For the second time in its history, Twitter has closed a quarter with revenues of more than one billion dollars. The short message service increased its fourth quarter revenue by 28 per cent to 1.29 billion dollars, beating the consensus estimate of 1.18 billion. Net income reached $222 million, or 29 cents per share, hitting the Factset analyst estimate exactly. On an adjusted basis, Twitter earned 38 cents per share. Twitter was able to increase the number of daily active users, which is important for increasing advertising revenue, by 27 per cent year-on-year to 192 million, but just missed the consensus expectation of 193.5 million. The share price closed a good 3 per cent up with a 3-month performance of over 27%.

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The Swiss stock market performed well in the European context on Tuesday. While most places fell somewhat after the recent price gains, the SMI closed well up. It benefited from Nestle (unchanged) and especially Roche (up 1.2 per cent), which are considered defensive heavyweights and were stable in the market. After a lighter start, they rose steadily without news and closed at a high for the day. The SMI gained 0.2 per cent to 10,804 points. The day's winners were Lonza. They reacted with a rise of 3.1 per cent to the news of the sale of the chemicals division for CHF 4.2 billion to the investment companies Bain Capital Private Equity and Cinven. The AMS share (minus 7.1 per cent) saw a steep decline. Although the Osram majority shareholder achieved the targets announced for its own business in the fourth quarter in terms of sales and adjusted profit margin, market participants described the outlook as "disappointing". In addition, profit-taking was heard for the stock, which had benefited from consolidation fantasies in the semiconductor sector the day before. Richemont (up 0.9) per cent was also in the top group after Citi upgraded the stock to "buy".

European equity indices finished Tuesday's session in mixed order, as investors caught their breath after several days of rising prices while keeping a close eye on the news about stimulus plans and Covid-19 vaccination campaigns around the world. The Stoxx Europe 600 index lost 0.1% to 410.4 points. In Paris, the CAC 40 and the SBF 120 each rose by 0.1%, benefiting from encouraging corporate publications. In Frankfurt, the DAX 30 lost 0.3%, while the FTSE 100 in London gained 0.1%. BPCE announced on Tuesday after the close of the stock exchange its intention to buy out the minority shares of its listed subsidiary Natixis. BPCE will file a draft public offer for the 29.3% of Natixis' capital that the group does not hold at a price of 4 euros per share (dividend attached). The Natixis share listing was suspended on Tuesday at the opening of the stock market, pending a press release. The share closed on Monday at 3.70 euros. Randstad's sales figures were well received by Citigroup analysts, with the share price rising by 2.4%. Micro Focus gained 6.6% after its financial results, and the software company plans to resume dividend payments. In the MDAX, Wacker Chemie fell by 6.2%. Traders referred to a report that Xinte Energy intends to build a polysilicon production plant in Inner Mongolia, i.e. in China. This should cover one third of world production. The economy has been very weak for Ceconomy, with the parent company Saturn and Mediamarkt shares falling by 8.5%.

After the recent record chase, the players on Wall Street took a breather on Tuesday. Nevertheless, the indices hardly went down at all in view of the good mood. The Dow Jones index closed minimally lower at 31,376 points, and the S&P 500, which had already marked its eighth closing record high this year on Monday, also barely moved from the spot. The Nasdaq indices were in a similar position. Nevertheless, it was enough for the Nasdaq Composite to rise above 14,000 points for the first time. According to initial data, there were 1,865 (Monday: 2,334) price gainers, 1,371 (927) price losers and 76 (52) unchanged stocks on the Nyse. The shares of Gamestop and AMC Entertainment, which had recently been driven up by private investors in a dispute with hedge funds betting on price losses, continued their almost free fall. They plummeted another 16.2 and 11 per cent respectively. Gamestop shares are still $50.31 down from a high for the year of $483, while AMC is down $5.50 from $20.36. Shares of cannabis company Tilray made a jump of just over 40 per cent. Here, a distribution agreement with Grow Pharma for the United Kingdom provided for price fantasy and also pulled other sector stocks along. Bitcoin remained unstoppable. After an already massive increase of around 13 per cent the previous day, it rose by almost another 20 per cent to a high of over 48,000 dollars. The most recent gain was 5.9 per cent. The latest price surge was triggered by Tesla's intention to accept the digital currency as a means of payment for its products in the future.

The majority of the stock markets in East Asia and Australia are showing gains on Wednesday. The strongest upward trend is on the Chinese stock exchanges. The Shanghai Composite is 1.2 per cent firmer, the Hang Seng Index (HSI) in Hong Kong even rises by 1.7 per cent. The HSI is supported by technology stocks. From Thursday, the Chinese stock exchanges are closed for a week for the New Year holiday. Meanwhile, the Nikkei index in Tokyo slips slightly by 0.1 per cent to 29,493 points. In South Korea, the Kospi is up 0.7 per cent to 3,106 points.

US bonds strengthened slightly. However, participants spoke of only a small countermovement and expect yields to rise in the longer term due to increasing inflation expectations as a result of the stimulus programme.

Citi raises Richemont target to CHF 100 (82) - Buy
BoA raises Bayer target to EUR 62 (54) - Neutral
Jefferies lowers Glaxo target to GBP 1,925 (1,950) - Buy

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