Liveblog Archief maandag 1 februari 2021

TOP NEWS
• Silver swept up by GameStop retail frenzy, prices soar
Silver broke above $30 an ounce for the first time since 2013 as an army of retail traders stormed into the metal after betting billions of dollars on stocks last week, triggering risks of a multi-asset melt-up in global markets.

• Under Biden order, workers refusing unsafe work could stay on unemployment aid
Many workers called back by employers resuming or expanding operations despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic face a dilemma: return to jobs that put them at high risk of the virus, or say no, and risk going without pay or unemployment benefits.

• EU claims court errors in bid to overturn $15.7 billion Apple tax judgment
EU antitrust enforcers have claimed a court made legal errors when it scrapped their order for iPhone maker Apple to pay $15.7 billion in Irish back taxes, in a filing to have the verdict overturned.

• EU repeats Pfizer/BioNTech to deliver 75 million extra vaccine doses in second quarter
Pfizer and German partner BioNTech will deliver 75 million extra doses of their COVID-19 vaccine in the second quarter of the year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, repeating information she gave earlier this month.

• As Google eyes Australia exit, Microsoft talks Bing with PM
Microsoft is confident its search product Bing can fill the gap in Australia if Google pulls its search over required payments to media outlets, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.


BEFORE THE BELL
Wall Street futures rose as investors focused on another round of corporate earnings and a retail frenzy that has shifted its attention towards silver, which soared to 8-year peak. European shares jumped, helped by a rise in mining shares, whereas Asian equities rallied. The dollar edged higher on safe-haven appeal. Oil prices gained on hopes of a swift demand recovery. U.S. factory activity data is due later in the day.


STOCKS TO WATCH
In Other News
• Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc: A U.S. lobby group which represents firms including Amazon.com and Walmart has urged India not to tighten foreign investment rules for e-commerce companies again, according to a letter seen by Reuters. In 2018, India changed its foreign direct investment (FDI) rules to deter foreign firms offering products from sellers in which they have an equity stake. The government is now considering tightening those rules again to include sellers in which a foreign e-commerce firm holds an indirect stake through its parent, Reuters reported. Such a change could hurt Amazon as it holds indirect stakes in two of its biggest online sellers in India, Cloudtail and Appario. USIBC also asked India's Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) to engage in substantive consultation with companies on e-commerce regulation. The government is also considering prohibiting online sales by a seller who, for example, purchases goods from an e-commerce entity's wholesale unit, or any of its group firms, and then sells them on the entity's websites, Reuters has reported. The USIBC letter said "investments require reasonable policy predictability and fair treatment". In another news, the ecommerce giant’s bid to stall Future Group's $3.4 billion retail assets sale is similar to Alexander the Great's "ruthless ambition to scorch the earth", the Indian group's CEO Kishore Biyani said in an internal staff memo seen by Reuters. Amazon, locked in protracted legal disputes with Future, alleges the Indian firm violated contracts by agreeing to sell its retail assets to Reliance Industries last year.

• Apple Inc: EU antitrust enforcers have claimed a court made legal errors when it scrapped their order for iPhone maker Apple to pay $15.7 billion in Irish back taxes, in a filing to have the verdict overturned. The stakes are high for the European Commission in its crackdown against what it sees as aggressive tax planning by multinationals. The Commission is appealing to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union following a ruling last year by the General Court, which said the EU executive had not met the requisite legal standard to show Apple had enjoyed an unfair advantage. In its 2016 finding the Commission said two Irish tax rulings had artificially reduced Apple's tax burden for over two decades, which in 2014 was as low as 0.005%. Apple has said the General Court judgment proved it has always complied with Irish laws, with the issue more about where it should pay taxes rather than the amount. The CJEU will hold a hearing on the case in the coming months.

• AMC Entertainment Holdings: Buyout firm Silver Lake disclosed on Friday that it sold its stake in AMC Entertainment for $713 million this week, capitalizing on a 10-fold rise in the price of the shares as traders organizing on social media platforms such as Reddit snapped them up. The trade puts Silver Lake and its co-investors in the black following a $600 million convertible bond investment that the private equity firm made in AMC in 2018. Such an outcome looked unlikely when AMC, the world's largest movie theater chain, was battling to stave off bankruptcy last summer, a move it avoided thanks to a debt restructuring deal with Silver Lake and its creditors. Silver Lake was able to convert the bonds into shares thanks to the rally pushing AMC's stock above the bonds' conversion price this week.

• ExxonMobil Corp and Chevron Corp: The chief executives of ExxonMobil and Chevron held preliminary talks in early 2020 to explore combining the two largest U.S. oil producers in what would have been the biggest merger of all time, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks between Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods and Chevron CEO Mike Wirth were serious enough for legal documents involving certain aspects of the merger discussions to be drafted, one of the sources said. The reason the talks ended could not be learned. In their talks, the CEOs of Exxon and Chevron envisioned achieving synergies through massive cost cuts to help weather the downturn in energy markets, one of the sources said. At the end of 2019, Exxon employed about 75,000 people and Chevron roughly 48,000.

• Facebook Inc and Microsoft Corp: Software giant Microsoft is confident its search product Bing can fill the gap in Australia if Google pulls its search over required payments to media outlets, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. Australia has introduced laws that would force internet giant Google and social media heavyweight Facebook to negotiate payments to domestic media outlets whose content links drive traffic to their platforms. However, the Big Tech firms have called the laws unworkable and said last month they would withdraw key services from Australia if the regulations went ahead. Those services include Google's search engine, which has 94% of the country's search market, according to industry data. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has since spoken with Morrison about the new rules, the tech company told Reuters, and Morrison said the software company was ready to grow the presence of its search tool Bing, the distant No. 2 player. "We just want the rules in the digital world to be the same that exist in the real world, in the physical world," Morrison added. Separately, The company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Australian lawmakers last week to discuss rules that would make internet giants pay news outlets for content but failed to persuade them to change policy, the country's Treasurer said on Sunday.

• FTAC Hera Acquisition Corp: A special purpose acquisition company, backed by banking entrepreneur Betsy Cohen, said it is aiming to raise up to $750 million in its initial public offering on the Nasdaq. FTAC Hera Acquisition Corp, which is seeking to identify a business target in technology or fintech sector, said in a regulatory filing that it intends to sell 75 million units at $10 each. The blank-check company, however, said it may also pursue a combination outside of these industries. FTAC Hera plans to list its units under the symbol "HERAU". Citigroup and JP Morgan are the underwriters for the offering.

• GameStop Corp and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc: Shares of videogame retailer GameStop and movie theater operator AMC Entertainment Holdings jumped in early pre-market trading. The moves build on a rally of more than 200% last week for AMC and nearly 400% for GameStop that was fueled by a social media-driven trading frenzy.

• General Electric Co: A U.S. judge in Manhattan has dismissed most but not all of a shareholder lawsuit accusing General Electric of concealing billions of dollars of insurance liabilities and using questionable accounting to prop up its power business. In a Friday night decision, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman dismissed fraud claims based on GE's alleged misrepresentations about its long-term care insurance portfolio, and most claims concerning long-term service agreements in its power division. The judge allowed shareholders to pursue claims that Boston-based GE should have disclosed its reliance on factoring, or the sale of future revenue for cash, and to pursue some claims against a former GE chief financial officer, Jeffrey Bornstein. The shareholders, including pension funds and other investors, asked Furman to treat the SEC settlement as proof GE had misled them, while the defendants said the judge could infer they had no intent to defraud. Furman rejected both suggestions. The proposed class action covers shareholders from February 2013 to January 2018, when GE took a surprise $6.2 billion charge related to its insurance business. Its share price fell by roughly one-half in the last 18 months of the class period.

• HSBC Holdings PLC: The bank said it had set up a new private banking business in Thailand, the Asia-focused lender's second onshore expansion in Southeast Asia, as it seeks to grab a bigger share of the growing rich population. HSBC said the new private bank, which is in one of the most promising wealth markets in Asia, will help it provide clients with access to international capital markets by leveraging its existing infrastructure of advisory and investment methodologies in Asia. The team in Thailand will cover client management and advisory services while clients' assets will be booked in HSBC Private Banking in Singapore, a regional wealth management hub.

• JPMorgan Chase & Co: A Hong Kong judge found JPMorgan's former vice chairman of Asia investment banking, Catherine Leung, not guilty of bribery following her trial held late last year, saying she had followed the bank's existing procedures. Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), in 2019, charged Leung with bribing the chairman of a logistics company, by employing his son at the bank's Hong Kong office in 2010. She did so, the prosecution told the court last year, in anticipation that Ang Keng-lam, the then chairman of Kerry Logistics Network Ltd, would influence his company to give JPMorgan a role on its up-coming initial public offering (IPO). Ang Ren-yi worked at JPMorgan from June 2010 until October 2011, according to court documents. An ICAC spokeswoman said the Commission "respects the court ruling. We will study the reasons for the verdict in consultation with the Department of Justice."

• Microsoft Corp: EU antitrust regulators will decide by March 5 whether to clear Microsoft's $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the U.S. tech giant's biggest gaming acquisition to better compete with Sony's PlayStation. Microsoft requested European Commission approval for the deal on Jan. 29, a filing on the EU executive's website showed. The EU competition enforcer can clear the deal with or without concessions during its preliminary review or it can open a full-scale investigation if it has serious concerns. ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda Softworks, has developed hits including Fallout and Doom. The gaming industry has soared, boosted by demand from users stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Moderna Inc: The company has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to fill its COVID-19 vaccine vials with up to five additional doses to ease a crunch in manufacturing, CNBC reported on Friday. The change would allow Moderna to put 15 doses in the vials, now cleared to hold 10, the report said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

• Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE: The companies will deliver 75 million extra doses of their COVID-19 vaccine in the second quarter of the year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, repeating information she gave earlier this month. The additional Pfizer-BioNTech doses are part of a deal the EU announced on Jan. 8, and which would give the EU nearly half the firms' global output for 2021. Pfizer has said it can produce up to 1.3 billion doses around the world this year. The firm has said 500 million doses would be available to the EU by the end of this year, and an option for another 100 million could be taken up. Each recipient of the Pfizer vaccine needs two doses to develop maximum protection.

• Phillips 66 Partners LP: The company saw lower oil and gas pipeline volumes in last half of 2020, leading to a decline in revenue for the Houston-based company, company officials told investors on Friday. The amount of crude oil, refined products and natural gas transported by Phillips 66 Partner's fell about 3% to a total of 1.72 million barrels a day for the three months ending on Dec. 30, 2020 compared to the previous three months, officials said on a call. Revenues dipped to $390 million in the fourth quarter last year from $394 million the previous quarter. A federal district court next months is expected to decide on whether to issue an injunction to shut the 557,000-barrel-per-day DAPL. An appeals court this week ruled DAPL would need a lengthy environmental review and that its permit to run on federal land is invalid.

• Ryanair Holdings Plc: The airline expects to lose close to $1.2 billion in its current financial year, by far its worst ever performance, but Chief Executive Michael O'Leary forecast a "dramatic recovery" this summer on vaccine roll-outs. The Irish low-cost airline, Europe's largest, forecast a loss of between 850 and 950 million euros in its current financial year, which ends on March 31, around 5 times larger than its previous record annual loss posted in 2009. It said it had cash on hand of 3.5 billion euros at the end of December, compared with 4.5 billion at the end of September. The airline said it would fly between 26 million and 30 million passengers in the year to end-March compared with 149 million in its previous financial year. It could fly anywhere between 80 million and 120 million passengers in the year to end-March 2022, O'Leary said.

• Valero Energy Corp and Darling Ingredients Inc: A Valero Energy Corp joint venture will become the largest renewable diesel producer in the United States in 2023 when it opens a second facility at a site in Texas. The second-largest crude oil refiner in the United States on Thursday said it and partner Darling Ingredients approved construction of a 470-million-gallon renewable diesel plant in Port Arthur, Texas. Once the $1.45 billion facility is complete, their Diamond Green Diesel (DGD) joint venture will be able to produce 1.2 billion gallons of renewable diesel per year from sites in Texas and Louisiana. Darling, based in Norco, collects cooking grease and animal by-products that are the feedstocks for renewable diesel that can directly replace diesel made from crude oil.

• Wells Fargo & Co: The bank’s Chief Executive Officer Charles Scharf's annual pay fell by about $3 million, or 12%, in 2020, a regulatory filing showed on Friday. Scharf will receive $20.3 million for his work during the year, compared with $23 million in 2019, the bank said. Wells Fargo's board cited the drop in the bank's financial results for 2020 as one of the reasons for Scharf's lower compensation, noting that the results were significantly impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The bank last year posted its first quarterly loss since 2008 and also saw its profit plunge to just 1 penny per share in the first quarter of 2020. However, Wells Fargo ended the year with a rare quarterly profit beat.

• Wheels Up Partners Holdings LLC and Aspirational Consumer Lifestyle Corp: The company said it had agreed to go public through a merger with blank-check firm Aspirational Consumer Lifestyle Corp, valuing the private jet charter company at $2.1 billion. The New York-based company is set to receive $790 million in gross proceeds on the transaction, including $550 million from investors such as T. Rowe Price, Fidelity and Franklin Advisors. Aspirational Consumer Lifestyle, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) led by LVMH executive and veteran private equity investor Ravi Thakran, raised $225 million in an initial public offering (IPO) last year. Wheels up will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange after the merger and will trade under the new ticker symbol "UP".


ANALYSIS
GameStop saga may provide early test of Biden administration ethics pledges
Arguably the last thing new U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants to take up during her first days in office is a financial market imbroglio involving one of her last private sector business relationships. But as hedge fund Citadel emerges as one of the key actors in the trading frenzy last week involving GameStop Corp - and questions arise over whether the activity exposes deeper risks for the financial system - Yellen could find herself pulled into the fray.


ANALYSTS' RECOMMENDATION
• Caterpillar Inc: Credit Suisse raises target price to $235 from $228, citing the company’s better-than-expected earnings per share in it fourth quarter and strong sales forecast.

• Chevron Corp: JPMorgan raises target price to $112 from $111, stating the company’s attractive global asset base and best-in-class cash margins.

• Eli Lilly and Co: Cantor Fitzgerald raises target price to $245 from $200, reflecting on the company’s solid fourth-quarter results and positive outlook for 2021.

• Honeywell International Inc: RBC raises target price to $199 from $194, noting the company’s robust fourth-quarter results and better guidance for 2021.

• Mondelez International Inc: JPMorgan raises target price to $67 from $66, citing the company’s potential organic sales growth due to its geographic exposure.


ECONOMIC EVENTS (All timings in U.S. Eastern Time)
0945 Markit Manufacturing PMI Final for Jan: Prior 59.1
1000 (approx.) Construction spending mm for Dec: Expected 0.9%; Prior 0.9%
1000 ISM Manufacturing PMI for Jan: Expected 60.0; Prior 60.7
1000 ISM Manufacturing Prices Paid for Jan: Expected 77.7; Prior 77.6
1000 ISM Manufacturing Employment Index for Jan: Prior 51.5
1000 ISM Manufacturing New Orders Index for Jan: Prior 67.9


COMPANIES REPORTING RESULTS
Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc: Expected Q4 earnings of 65 cents per share
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc: Expected Q4 earnings of $2.59 per share


CORPORATE EVENTS (All timings in U.S. Eastern Time)
0830 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc: Q4 earnings conference call
0900 ON Semiconductor Corp: Q4 earnings conference call
1000 Otis Worldwide Corp: Q4 earnings conference call
1630 Omnicell Inc: Q4 earnings conference call
1630 Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc: Q4 earnings conference call
1630 Warner Music Group Corp: Q1 earnings conference call
1630 Woodward Inc: Q1 earnings conference call
1700 Cirrus Logic Inc: Q3 earnings conference call
1700 Credit Acceptance Corp: Q4 earnings conference call
1700 Kemper Corp: Q4 earnings conference call


EX-DIVIDENDS
Hasbro Inc: Amount $0.68

Goedemorgen
Het was me nogal een week de laatste van de maand januari, er gebeurde van alles en we hebben zelfs totaal nieuwe en onbekende feiten voorbij zien komen. Hoe krijg je een aandeel dat vrijwel niks meer voorstelde weer tot leven en laat je het zo floreren tot de absolute ster van de gehele markt? Wel dat gebeurde er met een paar van die bedrijven met als klap op de vuurpijl natuurlijk GameStop ... Over waardering gesproken, dat was en is totaal niet aan de orde, het lijkt wel een video-spelletje op die manier !!! We gaan zien wat er deze week gaat gebeuren, in ieder geval is de start van de week al positief nadat de futures aan het begin van de nacht wel even diep onderuit moesten ...

En zo hebben we een en ander ook weer geleerd vorige week, het verwonderd mij telkens weer dat ik de afgelopen 12 maanden meer heb meegemaakt op de beurs dan de pakweg 34 jaar ervoor. Dat spreekt boekdelen en zo zie je maar weer eens dat je NOOIT bent uitgeleerd, ook niet op de financiële markten blijkt maar weer. We hebben nu te maken met de grote kanjers met enorm veel geld en rijkdom gesteund door het systeem terwijl aan de andere kant de kleintjes zich verenigen om een aanval te plaatsen tegen het systeem. En dat beiden op een ongekende en niet eerder vertoonde manier, een fase waar we door moeten geraken en waar we het nog heel vaak over gaan hebben. Wel is er 1 ding zeker op termijn de marktwerking zal zich er wel doorheen slaan en alles weer herstellen naar normaal, al kan dat wel nog een tijdje duren.

Vanmorgen zien we een soort run op het Zilver, de afgelopen dagen zie ik al heel veel berichten rondom het Zilver via Twitter en ook via Wallstreetbets dat men voor een enorme squeeze wil gaan zorgen op Zilver. Dat zal wat moeilijker gaan denk ik maar ook kan ik niks uitsluiten. We weten dat er enorm veel derivaten op Zilver lopen, iets van 170 ten opzichte van 1, dat wil zeggen dat de handel in Zilver 170 keer groter is dan wat er beschikbaar is. Maar aan de andere kant is het ook bekend dat bijvoorbeeld JP Morgan de gang van zaken controleert en heel veel Zilver bezit en ook veel derivaten erop controleert. Maar je weet nooit, ben de komende dagen zeer benieuwd wat er op ons afkomt, ook rondom het Zilver ...

Verder lijkt het er dus op dat de beurzen omhoog gaan, herstellen van de grote daling van afgelopen vrijdag. Wall Street staat tussen de 0,5 en 0,75% hoger. De AEX en de DAX gaan richting de +1% voorbeurs. Ik ben benieuwd hoe de eerste dag van de nieuwe maand zal verlopen. Via de LIVEBLOG en tussendoor ook via mijn Twitter https://twitter.com/USMarkets kom ik wel met wat korte updates ...

Overzicht van de vorige week:
In Europa verliezen over de gehele week, de AEX sluit 23,5 punten lager (-3,5%) terwijl de DAX ook een slechte week nalaat met een verlies van 441 punten (-3,2%). De Franse CAC 40 sluit de week 160 punten lager (-2,9%). Een slechte week ofwel zelfs de slechtste week van dit jaar al zijn we het jaar pas begonnen.

Ook op Wall Street zien we ook grote verliezen over de gehele week, de Dow Jones sluit met een verlies van 1015 punten (-3,3%) terwijl de S&P 500 verloor ook fors lager moest, deze index verloor 127 punten (-3,3%). De Nasdaq laat de afgelopen week 472 punten liggen (-3,5%) terwijl de Nasdaq 100 met 441 punten omlaag duikt de afgelopen week (-3,3%).

De indices hebben dus een slechte week achter de rug en op Wall Street zien we zelfs dat de Dow en de S&P 500 in de min duiken voor wat betreft 2021. Beide Nasdaq indices houden nog net een plus over. In Europa staat alleen de AEX nog op winst voor 2021, de DAX en de CAC40 staan al op een verlies ...

Trading: Goeie week achter de rug en redelijke start van 2021
Wat ik heb gedaan afgelopen vrijdag is op de diepe DIP de short posities gesloten, zo hebben niets meer lopen nu en is het wachten op nieuwe mogelijkheden. We starten een nieuwe maand, de bedoeling is om ook in februari goed voor de dag te komen met het handelen en ik verwacht wel genoeg kansen nu de markt mooie bewegingen laat zien. De afgelopen week heb ik dan toch een mooie winst kunnen behalen bij alle abonnementen zodat we de maand (januari) met winst kunnen sluiten. Ik zal wel zien wat er mogelijk is vandaag of morgen, wel is de kans groot dat we stapsgewijs weer wat posities gaan opnemen ...

Via de LIVEBLOG en tussendoor ook via mijn Twitter account laat ik gedurende de dag ook wat grafiekjes voorbij komen over de markt. Op Twitter kunt u mij volgen via @USMarkets dan kunt u deze snelle informatie die ik deel ook inzien .... https://twitter.com/USMarkets , ook opvallende beursfeiten komen er vaak langs !

Euro, olie en goud:
De euro zien we nu rond de 1.212 dollar, de prijs van een vat Brent olie komt uit op 55,3 dollar terwijl een troy ounce goud nu op 1865 dollar staat. De Bitcoin herpakt zich na enkele dolle dagen, nu moet je 33.600 dollar neertellen voor 1 Bitcoin ...

Inter Market overzicht vrijdag op slotbasis ...

Strategische posities opnemen:
Zodra u lid wordt ontvangt u de signalen en kunt u meteen de lopende posities inzien via onze Tradershop op de website. Ik probeer in ieder geval zo goed als dat kan om met de markt mee te gaan, wel is het zo dat de markt volatiel zal blijven de komende periode.

Wat ik moet doen is in ieder geval blijven schakelen tussen long en short. Deze maand loopt wat wisselend maar er komen nog meer dan genoeg kansen, we zitten nu nog met wat posities in de markt ... Doe in ieder geval nu mee met de nieuwe proef aanbieding die loopt tot 1 APRIL en dat met een mooie korting !!

Wat u bereikt is dat u dan meedoet, veel leert over de markten en de werking ervan en u kunt ook als de beurs met een correctie komt verdienen via wat short posities. Kijk op de beurs dus nooit alleen maar omhoog, er zijn 2 richtingen waar we wat mee kunnen verdienen ...

Maak nu gebruik van de NIEUWE proef aanbieding:
Mis in ieder geval de start van 2021 niet want er komen hoe dan ook hele mooie kansen ... Via deze aanbieding ... €39 tot 1 APRIL 2021 ... Polleke €49 tot 1 APRIL 2021 !!!

Systeem Trading (€39 tot 1 APRIL)

Index Trading (€39 tot 1 APRIL)

Guy Trading (€39 tot 1 APRIL)

Polleke Trading (€49 tot 1 APRIL)

Aandelen portefeuille (€30 tot 1 APRIL)

COMBI TRADING (€79 tot 1 APRIL)

Hieronder ziet u het resultaat van de afgelopen 2 maanden, december en januari ...

Met vriendelijke groet,
Guy Boscart

GLOBAL TOP NEWS
Myanmar's military seized power in a coup against the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with other leaders of her National League for Democracy party in early morning raids.

Manufacturing in China and Japan suffered in January, while South Korea and Taiwan saw improvement amid a resurgence in coronavirus infections, underscoring the fragile nature of the region's economic recovery.

Wall Street is gearing up for another week of market mayhem, with signs that the retail frenzy that pumped up the stock prices of the likes of GameStop and AMC is spreading to other assets.


EUROPEAN COMPANY NEWS
AstraZeneca will deliver nine million more doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union in the first quarter of this year, making a total of 40 million for the period, and will start deliveries one week earlier than expected, the president of the European Commission said on Sunday.

British online fashion retailer ASOS is on the verge of a deal to buy Topshop and Miss Selfridge from the administrators of British tycoon Philip Green's Arcadia Group for almost 300 million pounds, Sky News reported.

Emmanuel Faber, the chief executive and chairman of French food group Danone, told the weekly Journal du Dimanche that he did not hold a "dogmatic" view as to whether the role should be split in two.


TODAY'S COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENTS
Banco de Sabadell SA Q4 2020 Earnings Release
Costamare Inc Q4 2020 Earnings Release
Hargreaves Lansdown PLC HY 2021 Earnings Call
Immedia Group PLC Annual Shareholders Meeting
Jpmorgan China Growth & Income PLC Annual Shareholders Meeting
Julius Baer Gruppe AG FY 2020 Earnings Release
NXP Semiconductors NV Q4 2020 Earnings Release
Pierre et Vacances SA Annual Shareholders Meeting
Polar Capital Global Financials Trust PLC Shareholders Meeting
Quotient Ltd Q3 2021 Earnings Call
Ryanair Holdings PLC Q3 2021 Earnings Call
Siemens Healthineers AG Q1 2021 Earnings Release
Stabilus SA Q1 2021 Earnings Call
Swedbank AB Q4 2020 Earnings Call
Swedbank AB Q4 2020 Earnings Release
TP ICAP PLC Shareholders Meeting
Webis Holding PLC Annual Shareholders Meeting


ECONOMIC EVENTS (All times GMT)
0700 (approx.) Germany Retail Sales mm Real for Dec: Expected -2.6%; Prior 1.9%
0700 (approx.) Germany Retail Sales yy Real for Dec: Expected 5.0%; Prior 5.6%
0730 Switzerland Retail Sales yy for Dec: Prior 1.7%
0730 (approx.) Sweden PMI Manufacturing Sector for Jan: Expected 65.0; Prior 64.9
0800 (approx.) Netherlands PMI - Manufacturing for Jan: Prior 58.2
0800 (approx.) Austria Unemployment for Jan: Prior 459.7k
0800 (approx.) Austria Unemployment Rate for Jan: Prior 11.0%
0815 Spain Manufacturing PMI for Jan: Expected 50.9; Prior 51.0
0830 Switzerland Manufacturing PMI for Jan: Expected 57.0; Prior 58.0
0830 Sweden GDP QQ Prelim for Q4: Expected 0.7%; Prior 4.9%
0830 Sweden GDP YY Prelim for Q4: Expected -2.3%; Prior -2.5%
0845 Italy Markit/IHS Manufacturing PMI for Jan: Expected 52.4; Prior 52.8
0850 France Markit Manufacturing PMI for Jan: Expected 51.5; Prior 51.5
0855 Germany Markit/BME Manufacturing PMI for Jan: Expected 57.0; Prior 57.0
0900 Italy Unemployment Rate for Dec: Expected 8.8%; Prior 8.9%
0900 Euro Zone Markit Manufacturing Final PMI for Jan: Expected 54.7; Prior 54.7
0930 (approx.) United Kingdom BOE Consumer Credit for Dec: Expected -1.100 bln GBP; Prior -1.539 bln GBP
0930 (approx.) United Kingdom Mortgage Lending for Dec: Expected 5.591 bln GBP; Prior 5.678 bln GBP
0930 (approx.) United Kingdom Mortgage Approvals for Dec: Expected 105,000; Prior 104,969
0930 (approx.) United Kingdom M4 Money Supply for Dec: Prior 0.8%
0930 (approx.) United Kingdom Broad Money for Dec: Prior 27,98,798 mln GBP
0930 United Kingdom Markit/CIPS Manufacturing PMI Final for Jan: Expected 52.9; Prior 52.9
1000 Euro Zone Unemployment Rate for Dec: Expected 8.3%; Prior 8.3%