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☆ Stocks rally wobbles as Fed hike draws near
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Tom Westbrook | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1%, though China stocks were held flat by disappointing economic data. The index is down ten months in a row and near two-year lows, rattled by growth and interest-rate hike fears. The mixed performance follows an erratic earnings season on Wall Street and bond and currency markets tempering some wagers on a change in tone from the Fed. S&P 500 futures fell 0.2%, while European futures rose 0.4%. Palm oil futures rose nearly 5%.

☆ Asia stocks creep higher on hopes Fed will tone down hikes
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Tom Westbrook | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

But China stocks fell following weak economic data, and the MSCI index is set for a tenth consecutive monthly loss. The performance follows a Friday rally on Wall Street but comes with bond and currency markets tempering some wagers on a change in tone from the Fed. S&P 500 futures fell 0.2%. Corn futures rose 2%. Rates and Fed funds futures traders have now tempered initial optimism and see the funds rate hitting near 5% by May next year.

☆ NatWest reports flat profit as economic outlook dims
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Iain Withers | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Oct 28 (Reuters) - British bank NatWest (NWG.L) reported flat quarterly profits on Friday, as bad loan charges from a worsening economic outlook took the shine off income boosted by rising interest rates. NatWest posted pre-tax profit of 1.1 billion pounds ($1.27 billion) for July-September, slightly below the 1.2 billion pounds average of analyst forecasts compiled by the bank, and unchanged on the prior year. The bank set aside an additional 247 million pounds in the quarter to reflect the deteriorating picture, denting its profits. Britain's economy is facing recession at a time when the Bank of England is hiking interest rates to curb double-digit inflation, squeezing the finances of households and businesses. Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC earlier all reported solid profits but discomfited investors with higher bad loan charges.

☆ Commodity stocks, Natwest drag FTSE 100 lower
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Johann M Cherian | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SummarySummary Companies FTSE 100 down 0.7%, FTSE 250 off 1.2%Natwest falls to bottom of FTSE 100Glencore cuts core earnings guidanceOct 28 (Reuters) - UK's FTSE 100 fell on Friday, as commodity-linked stocks dropped on worries about widening COVID-19 curbs in China, while Natwest slumped after reporting a flat third-quarter profit. The exporter-heavy FTSE 100 (.FTSE) fell 0.7%, with mining (.FTNMX551020) and energy (.FTNMX601010) stocks shedding 2.8% and 0.7%, respectively, as oil and metal prices slid after top consumer China expanded COVID-19 restrictions. "I'm not surprised because the government here is desperate to find sources of revenue," said Stuart Cole, head macro economist at Equiti Capital. "Investors are now concerned about the government taxing the significant sources of revenue that banks and energy companies have been earning." Shares of NatWest (NWG.L) dropped 7.8% to the bottom of FTSE 100 after the company reported a flat quarterly profit, blaming bad loan charges from a worsening economic outlook and the cost of exiting its Irish business.

☆ Morning Bid: Closer to fine
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Tom Westbrook. Having jumped the gun a few times, markets are again pricing in a pivot in monetary policy and might be getting closer to the mark. Bonds are rejoicing at this week's step-down in hiking speed at the Bank of Canada and hints the European Central Bank is getting closer to satisfied with its progress. Ten-year Italian BTPs are eyeing their best week in a decade, with yields down 73 basis points since last Friday's close. Markets now price a peak in the Fed funds rate around 4.8%, after flirting with 5% a week ago.

☆ NatWest Group CFO: Loan impairments remain 'extremely low'
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailNatWest Group CFO: Loan impairments remain 'extremely low'Katie Murray, CFO of NatWest Group, says that reflects the health of its customer base.

☆ NatWest shows bank investors were right to fret
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Oct 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Investor scepticism in bank stocks might seem a bit odd. After all, rising interest rates mean banks can make a fatter margin on loans, and unemployment levels are low, which suggests customers will keep paying their mortgages. Investors already valued NatWest at only 0.8 times its tangible book value, and Friday’s 8% share price fall will push that down further. The bank, still 48% owned by the UK government after a 2008 bailout, is expected to deliver a 13% return on tangible equity next year, RBC analysts reckon. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

LONDON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Germany, considered Europe's most reliable debtor, is having trouble selling its bonds, just as it seeks billions to tackle the energy crisis. Hit hard by its over-reliance on Russian energy, Germany intends to borrow particularly large amounts in the coming years, with Parliament last week voting to suspend the constitutional debt brake that limits new borrowing. France's finance agency, in contrast, issued 10 billion euros of medium term bonds on Oct. 20 into strong demand. VOLATILITY HURTS AUCTIONSThe uncertainty around borrowing and QT has increased volatility in euro zone bond markets, already rocked by the knock-on effects from Britain's now-scrapped plans for large unfunded tax cuts. Volatility is deterring the banks that act as dealers for German bonds from bidding in debt auctions, Tammo Diemer, head of the country's finance agency, said at an event on Tuesday.

☆ I'm due to make $1,170 just by switching bank accounts. It only took 10 minutes to do it each time — here's how I did it.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Chris Stokel-Walker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Faced with rising energy bills and double-digit inflation in the UK, every little bit can help, which is why I was drawn to the idea of switching bank accounts. By the time I realized this in mid-September, Santander had withdrawn its switching bonus offer. The bank also offered to credit my Santander account with a £50 payment by way of apology. By then, NatWest was already in the process of switching my First Direct account over, so I couldn't switch it to Santander. And you need savings, as some of the banks I used required £1,000 or more in the new accounts to get the switching bonus.

☆ Dollar weathers suspected yen intervention, China data mixed
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Wayne Cole | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar weathered another suspected blast of Japanese intervention to push higher on the yen on Monday, while most share markets rallied on just the hint of an eventual slowdown in U.S. rate hikes. REUTERS/Issei KatoThe dollar started in a bullish mood with an early rush to 149.70 yen, before taking a sudden spill as far as 145.28 in a matter of minutes. Yet speculators seemed undaunted and took the dollar back up to 148.90 in choppy trading. Also moving was sterling, which see-sawed on news Boris Johnson had dropped out of running for British prime minister. The Bank of Canada is also expected to tighten by 75 basis points at its meeting this week.

☆ Dollar absorbs suspected yen intervention, China data mixed
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Wayne Cole | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar weathered another suspected blast of Japanese intervention to push higher on the yen on Monday, while for equities a drop in Chinese markets took the shine off hopes for an eventual slowdown in U.S. interest rate hikes. REUTERS/Issei KatoThe dollar started in a bullish mood with an early rush to 149.70 yen, before taking a sudden spill as far as 145.28 in a matter of minutes. Yet speculators seemed undaunted and took the dollar back up to 148.90 in choppy trading. Japanese authorities again declined to confirm whether they had intervened, but the price action strongly suggested they had. [GOL/]Oil prices surrendered early gains following soft data on Chinese demand.

☆ Dollar shrugs off suspected yen intervention, Europe clings to Fed hopes
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Wayne Cole | Amanda Cooper | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

LONDON/SYDNEY (Reuters) - The dollar weathered another suspected blast of Japanese intervention to rise against the yen on Monday, while European markets got a lift from hopes that U.S. interest rates could rise more slowly than previously thought. Japanese authorities again declined to confirm whether they had intervened, but the price action suggested they had. Sterling, meanwhile, see-sawed in volatile trade on news Boris Johnson had dropped out of the running for British prime minister. The peak for rates has also edged down to around 4.87%, from above 5% early last week. “Although we do not expect any ‘dovish’ policy signal, we maintain a bias towards a lower rate path than currently priced by markets,” said analysts at NatWest Markets in a note.

chartchartA short position is essentially a wager that an asset's price will fall, and a long position is a bet it will rise. In aggregate, funds' short position of almost 125,000 contracts is the largest since November last year. But it failed to materially reduce the net speculative wager because funds also substantially reduced their long yen position. Ultimately, funds trimmed their net short yen position by only a few thousand contracts following the Sept. 22 intervention. The latest CFTC data shows they evidently felt confident enough to load up on short yen positions again.

☆ Cost of insuring UK debt against default drops as Sunak becomes PM
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - The cost of insuring Britain's debt against default fell to its lowest since last month's "mini budget", according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence on Monday, after Rishi Sunak won the race to become Britain's next prime minister. Five-year sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) on UK government debt fell to 30 basis points, from 35 bps at Friday's close. This was their lowest since Sept. 23, when outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss and her then-finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled a fiscal plan that contained billions of pounds in unfunded tax cuts. Sunak, who served as finance minster under Boris Johnson, said on Monday Britain faced serious economic challenges and needed stability and unity. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Amanda Cooper; Editing by Karin StroheckerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Banks, Big Tech seek clearer guidance on combating scams
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Huw Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Banks have already improved defences against scams, but a report from industry body Stop Scams UK and the Royal United Services Institute on Thursday said complex guidelines and processes around privacy law make it difficult for companies to share data to stop fraud. Banks hope the bill will include clearer guidance on allowing them to share anonymised customer data - or data that does not identify the individual if refers to - to spot new types of scams more quickly. "If we are to unlock data sharing at scale, we call for proportionate and sensible changes to guidance around the interpretation of privacy law," said Ruth Evans, chair of Stop Scams UK, whose members include HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays, TalkTalk, Meta and Google. Last month, more banks jointed Stop Scams UK's fraud-reporting hotline as the cost of living crisis is leading to an increase in the number of financial scams. However, banks demanding more certainty over sharing anonymised data face opposition from privacy groups.

☆ FTSE 100 extends gains, UK inflation back at 40-year high
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SummarySummary Companies FTSE 100 up 0.1%, FTSE 250 down 0.2%Oct 19 (Reuters) - UK's blue-chip index edged higher on Wednesday after a strong Wall Street session driven by earnings optimism, although data showed UK inflation hit a 40-year high again, highlighting persistent price pressures that have hurt consumer spending. The FTSE 100 index of top UK companies (.FTSE) rose 0.1% by 0714 GMT, entering its fifth day of gains, aided by a historic reversal of the new government's failed fiscal plan that had battered the bond markets. Meanwhile, futures signalled a strong start for U.S. stocks after Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) projected more growth ahead. The wider banking index (.FTNMX301010) was down 0.4%, while the investment banking & brokerages index (.FTNMX302020) dropped 0.7%. The domestically exposed FTSE 250 index (.FTMC) slipped 0.2% after a four-day winning run.

Royal Bank of Scotland signs are seen at a branch of the bank, in London, Britain December 1, 2017. RBS agreed to settle Justice Department and FHFA investigations over its sales of residential mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis. The SEC did not pursue its own action against RBS in this instance. The petition Hong filed on Monday asks the Supreme Court to consider what constitutes an "action" within the SEC's whistleblower incentive program. "The better a whistleblower's information, the larger the sanctions, the larger the whistleblower award, and the greater the self-interested motivation for the SEC to take enforcement actions that it has conveniently placed outside of Dodd-Frank's reach," it added.

☆ OutThink raises $10 mln to track human errors behind data breaches
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Juliette Portala | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SummarySummary Companies AlbionVC backs OutThink's $10 million seed funding roundFinancing to speed up the firm's international distributionCo to help identify human behaviour behind data breachesOct 18 (Reuters) - London-based cybersecurity company OutThink has raised $10 million in early-stage investments backed by venture capital firm AlbionVC, it said on Tuesday, as it looks to help organisations identify human behaviour that can lead to data breaches. The company, which says human behaviour is the source of 91% of data breaches, uses machine learning, natural language processing and applied psychology to identify, understand and manage the attitudes, intentions and sentiment of individuals. The financing, in which TriplePoint Capital, Forward Partners, Gapminder and Innovate UK took part, brings the firm's total funding to $11.4 million. OutThink said its platform was used by major organisations, including Whirlpool (WHR.N), Danske Bank (DANSKE.CO), Rothschild (ROTH.PA) and NatWest (NWG.L). Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Juliette Portala, editing by Supantha Mukherjee and Mark PotterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

"It's a catch-up, or catch-down, kind of effect," said Galvin Chia, an emerging markets strategist at NatWest Markets. "There are some exceptional factors, but none of these would provide that kind of panacea for underlying risks that remain." Indonesia's foreign exchange reserves fell by $1.4 billion last month to $130.8 billion, due to debt payments and Bank Indonesia's efforts to stabilise the rupiah. read moreData for September also showed a surge in Indonesia's inflation to a seven-year high, reflecting a jump in fuel prices. "If you look at consumption, look at credit growth, everything is domestic, unlike the other export markets in Asia.

As Truss spoke on Friday gains made in anticipation of the corporation tax U-turn faded. Ten-year gilt yields were 40 bps above session lows hit earlier on Friday, also pushed up by moves in bond yields globally. UNDERWHELMEDBritain's mini-budget three weeks ago triggered some of the biggest ever jumps in British bond yields, exposed vulnerabilities in the pensions sector -- undermining the country's financial stability. "How it impacts liquidity on the gilt market going forward is something we are monitoring closely." Rabobank's McGuire said pressure on UK assets could lead the BoE to re-intervene in the bond market or delay its quantitative tightening, bond-selling plans.

☆ Reactions: UK's Truss fires Kwarteng, set to U-turn on tax cuts
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

LONDON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Liz Truss fired her finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng and news reports said she will scrap later on Friday parts of the economic programme of big, unfunded tax cuts that they delivered last month. Consequently, the scope for a rally in gilts (move lower in yields) and sterling would seem to be limited." BENJAMIN NABARRO, ECONOMIST, CITI"The key issue in the near term is the contradiction between monetary and fiscal policy. RACHEL REEVES, OPPOSITION LABOUR PARTY'S FINANCE CHIEF"This humiliating u-turn is necessary - but the real damage has already been done. We may well be through the worst of the volatility but I fear that the UK is nowhere near out of the woods."

☆ Britain's NatWest closes further 43 branches as banks cut costs
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - NatWest (NWG.L) said on Thursday it is closing a further 43 branches, as lenders reduce their presence on Britain's high streets to cut costs and to adapt to more customers taking up online banking. The branches will close between January and March next year. The closures are the latest in a series of such moves by NatWest, which said it February it would close 32 branches. The move also comes just two days after Britain's Financial Conduct Authority said it was toughening up guidance on branch closures, saying lenders had to make sure an alternative was in place beforehand. read moreRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Iain Withers, Editing by Lawrence WhiteOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

But it is unclear how many lenders are tapping the facility and whether pension funds are willing to shell out additional fees for what is a temporary solution, sources told Reuters. Banks are reluctant to increase their lending to LDI funds through the repo facility, according to one official at a European bank. BRIDGING THE GAPLDI is an investment strategy sold by asset managers like BlackRock, Legal & General Investment Management and Insight Investment to pension schemes to help them match their assets and liabilities. Governor Andrew Bailey has rejected calls to continue buying bonds from pension funds which say they still need support beyond Friday. "It's a bridging tool that they can still use to keep the dialogue with the market and the pension funds going."

Banks are finding the home loan market stacked in their favour after years of low mortgage rates, but are also aware that bigger mortgage bills could spell trouble for cash-strapped customers. But the higher rates will hit borrowers hard. Mortgage payments as a proportion of gross household income were on average around 20% in June, according to BuiltPlace, a property market consultancy. They could rise to around 27% - the highest since the early 1990s - if mortgage rates were to rise to 6%, the consultancy said. The rise in mortgage rates will be a blow for millions of households' finances, Sue Anderson, head of media at debt charity StepChange said.

☆ China's smaller banks cut deposit rates to ease margin pressure
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Several Chinese city commercial banks and rural commercial lenders have cut their rates on a range of deposits this week, according to statements released on the banks' websites. The smaller lenders followed in the footsteps of some of China's biggest state-owned banks, which implemented rate cuts earlier this month. Peiqian Liu, China economist at Natwest Markets, noted the commercial banks' deposit rate cuts are part of the monetary policy transmission mechanism after the central bank cut key policy rates in August. "This rate cut by commercial banks will help improve the profit margin slightly and is technically opening up more space for further (benchmark lending) rate cuts." Four of the five of China’s largest banks, except for Bank of China, reported falling net interest margins (NIMs) in the second quarter.

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