Roche First-Quarter Sales Gain With Pipeline in Focus
Roche Holding AG said sales advanced in the first quarter as investors wait for a series of clinical-trial readouts that will help determine the Swiss drugmaker's future growth.
Revenue climbed 7.2% to 15.4 billion Swiss francs ($18.6 billion), Roche said Thursday, compared with an average analyst prediction of 15.3 billion francs.
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Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Switzerland's Likely Rate Cut to Zero Threatens to Test Banks
(Bloomberg) -- The Swiss National Bank's next cut in borrowing costs may be about to cause a headache for banks, if officials end up experimenting with their first-ever interest rate of zero. Shuttered NY College Has Alumni Fighting Over Its Future Trump's Military Parade Has Washington Bracing for Tanks and Weaponry NYC Renters Brace for Price Hikes After Broker-Fee Ban Do World's Fairs Still Matter? As Part of a $45 Billion Push, ICE Prepares for a Vast Expansion of Detention Space A quarter-point reduction anticipated by most economists on Thursday would not only draw a line on less than three years of positive monetary policy, but would also place the financial system in unchartered territory by stopping short of going negative, conceivably for some time to come. Swiss policymakers are poised to act in order to stoke consumer prices depressed by the strength of their currency. It touched a decade-high against the dollar in April as global market ructions prompted by US President Donald Trump's tariff onslaught drove haven flows into the franc. Despite having previously pushed the rate down to -0.75% during the past decade, the lowest level in the world, the SNB never actually made a stop at zero before — neither on the way down, nor when it finally exited negative territory in 2022. While policy regimes all differ, global peers have tended to skirt that threshold too. Officials have long acknowledged the discomfort of going below zero for Switzerland's $4.1 trillion banking sector, whose traditional domestic savings and mortgage business generates less income under that level. But at least institutions including UBS Group AG, Postfinance and Zuercher Kantonalbank have the option of charging customers who keep money with them. Zero risks turning out to be an even more awkward no-man's land. It erases the interest that allows them to attract deposits and compresses margins on loans, but also offers a poor justification to impose costs on clients. And with most economists anticipating no further cuts for now, the squeeze could be enduring. 'A steady zero interest rate is the worst-case scenario for Swiss banks,' said Ausano Cajrati Crivelli, an analyst at ZKB. 'For a few months, that doesn't drastically change the game, but if it persists for an extended period of time, it could become more challenging.' Swiss banks were already facing a leaner year with the prospect of rates falling. They have also been primed for the risk of returning to negative territory. SNB President Martin Schlegel repeated as recently as this month that it's an option, even if 'no one' likes it. What Bloomberg Economics Says: 'Risks are tilted to the downside given how much the franc has strengthened. So a policy surprise, say a 50 basis-point cut, remains a possibility.' —Jean Dalbard. For his SNB preview, click here The prospect that borrowing costs could land at the precipice of negative would be another twist in Switzerland's fickle relationship with its banks. UBS is currently reeling from the government's proposal earlier this month for as much as $26 billion in additional capital requirements. Concerns over the impact of a zero rate may have contributed to decisions to skip that level when policymakers introduced negative rates in 2014, as well as when it abolished them again almost eight later. This time however, SNB officials appear to have signaled policy adjustments in measured increments, stressing that even after a negative inflation rate of -0,1% last month, they want to avoid over-reacting. Officials are also emphasizing the use of borrowing costs as a lever. Market intervention to contain the franc's strength is frowned upon by the Trump administration, which just put Switzerland on a watch list as a possible manipulator. The central bank's judgments reflect tough trade-offs faced by officials, who must act for the greater good by balancing the interests of one part of the economy against another. 'The SNB has been very consistent in its framing of price stability before everything else,' said Claude Maurer, chief economist at BAK Basel Economics. 'No favors for specific industries. If they conclude that zero is the right number, they will set zero.' He is one of the large majority of economists anticipating a 25 basis-point reduction — to zero — when officials meet on June 19. Only a few in a survey by Bloomberg see a bigger move into negative territory. Markets also put the probability of a larger cut at less than 30%, though strategists at Morgan Stanley have warned that traders are underpricing such a risk. If the forecasts prove right and the rate does end up at zero, the concern for banks then becomes that it stays stuck there. That's the median prediction of economists for this year and next. For all the pain that might cause, available data also suggest banks should still be able to cushion the fallout over time. In less than three years of positive Swiss rates, they already earned more in interest from the SNB than all money they paid to the central bank during more than seven years of negative rates, according to its annual reports. According to separate central-bank data that is the most recent available, 2023 was also the most successful year for Swiss banks in terms of revenue, totaling more than 108 billion francs ($123 billion). That's up 9% compared with 2015, even though interest income dropped slightly during the phase of negative monetary policy. 'If banks can't earn interest on their deposits, they will typically try to make up for this in the loan or mortgage business, or through fees,' said Martin Hess, chief economist of Swiss Banking, the industry's main national lobby. 'I expect that the mortgage business will be used most for offsetting, as mortgages make up the largest part of Swiss banks' balance sheets.' Most Swiss banks endured the period of negative rates relatively unscathed. That was partly because many of them, especially wealth managers, have a high proportion of fee income and don't rely on net-interest margins as much as peers in the euro area. Some banks still hold out the hope that officials will repeat their previous policy and avoid just a quarter-point move this month, according to Andreas Venditti, an analyst at Vontobel. 'A negative rate is better than zero, because then you can start charging clients,' he said. But Schlegel himself hinted last month that he won't easily be swayed by banks' profit motives. When questioned on dimmer revenue prospects in Basel on May 27, the SNB chief didn't flinch. 'Swiss banks have also during negative rates found ways to generate revenue,' he said. --With assistance from Noele Illien, Nicholas Comfort, Harumi Ichikura and Jan-Henrik Förster. American Mid: Hampton Inn's Good-Enough Formula for World Domination The Spying Scandal Rocking the World of HR Software New Grads Join Worst Entry-Level Job Market in Years As Companies Abandon Climate Pledges, Is There a Silver Lining? US Tariffs Threaten to Derail Vietnam's Historic Industrial Boom ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
Bloomberg
7 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Switzerland's Likely Rate Cut to Zero Threatens to Test Banks
The Swiss National Bank's next cut in borrowing costs may be about to cause a headache for banks, if officials end up experimenting with their first-ever interest rate of zero. A quarter-point reduction anticipated by most economists on Thursday would not only draw a line on less than three years of positive monetary policy, but would also place the financial system in unchartered territory by stopping short of going negative, conceivably for some time to come.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Drops as Mideast Tensions Rise, but $200K Still In Play
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) A weaker dollar, subdued inflation and heightened tensions in the Middle East are reshaping the crypto market's trajectory, giving bitcoin (BTC) room to run in the future, while pushing it down in the near term. While the largest cryptocurrency is lower today, analysts say a price of $200,000 is in play by year-end. One influence is the U.S. interest rate. Consumer prices rose less than forecast last month, increasing the chance of a Federal Reserve rate cut, which would bolster risk assets including cryptocurrencies. With core inflation stable at 2.8%, traders now largely expect two cuts this year beginning in September, according to the CME's FedWatch tool. Then there's the Middle East. The U.S. said yesterday it was moving people out of the region over heightened security risk and amid reports Israel is considering military action against Iran. Earlier today, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, ruled that Iran was in breach of its non-proliferation duties for the first time in 20 years. With tensions rising, investors are ditching the dollar in favor of safe havens including gold and the Swiss franc as they position for a potential conflict. That has also pushed down cryptocurrency prices, with BTC losing 1.7% of its value in the last 24 hours and the broader CoinDesk 20 (CD20) Index retreating 2.25%. 'Bitcoin continues to trade like a classic risk-on asset, responding sharply to macro tailwinds,' Boris Alergant, head of institutional partnerships at Babylon and a former Ripple and JPMorgan executive, told CoinDesk. 'That said, the broader picture for BTC remains optimistic,' Alergant said. 'More institutions are emulating MicroStrategy's BTC treasury strategy, creating a steady base of structural demand.' Still, the SEC's recent willingness to greenlight ETF applications tied to altcoins such as solana, led to predictions of an 'altcoin ETF summer' while signals of regulatory friendliness toward staking and protocol-based yield helped lift DeFi tokens. 'This marks the first time the SEC has shown coordinated openness to both layer-1 assets and the DeFi ecosystem,' Youwei Yang, chief economist at BIT Mining, told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, pointed to $900 million in new digital asset fund inflows this week, suggesting that investor confidence is rebounding. 'This resurgence comes as bitcoin trades near all-time highs and global money supply conditions loosen, suggesting there could be further upside potential for digital asset prices more broadly,' he said. Keep in mind, though, the balance of global events. Tame inflation could help boost risk assets, yet unexpected escalation in the Middle East could reverse those gains. Stay alert! Crypto June 12, 10 a.m.: Coinbase's State of Crypto Summit 2025 (New York). Livestream link. June 16: 21Shares executes a 3-for-1 share split for ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB); ticker and NAV remain unchanged. June 16: Brazil's B3 exchange launches USD-settled ether (0.25 ETH) and solana (5 SOL) futures contracts, approved by Brazil's securities regulator, the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM) and benchmarked to Nasdaq indices. Macro June 12, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases May producer price inflation data. Core PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. -0.4% Core PPI YoY Est. 3.1% vs. Prev. 3.1% PPI MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. -0.5% PPI YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.4% June 12, 3 p.m.: Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Census releases May inflation data. Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 2.8% Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 47.3% June 15-17: G7 2025 Summit (Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada) Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data) June 23 (TBC): HIVE Digital Technologies (HIVE), post-market Governance votes & calls ApeCoin DAO is weighing scrapping the decentralized autonomous organization and launching ApeCo to 'supercharge the APE ecosystem.' The discussion is scheduled to end later today. Arbitrum DAO is voting on a proposal to launch DRIP, an $80M incentives program targeting specific DeFi activity. Managed by a foundation-led committee, DRIP would reward users directly and allow the DAO to shut it down via vote. Voting ends June 20. June 12, 11:30 a.m.: Jupiter to host its Planetary Call with a 'special guest.' Unlocks June 13: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.33% of its circulating supply worth $12.44 million. June 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 3.79% of its circulating supply worth $17.06 million. June 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.04% of its circulating supply worth $10.65 million. June 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.91% of its circulating supply worth $35.74 million. June 17: ZKsync (ZK) to unlock 20.91% of its circulating supply worth $41.78 million. June 17: ApeCoin (APE) to unlock 1.95% of its circulating supply worth $11.10 million. Token Launches June 12: Coinbase to list Fartcoin (FARTCOIN), Subsquid (SQD) and PancakeSwap (CAKE). June 12: Ethena (ENA) and Solayer (LAYER) to be listed on June 16: Advised deadline to unstake stMATIC as part of Lido on Polygon's sunsetting process ends June 26: Coinbase to delist Helium Mobile (MOBILE), Render (RNDR), Ribbon Finance (RBN) and Synapse (SYN). Day 3 of 3: Ripple's Apex 2025 (Singapore) June 14: Incrypted Crypto Conference 2025 (Kyiv) June 18-19: Canadian Blockchain Consortium's 2nd Annual Policy Summit (Ottawa) June 19-21: BTC Prague 2025 June 25-26: Bitcoin Policy Institute's Bitcoin Policy Summit 2025 (Washington) June 26: The Injective Summit (New York) June 26-27: Istanbul Blockchain Week June 30 to July 3: Ethereum Community Conference (Cannes, France) By Oliver Knight SPX6900 (SPX), one of many AI agent memecoins that spawned in the latter half of 2024, rocketed to a record high of $1.71 on Wednesday, defying a wider market sell-off prompted by political tensions involving Iran. The project's goal is to flip the entire U.S. stock market in terms of capitalization and while it's a few trillion dollars away, it has amassed a $1.7 billion market cap. Crypto analyst and social media personality Murad famously racked up a $40 million unrealized loss earlier this year. That loss has become a $55 million gain due to the token's ascent. SPX remains one of just a handful of altcoins that are positive over the past 24 hours as much of the market continues to reel over fears that a fighting could escalate in the Middle East. Gold and oil prices rose significantly overnight, which is historically a sign of impending conflict. CoinMarketCap's AI agent memecoin sector is down by 3.5%. Bitcoin options open interest on Deribit has reached $36.7 billion, the highest level seen this month. The dominant expiry remains June 27 with over $13.8 billion in notional open interest, and bullish call positioning continuing to cluster at the $140,000 strike. The put/call ratio stands at 0.60, reflecting a moderate bias toward calls, though less so than in recent sessions. Ether options open interest has climbed to a yearly high of $6.87 billion on Deribit. More than $2.38 billion in notional value is tied to the June 27 expiry, with calls heavily concentrated at the $3,000 strike where $614 million is positioned. The put/call ratio sits at 0.45, indicating a strong preference for upside exposure into the quarter-end. BTC funding rates have stabilized across major venues, with Deribit at 12.84% APR, Bybit at 10.75%, and Binance at 8.12%, according to data from Velo. This supports the view that long positioning remains elevated, but not at extremes. Aggregate futures open interest stands at $55.4 billion across Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit and Hyperliquid with Binance accounting for $23.3 billion of that total, based on Velo data. BTC is down 1.26% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $107,534.98 (24hrs: -1.77%) ETH is down 2.21% at $2,753.40 (24hrs: -0.8%) CoinDesk 20 is down 2.05% at 3,198.06 (24hrs: -2.52%) Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 2 bps at 3.05% BTC funding rate is at 0.0075% (8.1731% annualized) on Binance DXY is down 0.57% at 98.07 Gold futures are up 1.26% at $3,385.80 Silver futures are down 0.54% at $36.06 Nikkei 225 closed down 0.65% at 38,173.09 Hang Seng closed down 1.36% at 24,035.38 FTSE is down 0.15% at 8,851.13 Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.87% at 5,346.38 DJIA closed on Wednesday unchanged at 42,865.77 S&P 500 closed down 0.27% at 6,022.24 Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.50% at 19,615.88 S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.37% at 26,524.16 S&P 40 Latin America closed up +1.42% at 2,625.01 U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 4 bps at 4.39% E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.41% at 6,004.25 E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.33% at 21,815.50 E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 0.60% at 42,649.00 BTC Dominance: 64.07 (-0.08%) Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02562 (0.43%) Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 913 EH/s Hashprice (spot): $54.7 Total Fees: 4.76 BTC / $521,445 CME Futures Open Interest: 150,075 BTC BTC priced in gold: 31.9 oz BTC vs gold market cap: 9.04% Solana's sol (SOL) failed to find acceptance above the 200-day exponential moving average on the daily timeframe, leading to a deviation back below key moving averages. The 100-day EMA is currently providing support. Notably, SOL closed below Monday's high in the previous session, presenting a clean setup for a Monday Range strategy. If the pullback continues, Monday's low at $149.68 serves as a key downside target. This level also aligns with a weekly demand zone (order block), potentially acting as a strong support area. Strategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $387.11 (-1.04%), -1.47% at $381.43 in pre-market Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $250.68 (-1.67%), -1.11% at $247.90 Circle (CRCL): closed at $117.2 (+10.66%), unchanged in pre-market Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$26.42 (-3.4%) MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.35 (-0.85%), -2.08% at $16.01 Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $10.55 (+0.96%), -1.42% at $10.40 Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.25 (-4.07%), -1.22% at $12.10 CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.97 (-1.58%), -1.6% at $9.81 CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $20 (-1.38%) Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $31.72 (+0.7%), -0.69% at $31.50 Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $31.08 (-7.91%), +1.38% at $31.51 Spot BTC ETFs Daily net flow: $164.6 million Cumulative net flows: $45.20 billion Total BTC holdings ~ 1.21 million Spot ETH ETFs Daily net flow: $240.3 million Cumulative net flows: $3.76 billion Total ETH holdings ~ 3.84 million Source: Farside Investors The chart from TheTie shows bitcoin generally moved in the same direction as the U.S. equity market as measured by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. The cryptocurrency is nevertheless more volatile than the equity benchmark. Bitcoin briefly decoupled around April as it sold off while equities were relatively steady. Bitcoin at $200K by Year-End Is Now Firmly in Play, Analyst Says After Muted U.S. Inflation Data (CoinDesk): Matt Mena says bitcoin could benefit from improving macro clarity, institutional adoption, treasury demand and state-level reserve programs that may boost ETF inflows and strengthen its role in global portfolios. Strong Uptake at 10-Year U.S. Debt Sale Eases Demand Concerns, 30-Year Sale's Up Next (CoinDesk): Strong demand for 10-year Treasuries countered concerns over waning appetite for U.S. debt, now above $36 trillion, while some analysts cited bitcoin and gold as hedges against mounting fiscal risks. Marines to Deploy on L.A. Streets Within Two Days With Authority to Detain Civilians (Reuters): The 700 Marines have completed training in deescalation and crowd control and will join National Guard forces to help protect federal personnel and property under Title 10 of U.S. Code. Trump Is Pushing Allies Away and Closer to Each Other (The New York Times): The U.K., France, Canada and other mid-sized allies are deepening cooperation as Trump's unilateralism and tariff policy strain their longstanding ties with the U.S. Where Russia Is Advancing in Ukraine and What It Hopes to Gain (The Wall Street Journal): Russia made its largest monthly gains since late 2022 in May, aiming to convince Ukraine's allies that continued military and financial aid is pointless because Russia's victory is inevitable. Mercurity Fintech Plans $800M Bitcoin Treasury, Eyes Russell 2000 Inclusion (CoinDesk): The company said it will use the funds to acquire bitcoin, secure it with blockchain-native custody, and integrate it into a platform combining tokenized treasuries and staking services. Sign in to access your portfolio
