Good morning,
HSBC grabbed headlines overnight with an announcement that it would sever up to 50,000 jobs, 8,000 in the UK, as part of an effort to slash as much as $5 billion in overhead. The global bank is also threatening to find a new headquarters where taxes are less onerous. Later in the day, market watchers will be keying into the MSCI announcement at 5 PM: Will the indexing behemoth opt to include China A-Shares into its emerging markets index? Anticipation of the announcement has added fuel to the rally in stocks in China’s markets. Hong Kong’s market sank 1% as investors feared money would move from the tiny island nation to the mainland. And finally, no big moments at the Apple developers conference on Monday, but lots of buzz about the new Apple Music and a news app– a direct threat to Flipboard and Facebook paper.
U.S. stocks shaky; Europe extends stock market losses as inflation in China weakens. The Stoxx Europe was down nearly 1% on the news, led by commodity firms. This marks the sixth consecutive down day, the longest stretch this year. Greece continues to weigh on European stocks as well. Bloomberg
MERS deaths in South Korea prompts red alert on travel. Hong Kong is warning its citizens against travel to Seoul where seven people have died from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and a total of 95 have been diagnosed with the disease. Reuters
Nissan sees Infiniti growth in China. The Japanese carmaker is optimistic that sales of its Infiniti vehicles would rise by double-digit this year, even though Chinese demand for high-end cars is slowing down. Its optimism may have some basis as sales of Infiniti in China rose 50% in May from a year ago. The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
Australia to scrutinize foreign home buyers. The government is intensifying its efforts to curb abuses of the country’s homeownership laws by foreign investors such as those coming from China. A Hong Kong-based buyer of a mansion in Sydney was ordered to sell the property after probes showed that it had been purchased illegally. The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
Six groups invited to bid for Tesco. KKR and Caryle Group were among the at least six companies that British retailer Tesco has invited to bid for its South Korean business valued at around $6 billion. Others who were asked to bid for Homeplus, Tesco’s biggest outside of Britain, were CVC Capital Partners, Affinity Equity Partners and MBK Partners. Reuters
Photo by Elliott Brown via Flickr.