Dancing parties of youth and students took place Monday across North Korea on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of supreme leader Kim Jong Un's assumption of the top posts of the party and the state.
Nomura Holdings plans to cut between 500-1,000 jobs, mainly in its European cash equities business, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters and Bloomberg. Bloomberg reports that the Tokyo-based securities firm will shutter equity research, sales, trading and underwriting for European stocks, according to the person. An announcement of the move, along with job reductions in the Americas, may come as early as today.
Goldman Sachs has agreed a $5 billion (£3.5 billion) settlement related to residential mortgage-backed securities it sold between 2005 and 2007. US Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner of the Eastern District of California says in a statement: "Today's settlement is yet another acknowledgment by one of our leading financial institutions that it did not live up to the representations it made to investors about the products it was selling."
Italy's strongest banks, insurers, and asset managers have agreed to create a €5 billion (£4 billion, $5.7 billion) backstop fund to bail out weaker lenders in an effort to calm growing investor concern. The Financial Times reports that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced the new fund after a six-hour meeting of financiers, regulators, and ministers in Rome.
Sajid Javid has indicated that the government is ready to part-nationalise Tata Steel's
Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said on Tuesday the company could sell some of its lower grade North Sea assets to improve the overall quality of its portfolio. "The North Sea for us will be an area where we have to take a look," van Beurden told reporters at a conference, according to Reuters.
Asian markets are pretty much flat overnight. Japan's Nikkei has recovered from Monday's slump and is up 1.30% at the time of writing (6.35 a.m. GMT/1.35 a.m. ET). China's benchmark Shanghai Composite is down 0.70% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng is up 0.28%.
Inflation is coming. Consumer and producer price indices for March will be released at 8.30 a.m. GMT (3.30 a.m. ET), giving us an idea of what's happening to prices in Britain. Economists are forecasting a 0.3% rise in consumer prices compared to a month earlier and a 0.4% rise compared to a year earlier.
Dell plans to spin off SecureWorks, the security firm it bought for $612 million (£429 million) in 2011, in an IPO that would give the business a market cap of $1.4 billion (£980 million), according to new regulatory filings submitted to the SEC on Monday. The filings said that the company expects to raise between $134.3 million (£84.3 million) to $154.9 million (£108.8 million) from the IPO.
Over $120 million (£84.2 million) in bank notes went missing from the Bank of Tianjin, a Chinese bank that was just listed on Hong Kong's stock exchange a few trading days before. The bank put out a statement acknowledging the robbery as a "risk incident," and saying that authorities were investigating the situation. This is the third time within the last year that thieves have made off with a ton of a specific kind of bank note, known as a "bill of exchange."
Italian fashion house Prada will offset new shop openings with selective closures this year and the next in an effort to shield profit margins from weaker demand. The Milanese group reported on Friday a larger-than-expected drop in full-year profits. Earnings before interest and tax fell 28% in the 12 months through January to 14% of revenue from 20% a year before.