Porsche and Rimac have agreed to form a joint venture involving Bugatti. The hypercar manufacturer will be called Bugatti-Rimac, Porsche announced. The joint venture, which will be headquartered in Zagreb, is scheduled to be established in the fourth quarter of 2021. Before that, antitrust authorities in several countries still have to give their approval. Rimac will hold 55 percent and Porsche 45 percent of the shares in the Bugatti-Rimac joint venture. Porsche also has a direct 24 percent stake in Rimac. Bugatti will be brought into the joint venture via its current owner Volkswagen. The shares will then be transferred to Porsche. Under the umbrella of the new company, the Bugatti and Rimac brands will initially produce two hypercar models: The Bugatti Chiron and the all-electric Rimac Nevera.

The stock market in Switzerland has hardly moved from the spot on Monday. The SMI gained 3 points to 11,968 points. Among the 20 SMI stocks were 13 price gainers and 6 losers, unchanged closed one share. 19.05 (previously: 26.96) million shares were traded. The index heavyweights Nestle (-0.4%) and Novartis (-0.4%) proved to be a brake, while Roche (+0.2%) increased slightly. Credit Suisse rose 1.3 percent and led the SMI. Goldman Sachs executive Joanne Hannaford will lead operations at Credit Suisse starting in 2022. The bank said Hannaford has been appointed chief technology & operations officer and member of the executive board. She will be based in Zurich and report directly to CEO Thomas Gottstein, it said. Other banking and insurance stocks were also sought after. UBS rose 1 percent and Swiss Life rose 1.3 percent. Across Europe, shares in airports were sought after, with Zurich Airport advancing 1.5 percent. Here, reference was made on the one hand to the comeback of business travel, which again increased significantly. Luxury goods stocks also benefited from expectations of a recovery in travel. Swatch and Richemont each gained 0.3 percent.

European equity markets ended higher on Monday, supported by good economic indicators, while the new meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Producing Countries (OPEC) and its allies scheduled for Monday was cancelled. Trading volumes were reduced as U.S. markets closed for the July 4 holiday. The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.3% to 458.4 points. In Paris, the CAC 40 and the SBF 120 gained 0.2%. In Frankfurt, the DAX 30 rose 0.1%, while in London, the FTSE 100 gained 0.6%. EDF lost 1.7%. Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday on LCI that it would be difficult to meet the European Commission's demands on the reform of the energy company, and that new discussions are needed. Sanofi's vaccine (-1.1%) against Covid-19 will be available by next December, Olivier Bogillot, the pharmaceutical group's president in France, confirmed on Monday on France Inter. The vaccine candidate of Sanofi and its partner, the British laboratory GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), is developed according to the recombinant protein technology, identical to the one used to manufacture the flu vaccine. The product has been undergoing a phase 3 clinical trial since May. Legrand (+1.2%) benefits from strong growth momentum and pricing power, according to Deutsche Bank, which raised its recommendation on the stock from "hold" to "buy" and increased its price target from 85 euros to 102 euros. A group of investors led by Fortress Investment Group, a subsidiary of Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank, reached an agreement on Saturday to buy British supermarket chain WM Morrison Supermarkets (up 11.6% in London) for £6.3 billion (€7.3 billion). U.S. fund Apollo Global Management announced on Monday that it was considering a competing bid for the British retail group. Apollo stressed that it had not yet contacted the board of WM Morrison and that it was not sure whether the fund would make a bid.

U.S. markets were closed for the July 4 holiday and S&P 500 futures pointed to a tepid decline at the market open on Tuesday. S&P 500 futures wavered between gains and losses, while Nasdaq-100 futures slid just over 0.1%.

With movements of the indices of minus 0.6 percent in Hong Kong to plus 0.4 percent in Tokyo, the important stock markets in East Asia show inconsistency this Tuesday. Tokyo's Nikkei index is at 28,693 points, in Hong Kong market participants report further reduced share prices of heavyweights from the technology segment, which burden the whole index. Among other individual stocks, participants in Shanghai refer to more significantly rising stock prices of battery manufacturers against the backdrop of strong demand for electric vehicles in China. Xinyi Solar (-4.7%) suffers in Hong Kong from pessimistic analyst expectations for solar glass prices. The price of the conglomerate BYD gains 1.5 percent after presentation of good sales figures.

The yield on the ten-year German Bund was at -0.207% from -0.234% on Friday night. The 10-year Treasury note was yielding 1.437% on Friday night.

Jefferies raises Pernod target to EUR 210 (200) - Buy
Stifel lowers Morphosys target to EUR 97 (102) - Buy
DZ raises target Carl Zeiss Meditec to EUR 167.70 (138) - Hold

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