By James Langton
(April 18 – 09:00 ET) – Markets appear to have calmed down after a couple of wild days. Traders should be back focusing on individual stocks and their earnings, with a lack of economic data to shift the winds.
In Europe stocks are mixed and index moves are muted. Telecoms are up. Insurers are down. In London the FTSE has gained 10 points to 6004. France’s CAC 40 is up 29 points to 6089. The German DAX has dropped 8 points to 7179.
In merger news bankers, Standard Chartered PLC, is buying the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.’s South Asian and Middle East operations of about US$1.5 billion. Nomura Securities Co. is buying Welsh water firm Hyder PLC for US$3.6 billion in cash and assumed debt.
HSBC Holdings PLC and Merrill Lynch & Co. are teaming up to start an online financial institution for customers with at least US$100,000. The virtual bank will have US$1 billion of capital.
In Asia stocks took some comfort in Wall Street’s rebound, but Japanese traders remain cautious. The Nikkei closed the day down 39 points to 18969. The Hang Seng rallied remorselessly, closing up 516 points to reach 15278.