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Deutsche Bank’s $3.5 billion loss; Chipotle and Snap; Tech reckoning

Posted at 3:16 AM, Jul 24, 2019
and last updated 2019-07-24 07:09:25-04

1. Deutsche Bank loss: Germany’s biggest bank posted a loss of nearly $3.5 billion in the second quarter, slammed by the cost of a radical overhaul aimed at returning the company to profit.

Deutsche Bank took a charge of €3.4 billion ($3.8 billion) for the three months ending in June, leading to a net loss of €3.1 billion ($3.46 billion).

The performance was even worse than the bank had telegraphed: It said on July 7 that costs related to the overhaul would push it to a net loss of €2.8 billion ($3.1 billion) for the second quarter.

Shares dropped about 5% in Frankfurt on the news.

Without the restructuring cost, Deutsche Bank said Wednesday it would have reported a net profit of €231 million ($257.4 million), down 42% on the same period last year. Even that profit number was below analyst expectations.

Deutsche Bank is cutting18,000 jobs and dramatically shrinking its investment bank as part of the overhaul. The total cost of the transition is expected to hit €7.4 billion ($8.3 billion) by 2022.

2. The comeback kids: Shares in both Chipotle and Snap are moving higher after the companies posted banner earnings after US markets closed on Tuesday.

Chipotle said that sales at stores open at least 13 months grew 10% in the second quarter. During that time, revenue grew 13.2% to $1.4 billion.

It’s the latest piece of good news for the fast food chain, which had been hamstrung by E. coli outbreaks. Shares hit a new record high earlier this month for the first time since August 2015.

Snapchat, meanwhile, added 13 million daily users in the three months ending in June. That brought to an end a long period of lackluster growth and pushed the company’s total audience above 200 million daily users for the first time.

After a redesign of the Snapchat photo-sharing app in late 2017 cost it millions of users, Snap is trying to grow its audience again and cut losses as it battles its much bigger rival Instagram. The second quarter results show that it’s moving in that direction.

3. Tech reckoning: The US Justice Department is launching a formal antitrust review of the nation’s biggest tech companies, raising the stakes for Silicon Valley after weeks of anticipation in Washington.

The review appears wide-ranging and could cover the conduct of numerous companies.

Policymakers have increasingly focused on Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. While those firms were not named Tuesday, the Justice Department indicated it will look into areas where they’re dominant.

The announcement comes as Facebook braces for a fine from the Federal Trade Commission that was spurred by an investigation into numerous privacy mishaps during and after the 2016 election.

4. Markets mixed: Stocks moved higher in Asia on Wednesday, but the mood was darker in Europe and the United States.

The Shanghai Composite rose 0.8% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng increased 0.3%. Japan’s Nikkei jumped 0.4%. Britain’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.5% and France’s CAC 40 shed 0.3%.

US stock futures point to a weak open. The Dow is set to open down 70 points, or 0.3% lower. The S&P 500 could drop a similar amount, while the Nasdaq is tracking down 0.7%.

Strong earnings reports could help to improve the mood. UPS, Northrop Grumman, Caterpillar, Boeing and CNN parent company AT&T report before the open.

US stocks closed higher on Tuesday, approaching record highs. Coca-Cola was the best performer in the Dow, closing up 6.1% after beating earnings expectations.

5. Coming this week:

Wednesday — German manufacturing data; US new home sales; US crude inventories; Deutsche Bank, AT&T, Boeing, Caterpillar, UPS, Facebook, Ford, PayPal, Tesla earnings
Thursday — ECB rate decision; US durable goods; 3M, American Airlines, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Comcast, Hershey, Nokia, Amazon, Alphabet, Intel, Mattel, Starbucks earnings
Friday — US Q2 GDP; McDonald’s and Twitter earnings