estimates for earnings.
Stocks rallied for the second day on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining more than 475 points for its best day since November. Investors returned to buying equities after the Reddit-fueled action that shook markets last week. The Dow is up 2.35% this week.
The S&P 500 climbed 1.4% and the Nasdaq Composite jumped more than 1.5%.
After a meteoric, albeit seemingly synthetic rise in GameStop last week caused by a short squeeze, shares have cratered more than 70% this week. Other Reddit trades have also come back down to Earth amid trading restrictions from major brokers.
“The best way to describe today’s stock market action is ‘reversing the Reddit revolution,” Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group, told CNBC. “What went up with GameStop, came down with GameStop.”
“From mid-day Jan. 28 to the end of Jan. 29, cyclicals including technology got pounded while defensive sectors outpaced. Over the last two days, and particularly today, this was reversed,” added Paulsen.
Investors are also monitoring negotiations in Washington surrounding another stimulus package. President Joe Biden met with the 10 Republican senators on Monday to discuss an alternative, smaller aid proposal to his $1.9 trillion package.
Earnings season continues on Wednesday with AbbVie, Biogen, Boston Scientific, GlaxoSmithKline and Humana reporting before the opening bell.
Chipmaker Qualcomm, eBay, PayPal and Yum China report earnings after the market closes on Wednesday.
Private payroll data from January is released at 8:15 a.m. on Wednesday from ADP. Economists polled by Dow Jones are expecting private sector jobs grew by 50,000 in January, compared to the loss of 123,000 in December.
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U.S. stock index futures declined in overnight trading as a surge in speculative trading by retail traders continued to cause hedge funds to take off risk and worried investors about a market bubble. The losses build on last week’s decline, which was the worst for the market since October.
Futures contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 270 points, indicating a 271-point loss at the opening bell. S&P 500 futures slipped 1%, while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1.2%.
The Dow dropped 620 points on Friday, or 2%, to close below the 30,000 level for the first time since December. The Nasdaq Composite also slipped 2%, while the S&P 500 fell 1.9%.
For the week, all three major averages slipped more than 3% for their worst weekly performance since October. The Dow and S&P also posted losses for January — the first negative month in four — although the Nasdaq did manage to post a gain for the month.
Friday’s dip came amid a frenzy of activity by retail investors in heavily-shorted stocks including GameStop and AMC Entertainment, which fueled concerns about the overall health of the market. Goldman Sachs noted that the current short squeeze is the worst in 25 years.
“This week’s events may have turned markets on their heads, but fear indicators imply that we may have seen the worst of the degrossing,” Jefferies wrote in a note to clients over the weekend. Barclays added that it’s unlikely that the impact of the short squeezes will ripple through the broader market.
“The ongoing short squeeze in a few stocks by retail investors has raised concerns of a broader contagion,” the firm wrote in a recent note to clients. “While we believe there is more pain to come we remain optimistic that it is likely to remain localized.”
Meanwhile, a group of 10 Republican senators sent President Joe Biden a letter on Sunday, urging him to consider a smaller, scaled down Covid-19 relief proposal. His current plans calls for $1.9 trillion in additional fiscal stimulus. The alternative proposal comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the chamber will move to pass a budget resolution, the first step toward approving legislation through reconciliation. The process would enable Senate Democrats to approve an aid measure without GOP votes.
Elsewhere, another busy week of earnings is coming up with 99 S&P companies set to report. Alphabet, Amazon, Alibaba, Snap, Exxon, Biogen, Pfizer and Chipotle are among the names set to report this coming week. Thursday is the busiest day of the earnings season.
“We believe the medium-term path for the market remains higher,” noted Mark Haefele, global CIO at UBS Wealth Management. “In a similar pattern to the previous two quarters, corporate earnings for 4Q20 are exceeding expectations by a significant margin.”
He added that a stimulus package as well as investors looking beyond delays to vaccine production and distribution should further boost stocks.
– CNBC’s Jacob Pramuk contributed reporting.
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Few people care who made their flu shot or their childhood immunizations against a range of deadly diseases. Covid changed that, turning vaccine makers into household names and prompting calls for choice.
Doses remain scarce for now, amid a global scramble inflamed by a dispute between the European Union and British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc. Most of the more than 90 million people who’ve gotten a shot consider themselves lucky for any protection against the pandemic. But vaccines are proliferating, with positive trial data from Johnson & Johnson and Novavax Inc. placing their candidates next in line for approval.
Health officials will have to figure out how to allocate all these different vaccines. The European Medicines Agency approved the AstraZeneca vaccine on Friday for all adults, but limited trial data on its effectiveness in the elderly has led some countries to impose restrictions. Germany said it should be used only for those under 65, while Italy cautioned against administering it to those over 55.
Many people who’ve been boning up on efficacy rates, dosing schedules or side effects want to decide for themselves. If the options are a shot from a Western drugmaker that’s been vetted by an independent regulator or one from a Russian or Chinese lab with lesser transparency, that desire is even greater.
“We demand the government to provide people the freedom of choice,” said Gergely Arato, a member of the opposition Democratic Coalition party in Hungary.
Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccines.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
Hungary broke ranks with other EU members to approve Russia’s Sputnik V and a vaccine from China’s Sinopharm Group Ltd. alongside the three shots cleared by Europe’s drug regulator — from Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and AstraZeneca. While Prime Minister Viktor Orban is technically offering choice, his promotion of the Chinese and Russian shots is endangering people’s “willingness to get vaccinated,” Arato said at a press conference this month.
In the U.S., where the only two shots authorized so far — from Pfizer and Moderna — use similar technology and demonstrated virtually identical test results, choice may matter less for now. Elsewhere, however, some health authorities have begun catering to people’s concerns about vaccine differences.
Dubai, Hong Kong
In Dubai, residents older than 60 or with pre-existing conditions can access the shot Pfizer developed with BioNTech SE, or the one from Sinopharm.
In Hong Kong, officials ordered enough doses of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinovac Biotech Ltd. and AstraZeneca — along with plans to secure a fourth option — to cover the 7.5 million residents.
The Pfizer shot will be available at community vaccination centers, with the Sinovac and Astra options offered at private hospitals and clinics, and people will be given the choice of which they want to receive. That’s important in Hong Kong, where some people are wary of taking a Chinese-made vaccine.
“If residents don’t want to take a certain vaccine, they can choose to get the shots at another time and another location,” Chief Executive Carrie Lam said in December.
Supplies are so tight in most of the world that choice remains impossible. Those getting shots often have no idea which one they’ll receive until they walk through the door of a vaccination center or doctor’s office. But that could change if vaccines from the likes of J&J, Novavax and CureVac NV come on stream in the coming weeks, and as pharma giants like Sanofi and Novartis AG lend their heft to the production effort.
EU Approval
Even if they don’t offer choice, health officials have to decide who gets what. At the Cleveland Clinic, Cassandra Calabrese has been telling patients to take whatever vaccine they get offered, even though some have been asking her which one she’d recommend. “Things may be different as more are approved,” she said in an email.
Vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
Photographer: Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg
The European Union, criticized for its slow rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, expanded its offerings Friday by approving AstraZeneca’s shot. In a sign of the growing tide of people wanting to choose, the approval came after days of pitched debate about the shot’s efficacy, with Germany’s immunization commission recommending against its use in seniors.
In the U.K., where infections and fatalities are much higher than in Hong Kong, health authorities are prioritizing the quick inoculation of as many people as possible. The second dose of two-shot vaccines is being delayed in an effort to get first injections into as many arms as possible. Other countries are considering similar steps.
Distribution is based on “supply and logistics, such as availability of very cold freezers,” a U.K. Department of Health spokesman said by email. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots must be kept frozen for long-term storage, while refrigeration suffices for the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Efficacy Rates
Although the U.K. has set a priority list for vaccine recipients — starting with the oldest, most vulnerable people — it doesn’t allocate the different shots based on a person’s profile, the agency added. So one 80-year-old patient might receive the AstraZeneca shot while someone else with the same age and health conditions might get the Pfizer one.
Some Britons are expressing a preference on the grounds of patriotism rather than what they might have read about different efficacy rates or side effects. Never mind that the U.S. company’s vaccine was 95% effective in large trials, compared with an average of 70% for AstraZeneca’s shot.
“They’re saying they want to wait for the British one,” Jimmy Whitworth, a professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in a phone interview. “I think that it’s purely a nationalistic viewpoint.”
— With assistance by Veronika Gulyas, Jinshan Hong, and Adveith Nair
(Updates with German, Italian guidelines in third paragraph)
In this photo illustration, visual representations of digital cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum and Ripple are arranged.
Yuriko Nakao | Getty Images News | Getty Images
GUANGZHOU, China — Dogecoin, a digital coin originally founded as a joke, has soared over 800% after a Reddit board talked about making it the cryptocurrency equivalent of GameStop.
The price of dogecoin stood at $0.070755 at around 12.01 p.m. Singapore, up over 800% from 24 hours before, according to Coingecko. It was not far off of its 24-hour high of $0.072330 earlier in the day.
Dogecoin was created in 2013 based on the popular “doge” meme at the time which involved a Shiba Inu dog. The logo of dogecoin is a Shiba Inu. It was initially started as a joke but has since found a community.
While it has taken a backseat to larger cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether in recent years, its resurgence in the last few days has been down to enthusiasm from a Reddit group called SatoshiStreetBets. Like the group WallStreetBets, which was behind the GameStop rally, SatoshiStreetBets is looking to pump up cryptocurrencies.
Satoshi is the name of the mysterious founder, or group of people, who developed bitcoin.
At 12.03 p.m. Singapore time, dogecoin had added about $7.17 billion to its market capitalization or total value, in 24 hours, according to data from Coinmarket cap. Its total market cap stood at $8.2 billion, making it the ninth largest cryptocurrency.
On Thursday, one poster claimed Doge is the “crypto gme”. GME is the stock ticker for GameStop.
Another post suggested taking doge to $1 a coin. The cryptocurrency has never been at $1. In 2013, when it began, it was trading around $0.000232.
As the price of dogecoin rocketed, there have been some big dips in the price over the past few hours. Reddit users on the board are encouraging people not to sell and to “keep pushing.”
Elon Musk, the Tesla founder who previously tweeted about stocks before and sent them rising, has tweeted about dogecoin in the past and indicated in April 2019, that it was his “fav cryptocurrency.”
On Thursday, he tweeted out a picture of a magazine cover of “Dogue” — a play on popular fashion title “Vogue.” Many users on Twitter and Reddit took that to mean Musk was throwing his support behind the doge rally.
One Reddit user wrote: “Mr Musk is with us.. to the moon.”
The situation with dogecoin appears different to GameStop, however.
The Reddit group WallStreetBets appears to be pushing the narrative of buying GameStop shares in order to create pain for hedge funds that are shorting or betting against the stock. By buying GameStop shares, a so-called short squeeze is created, forcing funds to cover their losses. This pushes the stock higher.
Short sellers borrow shares to sell them, in order to buy them back at a lower price in future so that they can pocket the profit.
But there is no such shorting dynamic from hedge funds at play with dogecoin. Instead, it appears a group of people are just trying to push the cryptocurrency higher to make money. One of the early posts on SatoshiStreetBets read: “Let’s make DOGECOIN a thing. That’s it, that’s the post.”
Such activity is not new in the cryptocurrency space and has been going on for several years.
In 2018, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sounded the alarm on “pump-and-dump” schemes. This is when a certain cryptocurrency is hyped online and then more and more people buy. Those who were in early sell when the price goes high, but many will purchase near the top and lose money.
A Falcon 9 rocket launches the Transporter-1 mission in January 2021.
SpaceX
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Elon Musk’s SpaceX over whether the company discriminates against non-U.S. citizens in its hiring practices, according to court documents filed on Thursday.
The DOJ’s division of Immigrant and Employee Rights received a complaint of employment discrimination from a non-U.S. citizen claiming that the company discriminated against him based on his citizenship status.
“The charge alleges that on or about March 10, 2020, during the Charging Party’s interview for the position of Technology Strategy Associate, SpaceX made inquiries about his citizenship status and ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident,” DOJ attorney Lisa Sandoval wrote in a complaint filed Thursday.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment.
SpaceX headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
AaronP/Bauer-Griffin | GC Images | Getty Images
The Immigrant and Employee Rights (IER) division says it notified SpaceX via email on June 8 that it had opened an investigation, requesting SpaceX to provide information and documents related to its hiring and employment eligibility verification processes.
The complaint says SpaceX responded in August, sending the DOJ a Form I-9 spreadsheet of information about employees dating back to June 2019. But SpaceX refused the DOJ’s request “to produce any Form I-9 supporting documentation, such as copies of employees’ passports, driver’s licenses, or Social Security cards,” Sandoval wrote.
IER then obtained a subpoena on Oct. 7, but the complaint claims that SpaceX refused to produce the subpoenaed documents.
SpaceX filed a petition with a DOJ administrative tribunal to dismiss the subpoena on grounds that it exceeded the scope of IER’s authority, but that petition was denied, and SpaceX was ordered to comply. IER says SpaceX on Dec. 11 acknowledged that the order, but told IER “that it ‘does not intend to produce any additional information in response to the administrative subpoena.'”
The DOJ’s IER argues that the subpoenaed documents are relevant because they show the extent to which SpaceX hires non-U.S. citizens, and says it’s not burdensome, although SpaceX has told the IER that it would have to retrieve each document manually.
The Department of Justice is requesting an order from the court to require SpaceX comply with the subpoena within two weeks.
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People walk past the headquarters of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, in Beijing, China September 28, 2018.
Jason Lee | Reuters
BEIJING — The central Chinese government is making it clear that fintech companies like Ant Group fall under the same stringent financial regulation as banks.
Many start-ups in China and other countries are using new technology to sell cheaper and faster financial services, from money transfers to loans. Rapid consumer adoption has prompted banks to work with the start-ups, which often emphasize they are technology or fintech companies, rather than financial institutions.
“But fintech is still finance in essence, so the principle of ‘same business, same rules’ should apply,” Pan Gongsheng, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial Times Wednesday. Pan also heads the national foreign exchange regulator, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
“We need regulation that emphasises the substance not the form of a company,” Pan added. “The aim is to align business rules and standards with regulation to fend off arbitrage.”
Chinese authorities have stepped up regulation on fintech companies in the last several months.
Most prominently, regulators abruptly suspended Alibaba-affiliated Ant’s listing in November just days before the company was set to hold what would have been the world’s largest initial public offering.
Pan did not mention Ant by name in the op-ed, but noted that “non-bank mobile payment business, led by Alipay and WeChat Pay” saw growth of 75% a year between 2015 and 2019 in non-bank mobile payments. Ant Group owns Alipay and WeChat Pay is run by Tencent.
He added that fintech companies pose the same risks as others in the finance industry, and might also gather “excessive” amounts of data and infringe on user privacy.
On Tuesday, the governor of China’s central bank Yi Gang indicated Ant could resume the IPO process if it could resolve legal issues.
Read the full opinion piece in the Financial Times here.
