The stock indices of the largest Western European countries are declining at the beginning of trading on Monday, followed by bank stocks.
The Stoxx Europe 600 composite index of Europe’s largest companies was down 0.6 percent at 11:18 a.m. and stood at 433.8 points.
Germany’s DAX indicator fell 0.4% from market opening, Britain’s FTSE 100 – 0.8%, France’s CAC 40 – 0.3%. Spain’s IBEX 35 lost 1%, Italy’s FTSE MIB – 0.7%.
It was announced Sunday that Swiss bank UBS is buying struggling Credit Suisse for 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion). UBS will pay 0.76 francs per Credit Suisse share. The deal will be paid in full in cash.
In the course of trading on Monday quotations of Credit Suisse shares collapsed by almost 60% – down to 0.78 francs. Price of UBS securities fell by 9.9%. The UBS shares are the leaders of the decrease among the companies included in the calculation of the Stoxx 600.
Shares of other European banks are also getting cheaper: ING down 6.6%, Deutsche Bank down 6.4%, Intermediate Capital Group down 4.8%, Barclays down 4.7%, Standard Chartered down 4.1%, HSBC down 3.1%, NatWest down 3% and Commerzbank down 3.7%, Societe Generale – 4.4%, Credit Agricole – 1.9%, BPER Banca – 3.8%, UniCredit – 2.3%, Banco de Sabadell – 3.7%, Unicaja Banco – 3.3%, CaixaBank – 2%, Banco Santander – 1.7%.
Oil prices were followed by declines in fuel producers, including Repsol down 1.9%, BP Plc (SPB: BP) down 0.5%, Shell (SPB: RDS.A) down 1.4%, TotalEnergies (SPB: TOT) down 1.1%.
The price of Electrolux securities is increasing by 2.7%. The Swedish household appliances maker said its financial targets remain unchanged. In particular, the company is going to reach 6% operating profit margin in the mid-term.
Meanwhile, the growth rate of producer prices (PPI) in Germany slowed to its lowest in seventeen months in February, according to the country’s statistical office. The index rose 15.8% compared to the same month last year thanks to a less significant increase in energy costs.
Analysts had expected a 14.5% increase, according to Trading Economics.
The PPI index in February relative to the previous month decreased by 0.3%. Thus, it declined for the fifth month in a row.
Ukraine will switch to summer time on Sunday, March 26.
In particular, at March 26, at 3:00 a.m., the clocks will be shifted one hour ahead in 2023.
As reported, back in 2021, the Verkhovna Rada failed to pass a law to abolish seasonal time change, which proposes to fix winter time UTC +2 by the international system Coordinated Universal Time in Ukraine.
Members of parliament talked about a possibility to cancel the governmental resolution of 13 May 1996 on the procedure of time calculation on the territory of Ukraine by abolishing the summer time, but the Cabinet of Ministers never made the relevant decision.
Additional expenses of the largest Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar on ensuring its energy independence amid the problems with external energy supply exceeded UAH 350 mln and the company has replaced more than 20 thousand batteries at base stations to extend their autonomous operation up to four to six hours.
Alexander Komarov, the President of the Company, informed at Business Wisdom Summit held this week that the batteries have been already replaced at 2 ths sites (base stations and other facilities) out of 14 ths and by May-June it will be up to 5 ths but the company goes to the Board of Directors with the proposal to expand this program by 4 ths more.
Earlier the president of the company noted that consumption of one base station is 6-7 kWh. New modern lithium-phosphate batteries allow not only to keep voltage longer but also to recharge faster.
He added that Kyivstar also installed 1,790 generators, of which 700 were provided by businesses on crowdfunding terms. Their total capacity reached 40 MW.
Komarov specified that since November the company uses on average about 10 thousand liters of fuel per day, and the total consumption has already made about 1 million liters.
According to him, to cope with the problems of outages also helps national roaming: in the peak day on November 23 Kyivstar took 1 million subscribers of other operators, while 1,3 million subscribers of Kyivstar used networks of competitors. In total, during the operation of national roaming since March 7, 2022 subscribers of other networks spoke in Kyivstar network 1.2 billion minutes.
In addition, the company also invested UAH 50 million in uninterruptible power supplies for “Home Internet” services: more than 10 thousand homes were equipped with uninterruptible power supplies, which guarantees them the availability of the Internet, even in cases of new blackouts.
Komarov specified that the total investment in the development of telcom-services in the past year amounted to 5.9 billion UAH, 659 new base stations were built, which corresponds to the level of 2021.
He reminded that during the war 18% of base stations of the company were completely destroyed, 20% were damaged and more than 1200 km of fiber-optic lines were damaged as well.
According to him, the company now has 24.8 million subscribers, of which 3.3 million are internally displaced. Komarov specified that 2.2 million subscribers went abroad, 1.4 million of them remained the company’s subscribers, including 95 % that use the service “roaming as home”, provided in 27 countries.
The president of “Kyivstar” noted that at the beginning of the war there were 10 million subscribers of the company outside their places of residence.
“The industry and Kyivstar have done very decently: the network indicators are very close to the pre-war period, the energy industry has stabilized, and the network has stabilized,” Komarov summarized.
Oil prices continue to decline after last week’s drop, which was the most significant since last summer.
Negative sentiment in the oil market is due to concerns that the crisis in the U.S. banking sector can provoke a recession in the U.S. economy, reports MarketWatch.
The quotations of May futures for Brent oil on London’s ICE Futures Exchange as of 7:04 a.m. were $72.29 a barrel, which is $0.68 (0.9%) lower than the price at the close of the previous session. Those contracts fell $1.73 (2.3%) to $72.97 a barrel on Friday, the lowest level since December 20.
The price of WTI April futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell $0.6 per barrel to $66.14 on Monday morning. The contract value fell by $1.61 (2.4%) to $66.74 a barrel at the end of previous session. This is the minimum since December 3.
Brent crashed by 11.9% in five trading days and WTI by 13%. This is the most significant weekly decline respectively since last August for European oil and since June for U.S. oil.
“Oil prices have been particularly susceptible to negativity amid the current market turmoil,” believes Commerzbank commodity analyst Barbara Lambrecht, referring to problems in the U.S. banking sector. At the same time, she believes “the drop in oil prices is excessive and mostly speculative.
Nova Post Polska will open 10 branches in Poland by the end of March, raising the total number of branches in the country to 30, Nova Post Polska CEO Dmitry Vergun told Interfax-Ukraine.
“By the end of March we plan to open 10 more new ones. In particular, in Olsztyn, Radom, Kielce, Opole, Częstchowa, Bielsko-Biala. The offices in Jelenia Góra and Białystok will open already on March 27. All 16 voivodeships will be covered in June,” said Vergun.
According to him, all branches will accept shipments of up to 100 kilograms.
“According to plans, there will be 50 outlets in Poland by the end of June, and we may reach even more by the end of the year,” the CEO of Nova Post Polska said. Specifically, he said, there will be about 10 branches in Warsaw in the medium term and 15 by the end of the year.
Currently, there are six branches in Warsaw. Since October 3, the company has launched 20 branches (also in Krakow, Gdańsk, Poznań, Łódź, Lublin, Riaśwa and Katowice) and received an official document granting it the official status of postal operator in Poland.
From October 3 to March 1 Nova Post Polska dispatched over 150 thousand packages. The company’s services during this period were used by 132,000 customers, including 8.5 per cent of Polish citizens.
The 28th Ukrainian expedition group left for the Akademik Vernadsky station on March 18, the National Antarctic Science Center reported.
“Even in conditions of large-scale war, we must ensure continuous work of our only Antarctic station, because the results of the activities of Ukrainian scientists on the icy continent are important for the whole world. This is a whole range of the longest in Antarctica meteorological observations, study of climate change, space weather, magnetic field of the Earth and much more. There we are doing a global science of the 21st century and do not stop at all attempts of the enemy to throw us back into the 20th,” – said Director of the National Antarctic Science Center Eugene Wild.
It is noted that in the 28th Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition there are 14 participants: nine scientists, three in each field of research, in particular, biology, meteorology and geophysics.
The scientists were joined by doctor, cook, sysadmin, system mechanic, diesel electrician.
The mission will work at the station for a year.
“The team was led by geophysicist Bogdan Gavrilyuk. He goes to Antarctica for the tenth time – it is the absolute record for the Ukrainian Antarctic expeditions. In his previous – 26th ATE – Bohdan was also a basecommander, and after his return in the spring of 2022, he immediately joined the Ukrainian Frontier Service”, – noted the center.
In addition, for the first time in the last five years, the expedition consists only of men.
“Unfortunately, only five women applied for this competition (last year – 19), but they did not overcome all the stages of the competitive selection,” – reported in the scientific center.
As noted, now the expedition members go to Poland, hence the flights to South America, where in the Chilean port of Punta Arenas future winterers are already waiting for the ship “Noosphere”. The icebreaker is supposed to deliver 28 UAE to the station and return 27 UAE, which has already worked in Antarctica for a year, to “the mainland”.
