Month: April 2020

(Bloomberg) — National Australia Bank Ltd. will raise A$3.5 billion ($2.24 billion) in a share sale and slashed its dividend to boost capital after first-half profit plunged, kicking off what promises to be a horror earnings season for the nation’s lenders.Cash earnings slumped 51% to A$1.4 billion in the six months ended March 31, the Melbourne-based bank said in a statement Monday. The dividend was sliced to 30 Australian cents a share, from 83 Australian cents last year — a hit to the income of retail investors who hold almost 50% of the bank’s shares.Click here or more details on …read more […]

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(Bloomberg) — The narrowing group of winners in the S&P 500 doesn’t bode well for the future performance of U.S. stocks, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.The U.S. benchmark is around 17% below its February record, but the median stock trades 28% from its peak, Goldman strategists including David Kostin wrote in a note Friday. Meanwhile, the five largest companies make up 20% of the gauge’s market capitalization, exceeding the 18% level the measure reached in March 2000 and raising investor concerns about narrow market breadth, they said.“Sharp declines in market breadth in the past have often signaled large market …read more […]

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Apr.26 — Speculation about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s health intensified over the weekend following tantalizing — yet unverified — reports. Stephen Engle reports on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Australia.” …read more […]

Stock futures kicked off the overnight session slightly higher Sunday evening as investors mulled a patchwork of state plans to slowly roll back social distancing measures. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — U.S. stock futures dipped early Monday as investors weighed further signs of positive developments in the global fight against the coronavirus. The yen was steady as traders awaited a key Bank of Japan policy meeting.Asian equity futures rose, following a move higher for U.S. stocks on Friday. The Australian dollar erased early modest losses to trade higher, while moves were muted elsewhere across foreign-exchange markets. Coronavirus deaths slowed the most in more than a month in Spain, Italy and France while fatalities reported in the U.K. and New York were the lowest since the end of March. Oil …read more […]

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(Bloomberg) — In this era of pandemic uncertainty, Chinese and Hong Kong-listed firms have come to one consensus on how to best survive it: sit on their wallets and preserve cash.They are retaining profits instead of distributing them to shareholders, with the most Hong Kong dividend payers in at least 35 years opting not to do so in the first quarter. Meanwhile, though valuations recently reached a historical low in the city, firms haven’t picked up their stock-repurchase pace. Instead, sales of additional stock are near their highest since 2018.The data help illustrate how the pandemic has distressed the corporate …read more […]