Banking stocks drove European markets lower on Monday as global investors weighed the consequences of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The US lender imploded last week and had its assets seized after a bank run caused its stock to plummet.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index dropped 2.56% at 13:00 GMT, with all major stocks trading in the red. Bank stocks slumped more than 6%, with Commerzbank, BAWAG Group, and Banco BPM among the biggest losers. Credit Suisse plunged 15% in early trading and UniCredit lost 9%, while Deutsche Bank and Raiffeisen Bank both declined by 7%.
The meltdown came despite the news that Britain’s HSBC, which is one of the world’s biggest banks and boasts $2.9 trillion in assets, has agreed to rescue the UK branch of SVB for a symbolic £1, vowing to protect client deposits as part of the deal. Following the announcement, HSBC saw its shares drop 3.5%.
“We’re seeing a liquidity withdrawal – the classic thing that you’d expect following a credit event like what’s happening at SVB. People get scared, reduce exposure to equities and move into government bonds,” Haig Bathgate, head of investments at Atomos, told Bloomberg.
https://www.rt.com/business/572907-us-banking-crisis-european-stocks/
This is Your President and the ultra rich & influential...smh😡🤬
Ambassador Andrey Kelin said Moscow would treat NATO soldiers on the ground as a security threat
Russia will treat the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine as a threat to its security, Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin has said.
The diplomat rejected plans by the so-called Coalition of the Willing to send “peacekeepers” to Ukraine after a ceasefire is reached with Russia.
“We will not allow [the deployment] of any NATO member state’s troops on the territory of Ukraine because it will be another line of attack against Russia,” Kelin said in an interview with Channel 4 News aired on Wednesday. “We understand that Ukraine wants guarantees. We also need guarantees,” he added.
The diplomat said the presence of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil would be unacceptable. Asked about a Financial Times report that Ukraine and its European backers had agreed to deploy Western troops in the event of a violation of a potential ceasefire, Kelin said such plans were “dead.”
Kelin...
The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has begun a sweeping round of layoffs that will eliminate roughly one in three newsroom jobs, marking one of the most severe workforce reductions in the paper’s history.
Staff were informed on Wednesday that the cuts are part of what management described as a “broad strategic reset,” a move that will shutter entire departments, sharply reduce international coverage, and significantly restructure local and editorial operations.
Emails sent to employees on Wednesday morning indicated that about 300 of The Post’s roughly 800 journalists are expected to lose their jobs. Several staffers described the scale of the cuts as a “bloodbath.”
Employees were told they would be notified individually of their status and that those laid off would receive benefits through mid-April.
“These moves are painful,” Executive Editor Matt Murray said during a staff-wide call. “This is a tough day.”
Entire sections dismantled
According to Murray, the ...
