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The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Ryanair Holdings narrowed its annual forecast loss range as it reported a recovery in passenger numbers for March. In March 2022, the Swords, Dublin-based airline flew 11.2 million passengers, bouncing back from just 500,000 a year ago. This was higher than pre-pandemic figures of 10.9 million in March 2019 and 10 million in March 2018. In total, Ryanair operated over 67,800 flights in March with a load factor of 87%, up from 71% year-on-year. Ryanair also said full-year traffic recovered strongly to over 97 million from 27.5 million in financial 2021, but remained below pre-Covid traffic of 149 million. In a newly released annual forecast, Ryanair expects a loss around €350 million to €400 million, narrowed from a previous guidance range of €250 million to €450 million, for its financial year ended March 31. While the range has been trimmed, Ryanair's loss guidance at the mid-point has widened. However, this would still be an improvement on the net loss of €815 million in its previous financial year. In its pre-pandemic financial year 2020, Ryanair posted a profit of €1.00 billion.
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easyJet cancelled more than 200 flights over the weekend with disruption expected to last into this week, leaving some passengers stranded amid travel chaos at some of Britain's biggest airports. The airline blamed the problems on high levels of sickness among employees caused by Covid, with at least 222 trips axed since Friday. It said it had made efforts to offset staff shortages by ‘rostering’ additional standby crew on the weekend but was forced to make ‘additional cancellations for today (Sunday) and tomorrow’. A total of 62 flights scheduled for Monday have been pulled, the majority of which were announced at short notice on Saturday. An easyJet spokesperson said: ‘As a result of the current high rates of Covid infections across Europe, like all businesses easyJet is experiencing higher than usual levels of employee sickness.’
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The UK financial watchdog and the Bank of England have launched a review into the suspension of nickel trading by the London Metal Exchange last month. The exchange suspended nickel trades from Tuesday March 8 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine resulted in significant volatility, with prices doubling to more than 100,000 US dollars per tonne within an hour. Traders also expressed frustration over a spate of technical glitches after trading resumed on Wednesday March 16. The Financial Conduct Authority has said it now plans to ‘review the LME's approach to managing the suspension and resumption’ of the nickel market. LME's parent company is Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing. In a statement, the LME Group said it ‘welcomes’ the announcement by the regulators.
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Berlin-based delivery service provider Delivery Hero aims to be profitable in its core business at group level for the first time next year. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, adjusted for one-off effects, should be positive in the coming year, the DAX-listed company announced. The outlook also includes Delivery Hero's latest acquisition, Glovo from Spain. For this year, Delivery Hero confirmed its previous outlook from mid-February, according to which the company expects a loss in its operating business. The firm also announced the syndication of a term loan financing transaction, comprising a $825 million term facility and a €300 million term facility. Concurrently with the signing of the term facilities, the company expects to enter into a €375 million revolving credit facility with a consortium of banks.
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India's largest private bank will merge with its largest mortgage lender to form a $237 billion financial giant, both companies said, as low interest rates send demand for home loans soaring. HDFC Bank will absorb its parent company, the Housing Development Finance Corporation, in what will be one of the country's biggest-ever merger deals. The twin firms together manage assets worth ₹25.61 trillion, around $339 billion, and had a combined balance sheet of ₹17.87 trillion at the end of last year. ‘As the son grows older, he acquires his father's business. That's all (that is) happening here,’ HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh told a media briefing. He said the merger would help low- and middle-income homebuyers outside India's cities access ‘affordable’ housing loans. India is enjoying a post-pandemic economic rebound and is growing faster than any other major economy.
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Tesla increased its vehicle sales in the first three months of the year by more than two-thirds. Tesla said on Saturday that it delivered 310,048 vehicles in the first quarter of 2022, an increase of about 68% from last year's 184,800 vehicles, despite supply chain problems and factory shutdowns. It delivered 295,324 units of its Model 3 and Model Y, along with 14,724 units of its Model S and Model X, the company said. The Austin, Texas-based electric car maker produced 305,407 vehicles in the first quarter compared to 180,338 vehicles in the previous year. Tesla said it will post its financial results for the first quarter of 2022 after market close on Wednesday, April 20.
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MARKETS
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European stocks were mixed on Monday as investors monitored the latest developments in Ukraine, with the EU debating fresh sanctions after claims that Russian forces committed atrocities against Ukrainian civilians in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv. ‘Bullish enthusiasm was short-lived as investors continue to struggle to assess the situation in Ukraine...This situation weighs on todays appetite for riskier assets like stocks and underly the current uncertain and volatile state of those markets,’ said Pierre Veyret, an analyst at ActivTrades.
The economic calendar is quiet at the start of the week, but promises to pick up in the coming days with PMIs out on Tuesday and meeting minutes from the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday.
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CAC 40: up 0.3% at 6,703.81
DAX 40: down 0.1% at 14,438.34
FTSE 100: up 0.2% at 7,554.09
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Hang Seng: closed up 2.1% at 22,502.31
Nikkei 225: closed up 0.3% at 27,736.47
S&P/ASX 200: closed up 0.3% at 7,513.70
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DJIA: called flat
S&P 500: called up 0.1%
Nasdaq Composite: called up 0.3%
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EUR: down at $1.1019 ($1.1035)
GBP: firm at $1.3115 ($1.3108)
USD: down at JP¥122.64 (JP¥122.82)
GOLD: flat at $1,928.60 per ounce ($1,928.25)
OIL (Brent): down at $103.54 a barrel ($105.32)
(currency and commodities changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian troops ‘murderers, torturers, rapists, looters’ after dozens of bodies were found near Kyiv, triggering global outrage and vows of tough new sanctions on Moscow. Local authorities said they had been forced to dig communal graves to bury the dead accumulating in the streets, including some found with their hands bound behind their backs, in scenes that sent shockwaves through international capitals more than a month into Russia's invasion. Despite Russian denials of responsibility, condemnation was swift, with Western leaders, NATO and the UN all voicing horror at reports of civilian murders in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, and elsewhere. Zelensky was unsparing in his nightly video message, warning ‘concentrated evil has come to our land’. He described Russian troops as ‘murderers, torturers, rapists, looters, who call themselves the army and who deserve only death after what they did’, speaking in Ukrainian.
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The EU said it is urgently discussing a new round of sanctions on Russia as it condemned ‘atrocities’ reported in Ukrainian towns that have been occupied by Moscow's troops. The EU ‘will advance, as a matter of urgency, work on further sanctions against Russia,’ foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement on behalf of the bloc. ‘We stand in full solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in these sombre hours for the whole world,’ he said. One EU official told AFP that a new sanctions package on Russia would be discussed this week. EU foreign ministers could then look it over, either on the sidelines of a NATO meeting happening Wednesday and Thursday, or at their regular meeting early next week. Borrell said in his statement that the EU ‘condemns in the strongest possible terms’ the atrocities reported in Ukrainian towns that had been occupied by Russian forces, including the town of Bucha, where corpses were found with their hands bound. ‘The massacres in the town of Bucha and other Ukrainian towns will be inscribed in the list of atrocities committed on European soil,’ Borrell said.
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French President Emmanuel Macron said he was in favour of new sanctions against Moscow. ‘There are very clear indications of war crimes. It was the Russian army that was in Bucha,’ Macron told the France Inter broadcaster after the discovery of mass graves and hundreds of dead people northwest of Kyiv. Macron called for progress on further moves towards sanctions at the EU level which he said could target the Russian oil and coal industries. ‘What happened in Bucha makes a new round of sanctions, and very clear measures, necessary,’ Macron said. France would coordinate such steps with its EU partners, ‘especially Germany’, in the coming days, he said. Macron said that targeting the oil and coal industries would be ‘particularly’ painful for Russia. The EU could also impose further sanctions against Russian individuals, Macron added.
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The UK is to push for tougher international sanctions against Vladimir Putin's Russia and increase supplies of arms to Ukraine as evidence of atrocities continue to emerge from the war zone. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said ‘Britain will never waver from supporting our friends’ in a sign of the increased commitment to defending Ukraine. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will meet Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in Warsaw on Monday ahead of key G7 and Nato talks later this week where she will push for tougher economic measures against ‘the Putin war machine’. Truss argues that weakening Russia's economy will help strengthen Ukraine's hand in peace negotiations with Moscow. She will hold talks with Polish counterpart Zbigniew Rau on Tuesday and has also pledged a £10 million civil society fund for Ukraine, including support for organisations dealing with sexual violence following reports of Russian forces using rape as a way to terrorise the civilian population.
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German exports bounded higher in February, the official statistics agency said, cautioning that the Ukraine conflict and sanctions against Russia were likely to cloud the picture in the months ahead. Exports rose by a higher-than-expected 6.4% on the previous month to reach a value of €124.7 billion, Destatis said, powered by strong demand from EU countries. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had predicted a 2% increase. Imports jumped 4.5% month-on-month, totalling €113.1 billion. But trade with Russia was ‘markedly down’, Destatis said, with exports falling by 6.3% and imports by 7.3%, revealing the first impact of sweeping Western sanctions imposed on Russia after its February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that she will not seek another term as the city's political elite prepares to select a new leader next month. ‘I will complete my five-year term as chief executive on June 30, and officially conclude my 42-year career in government,’ Lam told reporters. Lam said China's leaders ‘understood and respected’ her choice not to seek another term, adding that she had informed Beijing about her intentions in March 2021. Lam said her ‘personal wish and aspiration is entirely based on my family considerations’. Her departure closes the chapter on a controversial five-year term that saw Beijing ramp up control following huge democracy protests and a pandemic response that plunged Hong Kong into international isolation. The city's next leader will be chosen on May 8 but so far no one with a realistic prospect has publicly thrown their hat into the ring.
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Coronavirus cases in China's largest city, Shanghai, are still rising as millions of people remain isolated at home under a sweeping lockdown. On Sunday, health officials reported 438 confirmed cases detected over the previous 24 hours, along with 7,788 asymptomatic cases. Both figures were up slightly from the day before. While small by the standards of some countries, the daily case numbers are some of the largest since the virus was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019. Shanghai, which has a population of 26 million, began a two-stage lockdown last week, with residents of the eastern Pudong section supposed to be allowed to leave their homes on Friday, while their neighbours in the western Puxi section underwent their own four-day isolation period. Despite that assurance, millions in Pudong continue to be confined to their homes amid complaints over food deliveries and the availability of medication and health services.
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By Lucy Heming; lucyheming@alliancenews.com
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