Before the bell: Home loans now cost 7% in the US

Strong market debut for battery giant CATL. Visa and Mastercard face rising competition. Smart or risky move by Nvidia?

At index level, not much changed yesterday. European markets started the day in the red, which isn’t surprising after such a strong upward streak. On Wall Street, some would even call a mild pullback “healthy,” considering how strong the past few weeks have been for US equities. What’s remarkable is that financial data provider FactSet reported that 381 out of the 500 S&P 500 companies mentioned “uncertainty” during their earnings calls. It’s a word investors loathe—but it keeps surfacing. In fact, it appeared twice as often as it did in Q4 and almost as frequently as in 2020, during the COVID-19 crisis. Meanwhile, the 30-year US Treasury yield crossed the 5% mark, and the 10-year yield now stands at 4.45%. Taking out a mortgage in the United States now easily costs 7% per year. Another reason for markets to let off some steam?

In Hong Kong, battery giant CATL celebrated its market debut with a sharp rally. In the US, Capital One announced a 35 billion dollar acquisition of credit card company Discovery, in a bold move to challenge Visa and Mastercard. In Europe, no major banking takeovers are underway, but BNP Paribas (+3.5%) and KBC (+2.8%) performed strongly. Wienerberger and Brussels-listed CFE reported results. Today also marks the start of a rather stingy takeover bid for Roularta at 15.5 euro per share. On Wall Street, homebuilder Toll Brothers is set to publish its results. It will be interesting to see what they have to say about the higher mortgage rates.

Belgian-Danish excellence

Industrial laundry machine maker Jensen-Group (+1.5%) posted an impressive 17% increase in first-quarter revenue to 127.5 million euro and received 20% more orders. Operating profit rose 49% to 16.6 million euro, while earnings per share climbed 34% to 1.55 euro. Once again, a spotless set of numbers. The only slightly sour note in the short press release? The mention of “uncertainty” linked to geopolitical tensions and the disruptive effects of trade tariffs on demand and investment. After all, the laundry systems Jensen produces are capital goods par excellence. But the Belgian-Danish company doesn’t just strive for commercial and industrial excellence—it delivers. What more can an investor ask?

Nvidia’s clever or risky play?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (+0.1%) announced yesterday that the company is opening up its artificial intelligence ecosystem to competing chips. Some investors fear that Nvidia could lose its dominance in the AI datacenter market. Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple could start integrating their own AI chips into Nvidia’s systems, and other chipmakers might follow suit. Then again, this could be a smart move to prolong Nvidia’s leadership in the prevailing AI architecture.

Did you know…

that Ryanair is trading at a record high of 23 euro after Monday’s earnings report? If the stock stays above 21 euro for at least 28 days, CEO Michael O’Leary will receive a 100 million euro bonus. As of yesterday, O’Leary could already count to 17.

This article was translated from Dutch and was originally published on Spaarvarkens.be.