Adidas AG announced that it has started a formal process to divest its Reebok brand after concluding a strategic assessment. The German sporting-goods company said it will report Reebok as discontinued operations from the first quarter of the year onwards. "After careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that Reebok and Adidas will be able to significantly better realize their growth potential independently of each other," it said. Adidas acquired the brand in 2006 for around $3.8 billion. The company said it will release more details on its strategic business plan to 2025 at the investor and media day on March 10.

The SMI dropped a slight 0.3 percent to 10,908 points Tuesday. Participants said that after gaining almost 350 points since its low at the end of January the air was getting thin, and the psychological hurdle of 11,000 points was also a factor. But overall sentiment remained upbeat, with the covid-19 vaccine campaigns moving ahead and state stimulus packages and loose monetary policy making stocks more attractive. The SMI’s "big three" caused the negative trend. Nestle fell 0.6 percent, Novartis 1 percent and Roche 0.5 percent. Financial stocks were again firmer thanks to the rising yield rates. Credit Suisse gained 0.8 percent and UBS 1.2 percent. Following UBS was ABB, up 1.1 percent. Alcon brought up the rear, down 1.1 percent, but it has already gained 12.5 percent this year. Straumann reacted with a rollercoaster ride after analysts had said its organic turnover outlook was "disappointing". However, after losses in early trading, opportunistic buying sent the stock up 5 percent.

European stocks close mostly lower as traders stayed wary, while Wall Street made modest gains on its return from Monday's public holiday. The Stoxx Europe 600 drops 0.06%, the FTSE 100 falls 0.1%, the CAC-40 is flat and the DAX subsides 0.3%. German economic expectations rose strongly in February, beating forecasts for a decline, the ZEW economic research institute said Tuesday. The measure of economic expectations rose to 71.2 in February from 61.8 in January, the institute said. The outcome beats economists' forecast of 59.8 points, taken from a survey by The Wall Street Journal. Atos SE said Tuesday that it has been awarded a contract for the multi-service network and video-surveillance system for the three upcoming lines of the Paris metro, alongside Germany's Siemens AG and French telecommunication-infrastructure company Axione. The French IT company said the companies were awarded the contract for the lines 15, 16 and 17 of the city's metro, three of four future lines that make up part of urban-transportation project Grand Paris Express. The contract is worth 153 million euros ($185.6 million) for the three companies, and will last until the completion of Grand Paris Express, Atos said. Thales SA said Tuesday that it has signed a contract to digitalize Deutsche Bahn AG's railway in the Stuttgart region of Germany. The French aerospace-and-defense company said the contract, valued at around 127 million euros ($154 million), will cover the first two modules of the Stuttgart transformation plan up to 2025, including the installation of the digital signalling system. The tender was awarded to Thales in November 2020, the company said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record Tuesday, extending a market rally underpinned by the potential for more fiscal stimulus and hopes for a successful vaccine rollout. The broad-based S&P 500 and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, edged back from the record closes they set Friday, before the three-day weekend in the U.S. All three stock gauges have notched multiple closing highs in recent days. The Dow industrials rose 64.35 points, or 0.2%, to 31522.75, an eighth record close of 2021. The S&P 500 edged down 2.24 points, or 0.1%, to 3932.59. The Nasdaq Composite fell 47.97 points, or 0.3%, to 14047.50, weighed down by losses in shares of heavily-weighted Apple and Microsoft. The economically sensitive energy and financial groups led the S&P 500's 11 sectors, rising 2.3% and 1.8%, respectively. Investors in recent days have been heartened by expectations that a fresh round of stimulus spending and continued support from the Federal Reserve will support economic recovery. House Democrats are preparing to stitch together a legislative version of President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal. CoStar Group Inc. said it is proposing to buy CoreLogic Inc. for about $6.9 billion, as it tries to compete against an agreement by two private-equity firms to buy the real-estate data provider for roughly $6 billion in cash. At roughly $95.76 a share, the proposed acquisition reflects a premium of 16.8% over CoreLogic's closing price Friday and a roughly 74% premium to CoreLogic's unaffected share price on June 25, 2020, CoStar said Tuesday. CoStar, a provider of commercial real-estate information and analytics, had earlier made an all-stock offer of $86.30 a share in headline value. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) (the Company) today announced that Janssen-Cilag International N.V., has submitted a conditional Marketing Authorisation Application (cMAA) to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) seeking authorisation for its investigational single-dose Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The submission is based on topline efficacy and safety data from the Phase 3 ENSEMBLE clinical trial.

The rally on the East Asian stock markets takes a pause on Wednesday, with investors taking profits. The indices mostly decline after reaching record or long-term highs.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.30% amid expectations for substantial U.S. government stimulus.

HSBC rises the Michelin target to 145 (141) EUR - Buy
UBS rises the Krones target to 89 (81) EUR - Buy
CS rises the Klöckner target to 7,40 (6,80) EUR - Underperform

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