Mese: Maggio 2023

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(C) Reuters. Ukrainian servicemen return from heavy fighting amid Russia?s attack on Ukraine, close to Bakhmut, Ukraine, April 15, 2023. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
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(Reuters) – Ukrainian air defence crews destroyed 15 out of 18 missiles launched by Russian forces in the early hours of Monday morning, the military said, as air raid sirens blared across the country for more than three hours.

FIGHTING

* Ukraine said on Sunday its troops were holding onto parts of the eastern city of Bakhmut, focus of a prolonged Russian assault, while the head of a major pro-Moscow force said his men were making progress.

* Four civilians died as a result of Ukrainian shelling on a village just over the border in Russia’s Bryansk region on Saturday evening, a local governor said.

* A drone strike caused a fire at a fuel storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, sending a vast column of black smoke into the sky before it was extinguished, the city’s Moscow-installed governor said.

* Undermining Russia’s logistics is one of the elements of preparation for the expected Ukrainian counter-offensive, a Ukrainian military spokeswoman said on Sunday, after the fire destroyed the fuel depot in Crimea, though without claiming responsibility.

* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy carries a pistol and would have fought to the death with his inner circle had the Russians stormed his Kyiv headquarters at the start of the war, he said in an interview shown on Saturday.

* Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.

DIPLOMACY

* The Vatican is involved in a peace mission to try to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Pope Francis said on Sunday, telling reporters during a flight home after a three-day visit to Hungary that he was willing to do everything that has to be done.

* French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke by phone on Sunday and discussed Ukraine’s military needs, both sides said.

* The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) recommendation to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to return to international competition as neutrals is “excessive and discriminatory”, the Russian Olympic Committee’s (ROC) athletes’ commission said.

* Russia on Saturday promised it would respond harshly to what it said was Poland’s illegal seizure of its embassy school in Warsaw, an act it called a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.

ECONOMY

* Dividends of as much as $400 million to four Indian companies for their stakes in Russian oil assets are stuck due to problems in payments triggered by Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, a government source said on Saturday.

RECENT IN-DEPTH STORIES

* INSIGHT-Russia digs in as Ukraine prepares to attack

* ANALYSIS-Russia crosses new lines in crackdown on Putin’s enemies

* EXCLUSIVE-The Russian military commandant who oversaw reign of fear in Ukraine town

* EXCLUSIVE-Kazakhstan has ramped up oil exports bypassing Russia -sources

* Liberated villages offer glimpse of precarious Ukrainian health system.

(C) Reuters.

Investing.com – The U.S. dollar edged higher in early holiday-impacted European trade Monday, at the start of a week that includes policy-setting meetings from the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, as well as the monthly U.S. jobs report.

At 02:05 ET (06:05 GMT), the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, traded 0.2% higher at 101.570.

The week’s highlight will be the conclusion of the latest meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, which is expected to increase the benchmark lending rate target by another 25 basis points on Wednesday – the 10th consecutive increase going back to March of last year.

However, this could prove to be the end of the Fed’s tightening cycle as last week’s first-quarter growth figures pointed to an economy that’s slowing quite rapidly.

Additionally, the end of the week sees the release of the monthly U.S. jobs report, which is expected to show the economy added 180,000 jobs. While still a solid number it would mark a third consecutive month of moderating jobs growth.

With the European Central Bank and the Bank of England expected to be more aggressive than the Fed in coming months, speculators boosted their net bearish position on the greenback against major peers to the most since June 2021, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed late last week.

The European Central Bank also meets this week, on Thursday, with the policymakers also expected to sanction another rate hike, although the size of the increase remains in doubt.

Tuesday’s data on euro zone consumer price inflation could be the deciding factor, with underlying price pressures likely to remain uncomfortably high, pointing towards a rate hike of 50 basis points.

However, if bank lending data shows credit conditions have tightened substantially, the case for a smaller rate hike would be bolstered.

“The ECB’s dilemma will be between sticky core inflation that calls for more rate hikes, and recent events in the banking sector that call for gradualism,” said analysts at Morgan Stanley, in a note.

“The solution, in our view, will be a compromise, featuring a 25bp hike and a reactivation of rate forward guidance, tightly linked to incoming data.”

EUR/USD fell 0.1% to 1.1006, with activity likely to be limited given the majority of Europe is enjoying the Labor Day holiday.

GBP/USD fell 0.2% to 1.2553, in a quiet week in the U.K., with officials entering a blackout period before their decision on May 11.

AUD/USD rose 0.4% to 0.6635, USD/JPY rose 0.5% to 136.94, while USD/CNY traded largely flat at 6.9121.

(C) Reuters. People pass near one of the First Republic Bank branches in New York, U.S. April 28, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

By Chris Prentice, Nupur Anand and Saeed Azhar

NEW YORK (Reuters) -PNC Financial Services Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) and Citizens Financial (NYSE:CFG) Group Inc were among banks that submitted final bids for First Republic Bank (NYSE:FRC) on Sunday in an auction by U.S. regulators, sources familiar with the matter said.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp had been expected to announce a deal on Sunday night, with the regulator likely to say at the same time that it had seized the lender, three sources previously told Reuters.

As the process dragged on late into the evening, one source familiar with the situation said the regulators had come back multiple times with requests for bids to be revised and specific criteria to be refined on assets that were being bid.

That source said there was a sense a decision was nearing.

U.S. regulators have been trying to clinch a sale of First Republic over the weekend, with roughly half a dozen banks bidding, sources said on Saturday, in what is likely to be the third major U.S. bank to fail in two months. Guggenheim Securities is advising the FDIC, two sources familiar with the matter said on Saturday.

FDIC, Guggenheim, FRC and the banks declined to comment.

A deal for First Republic, which had total assets of $233 billion at the end of the first quarter, would come less than two months after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank (OTC:SBNY) failed amid a deposit flight from U.S. lenders, forcing the Federal Reserve to step in with emergency measures to stabilize markets.

Those failures came after crypto-focused Silvergate voluntarily liquidated.

First Republic was the 14th biggest lender in the U.S. at the end of last year, larger than SVB, which was ranked 16th and Signature 29th, according to Fed data.

While markets have since calmed, a deal for First Republic would be closely watched for the amount of support the government needs to provide.

The FDIC officially insures deposits up to $250,000. But fearing further bank runs, regulators took the exceptional step of insuring all deposits at both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature.

For SVB and Signature, the FDIC created a ‘bridge bank’ to protect depositors.

It remains to be seen whether regulators would have to do so at First Republic as well. They would need approval by the Treasury secretary, the president and super-majorities of the boards of the Federal Reserve and the FDIC.

In trying to find a buyer before closing the bank, the FDIC is turning to some of the largest U.S. lenders. Large banks had been encouraged to bid for FRC’s assets, one of the sources said.

JPMorgan holds more than 10% of the nation’s total bank deposits.

Federal law prevents a large bank from an acquisition that would put it above a threshold of 10% of total deposits, but that could be waived by banking regulators if it was buying a failed bank, according to the 1994 law and interpretation of the document by a source who is expert on bank failures.

STUNNING FALL

First Republic was founded in 1985 by James “Jim” Herbert, son of a community banker in Ohio. Merrill Lynch acquired the bank in 2007, but it was listed in the stock market again in 2010 after being sold by Merrill’s new owner, Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), following the 2008 financial crisis.

For years, First Republic lured high-net-worth customers with preferential rates on mortgages and loans. This strategy made it more vulnerable than regional lenders with less-affluent customers. The bank had a high level of uninsured deposits, amounting to 68% of deposits.

The San Francisco-based lender saw more than $100 billion in deposits fleeing in the first quarter, leaving it scrambling to raise money.

Despite an initial $30 billion lifeline from 11 Wall Street banks in March, the efforts proved futile, in part because buyers balked at the prospect of having to realize large losses on its loan book.

A source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Friday that the FDIC decided the lender’s position had deteriorated and there was no more time to pursue a rescue through the private sector.

By Friday, First Republic’s market value had hit a low of $557 million, down from its peak of $40 billion in November 2021.

Shares of some other regional banks also fell on Friday, as it became clear that First Republic was headed for an FDIC receivership, with PacWest Bancorp down 2% after the bell and Western Alliance (NYSE:WAL) down 0.7%.