DBS has a ‘excellent’ profitability outlook for 2023 after fourth quarter results
DBS says it has a ‘excellent’ overall profitability outlook for 2023, after a better-than-expected 68% increase in profits within the fourth quarter of 2022.
“[The results are from] the structural transformation over the last decade, the constructing of a really solid liability book and transactional businesses which kicked in really impressively in a rising rate of interest environment,” Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS Bank, said on CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Monday.
“Our loans actually got here off within the quarter, which is unusual, and that is since it’s a short-term average and quite a lot of persons are paying down opportunistic loans they’ve taken,” said Gupta.
He added that Singapore and DBS have benefited lots from an inflow of cash.
“Net latest money was the strongest now we have seen. We do think there’s the capability for us to assist people put money to work in the approaching months and quarters,” said Gupta.
– Sheila Chiang
India’s market regulator to fulfill finance minister on Feb. 15: Reuters
The Securities and Exchange Board of India will meet India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Feb. 15, Reuters reported, citing people familiar.
The board of India’s market regulator will temporary the minister on the “surveillance measures” that it has taken through the market rout of Adani group firms’ stocks, the report said.
SEBI may also update the minister on ongoing investigations into Adani group’s offshore funds, the people were quoted as saying.
The businesses have shed greater than $100 billion in market cap on account of plunging stocks for the reason that release of short seller firm Hindenburg’s report.
Shares of Adani Enterprises and Adani Port and Special Economic Zone were flat in the primary few hours of India’s trading session. Adani Green Energy, Adani Power and Adani Transmission all shed nearly 5% on Monday.
— Jihye Lee
China lags behind the U.S. in A.I. chatbot technology, says analyst
Chinese tech giants Baidu, Alibaba, JD.com and NetEase are joining Microsoft and Google in developing chatbots just like ChatGPT, but one analyst said that China’s artificial intelligence (A.I.) technologies will take a while to catch up.
“By way of large language models and A.I. chatbots, China is currently slightly bit lagging behind these technologies by way of three key points,” Wei Sun, senior consultant of Counterpoint Research, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday.
“The primary is the shortage of innovation in foundation models. If we have a look at the larger language models, they’re mostly created by Google, open AI and the leading firms within the U.S.,” said Sun.
Two other challenges are “limited computing resources in China for the reason that U.S. ban of AI chips to China” and difficulty “to gather large and top quality data sets to coach the AI models”, she said.
“But China does have quite a lot of other benefits. There may be an unlimited unmet market demand by way of chatbots. All of the tech giants are shifting their pivots to AI chatbots and [generative testing]. There will probably be quite a lot of resources and AI talents poured into this sort of development,” she said.
Shares of Alibaba fell 0.10%, JD.com dropped 7.71% and NetEase shed 0.36% on Monday.
– Sheila Chiang
China tightens requirements on classifying banks’ asset risks
China’s central bank announced to tighten risk management requirements for banks, in keeping with a notice published on Saturday.
Banks will probably be required starting July 1 to categorise financial-asset risks in a “timely and prudent” manner, the notice said, adding the move is targeted at higher assessing credit risks for the lenders.
The notice said assets, including loans, bond investment, interbank lending and off-balance sheet assets, have to be classified into five categories starting from “normal” to “loss.”
Shares of Chinese banks fell on Monday, with Ping An Bank leading the losses and trading 2.5% lower.
Agricultural Bank of China’s share price dropped 0.68%, China Construction Bank shed 0.53%, and shares of Bank of China also fell 0.34%.
— Lim Hui Jie
CNBC Pro: A corner of tech is up 50% from its 2022 lows — and strategists recommend these stocks to play it
Tech stocks have enjoyed a powerful rally this yr, and the recent buzz around artificial intelligence has bolstered the feel-good sentiment.
But as investors turn their attention to Big Tech names, one corner of the sector has quietly rebounded from its 2022 lows. Market pros reveal why they’re bullish on the sub-sector and name their top stock picks to play it.
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Zavier Ong
Singapore’s economy grew 3.6% in 2022, down from 8.9% in 2021
Singapore reported 3.6% GDP growth for 2022, lower than the 8.9% growth in 2021.
Within the fourth quarter, the city-state’s economy grew 2.1% on an annualized basis, compared with 4% within the previous quarter. That was barely lower than a Reuters estimate for a 2.3% expansion.
The country’s trade and industry ministry kept its GDP forecast for 2023 at 0.5% to 2.5%, saying the expansion outlook for aviation and tourism related sectors in Singapore has improved.
The recovery in international air travel and inbound tourism is predicted to speed up, following the faster-than-expected rest of China’s border restrictions.
Then again, the expansion outlook for other outward-oriented sectors stays “weak,” the ministry said, given the broader slowdown in the worldwide economy.
It pointed at sectors like semiconductors, which is predicted to be affected by weaker global demand, while precision engineering is projected to be weighed down by spending cutbacks by semiconductor manufacturers.
At the identical time, growth within the wholesale trade, water transport, in addition to finance and insurance sectors will probably be dampened by the slowdown in major external economies.
The Singapore dollar weakened marginally against the U.S. dollar, trading at $1.33 on Monday.
— Lim Hui Jie
DBS earnings show profit soared nearly 70% in fourth quarter
DBS Group Holdings within the central business district of Singapore.
Nicky Loh | Bloomberg | Getty Images
DBS’ fourth-quarter net profit rose nearly 70% to 2.34 billion Singapore dollars ($1.76 billion) compared with a yr ago, the Singaporean bank said in a release.
Its full-year net profit rose 20% to a record S$8.19 billion, it said, adding that its return on equity rose to 17.2%.
Higher rates of interest boosted its net interest income while offsetting a drop in non-interest income on worsened conditions for the worldwide economy, it said.
— Jihye Lee
Week ahead: Japan GDP; Australia and South Korea’s jobs data; China housing index
Listed below are some key economic data expected to be released this week.
Japan will release its gross domestic product on Tuesday. Economists polled by Reuters expect to see the economy grow 2% within the fourth quarter in comparison with a yr ago, and 0.5% on a quarterly basis.
All eyes will probably be on the federal government’s nomination for the Bank of Japan’s next governor expected to be announced to the parliament on Tuesday as well.
On the identical day, Singapore’s government will present its draft budget for the fiscal yr of 2023.
On Wednesday, South Korea will publish its unemployment rate for the month of January after seeing a 3.3% jobless rate in December. The country may also release revised trade data — the economy saw a trade deficit of $12.7 billion within the previous month.
Trade figures for Japan will probably be released as well on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters expect to see a 0.8% growth in exports and a 18.4% jump in imports.
Australia’s unemployment rate slated for release on Thursday will probably be a key factor for the Reserve Bank of Australia’s path forward. A Reuters poll showed economists are forecasting to see a 3.5% jobless rate.
Hong Kong will release its latest population estimates for 2022 on at the present time as well, a key indicator to see the impact of its stringent Covid rules and the passage of a draconian national security law that resulted in lots of leaving the financial hub.
The Philippines’ central bank is scheduled to announce its benchmark rate of interest decision on Thursday as well — Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is predicted to boost its rates by 0.5% to six.0%.
China’s housing price indexes for January is predicted to be released on at the present time as well.
Globally, the Munich Security Conference kicks off in German on Friday — where officials will hold talks until Sunday, nearly one yr since Russia began its war on Ukraine.
— Jihye Lee
CNBC Pro: JEPI and more: Listed below are 5 ETFs that supply a yield of over 10% straight away
Yield-hungry investors have more options after the Federal Reserve continually raised rates of interest over the past yr.
As a lot of U.S. Treasury bonds now offer greater than 4% in yields, equities and company credit funds have raised their returns in an effort to draw investors.
CNBC Pro has identified five ETFs that supply money dividends of 11-15% — including the JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF, known by its ticker JEPI, which has seen over $14 billion in net inflows over the past yr.
Subscribers can read more here.
— Ganesh Rao
CNBC Pro: ‘Play offense, not defense’: Analyst says buy the dip in these stocks
Markets are set to have “higher than average” returns this yr, after stocks posted their worst yr in 2022 for the reason that financial crisis, in keeping with one analyst.
Nonetheless David Katz, chief investment officer at Matrix Asset Advisors, said that he’ll be “buying on the dip not chasing the rallies.”
“We generally find that we’re successful buying fallen angels or growth stocks which have long trajectories at value prices,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.”
He named 4 stocks that he says are quality businesses at attractive prices straight away.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Weizhen Tan
Moody’s cuts outlook for some Adani Group firms
Moody’s lowered its outlook for 4 Adani Group firms on Friday, the rankings agency said in a notice.
It cut its outlook for Adani Green Energy from stable to negative, alongside Adani Green Energy Restricted Group, Adani Transmission Step-One and Adani Electricity Mumbai.
“These rating actions follow the numerous and rapid decline available in the market equity values of the Adani Group firms” after the discharge of a short-seller report, Moody’s said.
The report highlighted “governance concerns within the group,” the agency added.
Meanwhile, Moody’s maintained the present outlook for 4 other Adani group firms, including Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone and Adani International Container Terminal.
— Jihye Lee
Softbank’s Arm cuts as much as 95 jobs in China three way partnership: Reuters
The China three way partnership of Arm, SoftBank’s chip technology firm, cut as much as 95 jobs last week, on difficult business outlook for the yr, Reuters reported, citing people accustomed to the situation.
Arm China has a complete of roughly 700 employees prior to the recent layoffs, the report said, adding that there have been no job cuts last yr despite its parent cutting as much as 15% of its global staff.
The newest moves come as Softbank seeks to publicly list Arm later this yr.
— Jihye Lee
All eyes are on inflation data next week
Waiting for next week, investors are already readying for the newest consumer price index reading to see if inflation once more cooled.
The January reading for the index, which follows the costs of a large basket of products as a gauge of inflation, is due Tuesday. Economists polled by Dow Jones forecast a 0.4% increase in headline CPI on a monthly basis and a 6.2% gain from the prior yr.
“Next week is admittedly all about one thing, and that one thing is CPI,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments.
Market observers also expect the CPI reading to assist dictate the Federal Reserve’s next move on rates of interest. The central bank last implement a 25 basis point rate of interest hike, while Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted inflation was starting to return down but had a ways to go.
Emmanuel Cau, an analyst at Barclays, said inflation data will likely be a market catalyst going forward.
“Greater than the central banks’ rhetoric, we expect it’s the inflation data that may dictate the direction of travel for markets from here,” he said in a note to clients Friday.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more about what to anticipate in the approaching week here.
— Alex Harring
Alphabet loses roughly $165 billion in market cap over two days
It has been a tricky week for Google-parent Alphabet, as the corporate’s recent moves in AI fail to impress investors. The stock is down about 9% week so far, on pace for its biggest weekly drop since November.
Tough week for Alphabet
Within the last two days, the corporate lost roughly $165 billion in market cap.
“While the near-term move could also be overdone and Alphabet could have a really strong foothold within the A.I. race (stock ticking up within the pre’ market), it’s harder to assume this overhang goes away anytime soon as Chatbots & A.I. do open up some hard to reply questions,” Goldman Sachs traders said in a note Friday.
— Fred Imbert, Michael Bloom
Consumer outlook improves in February, though inflation outlook up as well
Consumer sentiment has risen in February but so have short-term inflation expectations, in keeping with a closely watched gauge.
The University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment‘s preliminary reading was 66.4 for the month, up from 64.9 in January and ahead of the Dow Jones expectation for 65.1. The present conditions index jumped to 72.6 from 68.4 in January, while the long run expectations index edged lower to 62.3, down from 62.7.
On the inflation side, the one-year inflation expectations gauge increased to 4.2%, up from 3.9% in January. Nonetheless, the five-year outlook was unchanged at 2.9%.
—Jeff Cox
WTI had its strongest week since October
WTI closed on Friday with its best week since October.
It rose 8.63% this week, marking its strongest week since Oct. 7, when WTI gained 16.54%. This was also its first positive week in three weeks.
WTI settled up 2.13% at $79.72 and hit a session high of $80.33. This was the best level since Jan. 30, when it traded as high as $80.49.
WTI
— Gina Francolla, Hakyung Kim