Just like every Sunday, here are the news highlights from the past week and the schedule for the coming week.
The coming week's schedule in video format:
https://youtube.com/shorts/Pg-wOO_cmrA?feature=share
Monday:
The Scandinavian bank $NDA FI (+0.87%) Nordea has reported another increase in profits due to higher interest rates. Following a significant rise in profits, CEO Frank Vang-Jensen has, as expected, raised the target for return on equity. He is aiming for a return of over 15 percent by 2023, as he announced on Monday following the release of the quarterly results for the bank, which is listed on the EuroStoxx 50. Previously, the target had been set at more than 13 percent. Vang-Jensen had already indicated that he wanted to set the return expectations slightly higher. Experts surveyed by Bloomberg had, on average, already projected 15.8 percent. In the second quarter, the return on equity stood at just over 19 percent, which was nearly five percentage points above the prior-year figure and well above the raised target. Net income rose by just over a quarter year-over-year to 1.34 billion euros. This result was primarily driven by a strong increase in net interest income, which rose by 40 percent to 1.8 billion euros. The result was thus slightly better than analysts had expected. Despite the positive earnings, Vang-Jensen will continue to ensure that costs remain under control.
https://goldesel.de/Artikel/diese-bank-erhoeht-das-renditeziel
Questionable EU Decision: After lobbying efforts, among other factors, recently prevented a #commission ban within the EU, the next questionable decision is now on the horizon. The EU wants to partially ban the business model of neo-brokers. Whether it’s TradeRepublic, Scalable, or Smartbroker, these particularly low-cost neo-brokers have so far benefited from “payment for order flow.” Under this model, they receive commissions for trading activity on a stock exchange. For consumers, this actually has only advantages during regular trading hours. At least that’s the view of Stiftung Warentest and various studies. With this ban, the EU would not be protecting consumers, but rather established stock exchanges. Therefore, in our view, this is a highly questionable legislative proposal.
The economic engine #China 🇨🇳 is sputtering. Youth unemployment in major cities now stands at 21.3%. GDP in the second quarter grew by 6.3% year-over-year. However, the expectation had been 7.1%. The retail sector, in particular, is recovering only slowly. While there was still a 12.7% increase in May, the figure dropped to just 3.1% in June. China could therefore fall short of its own target of 5% growth this year. The 6.3% growth can be attributed primarily to a low baseline from the previous year.
https://app.handelsblatt.com/roundup-chinas-wirtschaftswachstum-verlangsamt-sich/29262450.html
Tuesday:
On Tuesday, $NOVN (+0.59%) Novartis posted a significant gain in early trading. The pharmaceutical company recently reported growth of 3.6 percent. This gave the stock a slight boost again after it had declined slightly in recent weeks following the rise in March and April. The market reacted positively to the company’s improved forecasts and better-than-expected results. In addition, Novartis announced a new share buyback program worth up to $15 billion.
dpa-AFX ProFeed
#Retail sales in the U.S. came in slightly weaker than expected at +0.2% (+0.5%). This underscores the slowly deteriorating consumer sentiment in the U.S. 🇺🇸. Accordingly, the figures are not being well received on the stock market.
dpa-AFX ProFeed
The bottom has not yet been reached; building permits continue to plummet—down 25.9% compared to the same month last year. The main reasons for the decline remain rising construction costs and tighter financing conditions.
Wednesday:
Real estate stocks such as $VNA (-0.44%) Vonovia are starting the day stronger on Wednesday. This was driven by data from Hypoport. The financial services provider posted modest growth in the last quarter.
At $GS (+0.46%) Goldman, things aren’t going so well right now. Many employees were recently laid off. In the second quarter, profits shrank to $1.07 billion. In the same period last year, they were still at $2.79 billion. The main reason for the slump was various write-downs.
$TSLA (-1.87%) Tesla plans to further expand its Grünheide facility. Currently, 500,000 cars can be produced there. Soon, that number is expected to reach 1,000,000 cars. This would make the car factory in Grünheide the largest in Germany. By comparison, VW’s main plant in Wolfsburg can produce 800,000 cars per year.
$NFLX (-2.28%) Netflix is benefiting from account suspensions. The company was able to attract new customers and grow revenue by 2.7%. Profit also came in at $1.49 billion, up from the same quarter last year.
$TSLA (-1.87%) Tesla exceeded analysts’ expectations—less so in revenue, but more so in profit. Revenue rose to just under $25 billion. Earnings per share came in at 91 cents, compared to expectations of only 82 cents.
Thursday:
$HFG (+3.32%) HelloFresh’s earnings were well above expectations, though its customer base is shrinking—an area where the company fell short. The higher-than-expected profit can be attributed to larger average order sizes. In our view, this represents a sustainable trend. Customers who came only for promotional offers are leaving, while regular customers are staying and buying more in the significantly expanded online store. It appears that shareholders currently still prioritize growth over profitability.
China 🇨🇳 is not cutting its key interest rates any further. The main reason is likely that doing so would make the U.S. dollar increasingly attractive. In this way, China is protecting the yuan from further devaluation. However, this also increases the risk of deflation and a slower economic recovery. China, however, has set itself the long-term goal of replacing the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This decision clearly reflects that priority.
Friday:
$SAP (+0.69%) Unfortunately, SAP is falling short. The company had recently sought to focus more on its cloud business, but revenue figures are disappointing. Growth in the cloud business reached only 19%. SAP’s profits are still on the rise, however, because the decline in its traditional software business was less severe than expected. AI applications are also expected to be introduced soon, which should make it faster and easier to utilize SAP data.
In Japan 🇯🇵, negative interest rates are still in effect. Inflation is now picking up there, while it’s falling in other countries—though from a low baseline. Inflation rose to 3.3%. Japan’s interest rate decision is scheduled for next week.
Saturday:
Last week, $FRE (+0.95%) Fresenius saw its stock price rise rapidly. At first, the reason seemed unclear. There was speculation about technical chart factors or the company’s restructuring. In fact, an environmental disaster in the U.S. was likely responsible for the rise. A tornado destroyed a Pfizer plant, which will now be out of operation for weeks. The stock market expects Fresenius’s pharmaceutical subsidiary, Kabi, to benefit from this production outage.
Key dates for the coming week:
Monday: 9:30 a.m. Industrial production data (Germany)
Tuesday: 10:00 a.m. Credit data (EU)
Wednesday: 8:00 p.m. Fed interest rate decision (U.S.)
Thursday: 2:15 p.m. Interest rate decision (EU)
Friday: 5:00 a.m. Interest rate decision (Japan)