Trade overview: current reports, trends, indices, stock prices, bonds, foreign exchange and commodities and analyst recommendations

15:33

The trading day on the US stock exchanges opened with a negative trend. Decreases of up to 0.7% are recorded in the main stock indices.

Liveperson Drops by about 53% after publishing disappointing reports and forecasts.

First Republic Bank Drops after the bank announced that it is examining various options including a sale or merger into another bank.

15:16

Macro Europe: The European Central Bank (ECB) decided to raise interest rates by 0.5% to 3.5%, in line with economists’ expectations. This despite the recent upheavals in the banking sector.

In the forex market, the euro strengthens slightly against the dollar and trades around $1.06 per euro.

Trading in futures contracts on US stock market indices now shows a mixed trend. In European stock markets, increases of up to 0.6% are recorded in the main stock indices.

CEO of the 3D printing company Stratsys Dr. Yoav Zeif, estimates that the company’s board of directors will not approve the purchase offer of nano dimension , according to a review by the investment bank Oppenheimer who met with Stratasys executives in recent days. Nano Dimension owns 14.5% of Stratsys shares and offered to purchase the remaining shares at a 30% premium. According to Oppenheimer, “the longer the process of curbing the takeover bid is prolonged, the more the managerial attention of the management will be diverted.” Their recommendation for Stratasys stock is “outperform” with a target price of $25 per share, 69% above the current price and 39% above the price in the non-binding offer submitted by Nano Dimension.

company Urogen Pharma reported today that the net revenues from the JELMYTO product amounted to: in the fourth quarter of 2022, approximately $18.1 million, compared to approximately $16.2 million in the corresponding quarter. Net revenues from the product in 2022 amounted to approximately $64.4 million, compared to approximately $48 million in 2021. In the bottom line, Eurogen reported a net loss of $109.2 million in 2022, compared to $110.8 million in 2021.

13:50

The main European stock indices are now climbing 0.5%-0.9% pending the ECB’s interest rate announcement. Trading in futures contracts on US stock market indices now shows a mixed trend.

stock Liveperson Drops by about 41% in early trading after the publication of disappointing financial reports and a weak forecast for the future. LivePerson is an American company traded on Nasdaq and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and provides SaaS solutions for customer service management to various organizations. The company reported revenues of approximately $122 million in the fourth quarter, a 1.1% decrease compared to the corresponding quarter, an amount lower than analysts’ forecasts of $127 million. The company reduced its operating expenses and as a result also the operating loss, and on the bottom line recorded a quarterly net loss of 41.7 million dollars, compared to a loss of 49.9 million dollars in the corresponding quarter. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) was negative at $5.2 million.

stock First Republic Bank Drops by 23% after the bank announced that it is examining various options including a sale or merger into another bank.

12:10

The main European stock indices are now climbing 0.5%-0.9% pending the ECB’s interest rate announcement. Trading in futures contracts on US stock market indices now shows a mixed trend.

In the crypto market, Bitcoin is now trading with a slight increase around 24.8 thousand, and Ethereum is trading around 1,660 dollars.

10:20

The trading day in Europe opened with gains. The main stock indices climb by 1.4%-1.8%. In futures trading on US stock market indices, slight increases are now being recorded.

stock Credit Suisse Jumps about 30% after the bank announced last night that it borrowed up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($53.68 billion) from the Swiss National Bank under a covered lending framework and a short-term liquidity framework.

Patrick Barb, head of the European bond investment department of the global investment company Neuberger Berman, points out in anticipation of the European Central Bank’s announcement today that “the market expects the ECB to raise its interest rate by about 40 basis points, but we believe that the ECB is going to raise in 50 points. Activity in the Eurozone is still close to recession and layoffs have already begun in Spain and Germany. The ECB should consider that there is no reason to rush to raise the key interest rate when they are already in restrictive territories and take into account the late effect of the effect of its hawkish policy since the first effect is a significant tightening of the credit loan conditions offered by commercial banks. We expect that after March, the ECB will reduce to 25 points and stop at 3.5% or lower.”

“The level of the ECB’s record interest rate should depend on the revision of its medium-term core inflation forecast from last December, which rose to 2.8% for 2024 and 2.4% for 2025. We also expect the ECB’s early announcement of the end of the reinvestment program in bonds because we believe that his priority from now on should be to reduce his balance sheet instead of raising interest rates.” Referring to the bank incident in the US, Benweiberger Berman emphasized, “Compared to the California bank incident in the US where banks with a balance sheet below 250 billion dollars are not under Close supervision by the regulator, in the Eurozone all banks are fully controlled,” he writes.

In Asia today, the Nikkei index registered a decrease of about 0.8%. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong recorded a decrease of about 1.7%, in Seoul the Kospi decreased by 0.1% and Shanghai recorded a decrease of 1.1%.

08:00

Asian stock markets are trading in a negative trend. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong registers a decrease of about 1.2%, in Tokyo the Nikkei is cut by 1%, and in Seoul the Kospi is down by 0.2%.

Trading in futures contracts on US stock market indices is now showing slight increases. This is after a mixed shutdown was recorded on Wall Street yesterday, after a trading day characterized by sharp declines: the Dow Jones closed with a decrease of 0.87%, the S&P 500 decreased by 0.7%, And the Nasdaq closed with a slight increase of 0.05%.

Traders in the world markets will continue to follow today the developments related to the Swiss bank Credit Suisse in particular and the banking system in Europe and the US in general. The bank announced last night that it borrowed up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($53.68 billion) from the Swiss National Bank as part of a covered loan framework and a short-term liquidity framework The decision to take the loan comes shortly after the bank’s shares fell sharply on Wednesday and hit an all-time low. The fall in the value of the shares came after the main investor in the bank, the National Bank of Saudi Arabia, announced that it would not be able to provide additional assistance.

In the commodity trading arena, after another day of sharp declines yesterday, oil contracts are up by about 1.2% today. American WTI oil is trading around $68.4 per barrel (May contract), and Brent oil is trading around $74.6 per barrel. Gold registers a slight decrease to about 1,920 dollars per ounce.

In the global forex market, the euro strengthens by about 0.3% against the dollar and trades around $1.061 per euro. The pound strengthens by about 0.1%, and the Japanese yen strengthens by about 0.3% around 133 yen to the dollar.

In the macro field, today (15:15 Israel time) an interest rate decision of the European Central Bank will be published (a 0.5% increase is expected). Also in the Eurozone, a consumer price index will be published tomorrow.

The bond market returned to pricing the expected increase in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate next week with high odds, after several estimates were heard in recent days that the Fed would leave the interest rate unchanged against the background of the collapse of the US banks. What brought about the change in the trend in the market are the inflation figures, which in accordance with expectations ordered an annual rate of 6%.

In the meantime, yields on US government bonds rose again after falling sharply in the shadow of the bank collapse. The yield on two-year notes, which are considered more sensitive to changes in interest rates, fell 0.6% on Monday, and then climbed sharply to 4.36%. But then came the drama surrounding Credit Suisse on Tuesday, dropping the bond yield to 3.76%, and now it stands at about 3.97%.