After a relatively calm week in banking, Deutsche Bank is now making headlines for a falling share price and rising CDS spreads.
In an apparent attempt to show strength, the company announced that it would redeem a bond issue early, but the market had other ideas.
Shares of major U.S. banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo and Bank of America dropped between 1% and 2% in early trade.
Shares of regional lenders First Republic Bank, PacWest Bancorp, Western Alliance Bancorp and Truist Financial Corp fell between 1% to 5%.
The S&P 500 banking index and the KBW regional banking index, hit their lowest since late 2020 in the previous session, fell 1.6% and 1.2%, respectively.
European banks also came under pressure after a report on a U.S. probe into Credit Suisse and UBS further soured the mood. Their U.S.-listed shares were down about 5.4% and 4.1%, respectively.
U.S. shares of Deutsche Bank fell nearly 10% after the bank’s credit default swaps rose to a four-year high.
U.S. two-year Treasury yields fell sharply to their lowest levels since September on Friday.
Credit Suisse Group AG and UBS Group AG are among the banks under scrutiny in a US Justice Department probe into whether financial professionals helped Russian oligarchs evade sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Swiss banks were included in a recent wave of subpoenas sent out by the US government, the people said. The information requests were sent before the crisis that engulfed Credit Suisse and resulted in UBS’s proposed takeover of its rival.
Subpoenas also went to employees of some major US banks, two people with knowledge of the inquiries, said.
The Justice Department inquiries are focused on identifying which bank employees dealt with sanctioned clients and how those clients were vetted over the past several years.
Congress on Wednesday took the first step in what is expected to be a lengthy effort to overhaul U.S. export control laws in order to expedite technology cooperation needed to implement a central pillar of the AUKUS trilateral agreement with Australia and the U.K.
The House passed a bill 393-4 directing the State Department and Pentagon to submit information on defense export licenses necessary to collaborate with the U.S. allies on hypersonic weapons, quantum technologies and quantum technologies. These technologies form what is known as pillar two of the AUKUS agreement, which all three countries view as critical to filling capability gaps before Australia receives U.S. and U.K. nuclear-powered submarines over the next two decades under pillar one.
Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Armed Services seapower subcommittee, told Defense News that he pushed throughout the past year to “get a circuit-breaker type of mechanism” that would expedite technology sharing arrangements with Australia and the U.K. to alleviate private sector concerns about potential violations of the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations regime, or ITAR.
China lambasted the latest steps taken by the UK and US to supply conventionally-armed but nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, in a diplomatic broadside circulated overnight among international atomic envoys.
Beijing’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Li Song, said the Aukus agreement will undercut global efforts to stop the spread of weapons-grade nuclear fuel and open new proliferation pathways for other countries. Iran and South Korea are among nations that have also explored obtaining nuclear-powered submarines, and Brazil has already committed to building a fleet.
“If the Aukus partners insist on taking their own course, it is inevitable that some other countries will follow suit, which may eventually lead to the collapse of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime,” China wrote in the statement circulated in Vienna late Tuesday.
China published its criticism during President Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to Moscow.
The cost-of-living squeeze has shown signs of easing for the first time in the past financial year – this as the start of the new school year sparked a spending boom. This was according to Bankwest’s Spend Trends report for February, which tracked WA customer credit and debit activity. Bankwest’s monthly Spend Trends analysis showed…
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German and US authorities, supported by Europol, have targeted ChipMixer, a cryptocurrency mixer used to keep crypto transactions private. The investigation was also supported by Belgium, Poland and Switzerland. On 15 March, national authorities took down the infrastructure of the platform, seizing 4 servers, and also seizing about 1909 Bitcoins in 55 transactions (approx. EUR 44.2 million) and 7 TB of data.
The International Criminal Court said Friday that it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
It was the first time the global court has issued a warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.
The ICC said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
It also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.
The move was immediately dismissed by Moscow.
Three quarters of Australian borrowers are now at risk of becoming home loan hostages due to their lifestyle and financial decisions, new research from mozo.com.au has found. “Home loan customers might be unaware that when they go to refinance their home loan with a new lender, they are assessed as though they are a new…
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Total spending was flat in February after rebounding in January, with total spending lifting 1.7% over the past three months and 10.3% year-on-year, according to NAB’s latest Monthly Data Insights. Retail spending was flat, with goods retail slipping 0.1% and hospitality rising marginally by 0.2%. Total retail spending increased 0.5% over the past three months…
