Weekly Market Summary

💡1. U.S. and European stocks fell, government bonds rallied and oil prices rose sharply on Tuesday as traders weighed the global economic implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Wall Street’s blue-chip S&P 500 index fell 1.6 per cent per cent, dragged lower by the worst day since June 2020 for financial stocks; with the S&P sub-index dropping 3.7 per cent. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite ceded 1.6 per cent, having closed 0.4 per cent higher in the previous session. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 share index slipped 2.4 per cent. Shares of utilities, consumer cyclical and financials were among the biggest fallers. Meanwhile, government bond prices rose significantly both in the euro zone and the US. The move was bigger in Europe as traders sought shelter from economic risk and bet on the European Central Bank maintaining supportive monetary policies

💡2. Pressure is mounting on index providers MSCI and JPMorgan to immediately remove Russian stocks and bonds from all their emerging market benchmarks, which have helped funnel billions of dollars into Russia’s economy. The Russian market is effectively closed. It is now uninvestable. Excluding Russian stocks from MSCI’s indices may be the next step but that decision has not yet been made formally by the index policy committee. JPMorgan is expected to announce after the close of the US market on Monday that it will remove Russian bonds from the environmental, social and governance (ESG) based versions of its widely followed emerging market bond indices.

💡3. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the largest Australian bank, announced on Tuesday that it has signed a deal with two state-owned Chinese entities to transfer a total of 10% stake in the Shanghai-listed Bank of Hangzhou at 8.2 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion), according to its filing to the Australian Stock Exchange. Commonwealth Bank of Australia is the latest to reduce its stake in a Chinese bank, even as U.S. and Europeans try to get deeper into the market. Commonwealth Bank of Australia will keep a 5.56 % stake for three years, but the share transfer means the Hangzhou municipal fiscal bureau, which now owns 11.86 per cent, is the largest shareholder.

💡4. China’s biggest property developers are struggling to sell homes despite the introduction of some relaxation measures by Beijing. The value of the combined contracted sales at the country’s top 100 developers fell 47.2 per cent in February from last year to 401.6 billion yuan (US$63.6 billion), widening from a slump of 41 per cent in January, according to CRIC. Contracted sales or presales, which account for about 90 per cent of new home sales, are the primary cash stream for China’s home builders. Some signs of a recovery were visible towards the end of February, after some relief measures were extended to the sector. 

                         
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One of the must-ask interview questions for banking and finance is: “Have you read any news recently?”, with the follow-up questions: “How would you link this news to the market and what investment suggestions would you give to your clients based on this news?” 

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Showing your market sense and ability to provide feasible investment ideas would help to differentiate you from other candidates. Therefore, apart from the weekly news update / investment insights, we have also generated this Weekly Market Summary for you to have a quick understanding of the market development and tips to answer some hot discussion topics. Take a look of the summary and WhatsApp us in the group if you have questions.