On this Week’s Market Summary:

💡1. The value of global trade fell 2.8 per cent between February and March as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to a sharp drop in container ship traffic from the two countries. The biggest impact was on trade with Russia, as the value of imports into the country fell 9.7 per cent in March from the previous month, while exports fell 5 per cent. Its indicator tracks shipping data from 500 ports in real time, seasonally adjusting the value of exports and imports, to offer a measure of trading activity. By contrast, the impact on China was negligible, as its exports fell 0.9 per cent last month, while imports grew 0.9 per cent. Beijing has been more supportive of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than the west and has not backed international sanctions on Moscow.

💡2. From HSBC to JPMorgan Chase, global banks are dipping their toes into the metaverse to connect with customers and business partners, preparing for a bigger shift in interactions towards the digital world from physical branches. The push into the area among global financial institutions follows big bets on the technologies by Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Microsoft, with JPMorgan saying the metaverse could generate US$1trillionof revenue annually for retailers. Lenders and insurers are shifting more of their offerings towards digital portals as customers increasingly prefer the convenience of online transactions, but are not yet planning to offer those transactional services in the metaverse. 

💡3. China’s state refiners are honouring existing Russian oil contracts but avoiding new ones despite steep discounts, heeding Beijing’s call for caution as Western sanctions mount against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Sinopec, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), PetroChina and Sinochem have stayed on the sidelines in trading fresh Russian cargoes for May loadings. Chinese state-owned firms do not wish to be seen as openly supporting Moscow by buying extra volumes of oil after sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union. “[State-owned enterprises] are cautious as their actions could be seen as representing the Chinese government and none of them wants to be singled out as a buyer of Russian oil,” said one of the people.

💡4. Hong Kong stocks fell to one-week low as surging Covid-19 cases in Shanghai heightened concerns about further lockdown in China’s key commercial hub, clouding the outlook for corporate earnings amid a slowdown. The Hang Seng Index slipped 0.6 percent to 21,684.44 at the local noon trading break, bringing the decline this week to 1.7 percent. The Tech Index retreated 2.3 per cent, while the Shanghai Composite Index was little changed. Shanghai remains in lockdown with 21,222 new infections over the past 24 hours, rewriting the daily record for the seventh straight day. More stringent mobility restrictions in Shanghai and the risk of spill over measures in other cities pose downside risks to first-half GDP growth, especially if lockdowns extend well beyond April, says UBS.

You can find the latest "Weekly Market Summary" 📔 here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GFu_Pd8EWiF0N1euusAecKXnJjiDE8Jm/view?usp=sharing

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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.