News & Insight • Weekly Newsletters

02 December 2022 | William Buckhurst

That Was The Week That Was

MACRO

• Global stock markets rallied over the second half of the week as US Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, signalled that the Fed was preparing to slow the pace of rate hikes in December
• China’s top zero-Covid enforcer, Sun Chunlan, said the fight against the virus has entered a “new stage” while state media have downplayed its risks, bolstering expectations that Beijing is easing its anti-pandemic approach days after a wave of unrest as President Xi Jinping acknowledged discontent with EU officials
• A drop of 1.4% in November saw UK house prices fall at their fastest pace since June 2020
• Barclaycard Payments data saw spend +3.6% yoy on Black Friday and +5% yoy on Cyber Monday

COMPANY NEWS

• HSBC sold its Canadian business to RBC for £8.4bn
• Kering was reported by the Wall Street Journal to be in advanced talks to acquire Tom Ford
• Apple shares faltered after it was reported that it could face a production shortfall due to the closure of manufacturing sites linked to the COVID outbreak across China
• The cloud experts, Snowflake, reported better than expected earnings and revenue due to high demand

SMALL CAP

Have the January sales started early? Frasers, Next and Marks & Spencer were all buying up other brands purchasing luxury homeware retailer Amara Living, 74% of Joules for c.£26m and personalised fashion subscription business, Thread, out of administration respectively.

One deal that caught our eye was Invinity Energy Systems plc, a leading global manufacturer of utility-grade energy storage, announcing it had signed a reseller agreement with Everdura Technology Company, an industrial technology company based in Taiwan. With an initial purchase order totalling 15 MWh of vanadium flow batteries, this could be significantly boosted with the ability for Everdura to purchase a further 255 MWh of Invinity products for the purpose of follow-on orders over the next three years

INTERESTING ELSEWHERE

Microsoft is "ready to fight" to get its Activision Blizzard acquisition approved if the Federal Trade Commission in the US files a lawsuit to try to block the deal. This is according to a person who spoke with Bloomberg. Microsoft have yet to speak with the FTC, but it is believed Microsoft's best chances to get the deal approved is to offer concessions saying it won't withhold Activision Blizzard's titles, like Call of Duty, from platforms like Sony's PlayStation. Microsoft has stated the deal is expected to close by June 30, 2023

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

1914: The US bond market reopens after being closed since July 31st due to World War 1. US stock markets would remain closed until Dec 12th, but authorities believed that the bond market should open up sooner to assist in raising money for the war effort and recovery

2017: Bitcoin passes $10,000 for the first time

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

CEO of Tesco, Ken Murphy said shoppers were “managing their budgets much more tightly” by using hand-held barcode scanners “to keep to a specific” amount. He also mentioned searches for frozen food on Tesco’s website were up 40% from this time last year

IN OTHER NEWS

Rolls-Royce Holdings and easyJet said they set a new aviation milestone with the world's first ground test of an aero engine running on hydrogen at the Ministry of Defence Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, England, using a converted Rolls-Royce AE 2100-A regional aircraft engine. The hydrogen power was sourced from a hydrogen production and tidal test facility in the Orkney Islands. Rolls-Royce and easyJet claimed the test marked a major step towards proving hydrogen could be a zero-carbon aviation fuel in the future

MARKET DATA

 As at 2^nd December 2022. Source: Financial Express

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