Weekly Market Summary

💡1. Nomura warned that it faced potential losses of $2bn in an incident arising from an unnamed client, later identified by people within the bank as the stricken US-based fund Archegos. Profits for the second half of Nomura’s year look set to be wiped out. Bonus hopes, groan the bankers, seem shattered yet again. Nomura is not alone, and it quickly became clear that other banks — most prominently, Credit Suisse, which may suffer a loss topping $4bn — were caught in the blast.

💡2. Chinese bonds have emerged as a haven during the global debt rout this year, but overseas institutions have now cut their holdings for the first time since February 2019. Foreign investors held 2.04 trillion yuan (US$312 billion) of Chinese government bonds at the end of March, data from ChinaBond showed, 16.5 billion yuan (US$2.5 billion) down from February.

💡3. Hong Kong stocks dropped from a two-week high as markets reopened after a three-day trading pause, with technology stocks coming under pressure amid softer corporate earnings outlook. The Hang Seng Index lost 0.9 per cent to 28,674.80 on Wednesday. The index jumped 2.1 per cent last week to the highest level since March 19. The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.1 per cent to 3,479.63. The Hang Seng Tech Index retreated 1.4 per cent, with heavyweight Tencent Holdings sliding 3.7 per cent to HK$629.50. Alibaba Health fell 3.2 per cent to HK$22.40. JD.com declined 3.5 per cent to HK$324.40 after its subsidiary JD Digits withdrew its application for a stock on Shanghai’s Star market.

💡4. Chinese private equity funds are targeting record fundraising this year as global investors boost their exposure to the country despite deep tensions with the US and heightened regulatory scrutiny of China’s technology groups. The flurry of fundraisings comes amid China’s strong economic recovery from Covid-19 and concerns over high valuations in public markets. It will also follow similar large-scale moves by regional and global funds focused more widely on Asia this year. Hong Kong-headquartered Baring Private Equity Asia last month opened a fund seeking $8.5bn, while Hillhouse Capital, also based in Hong Kong, is raising what would be Asia’s largest US dollar fund, targeting $13bn.

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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?” 

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.