Twitter Inc. CEO Parag Agrawal on Sunday night said billionaire Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk has decided he won't join the company's board of directors. The announcement of the reversal came after Mr. Musk spent a weekend tweeting criticisms, suggestions, and apparent jokes about the social media company. Mr. Musk tweeted about the social media company throughout the weekend. He asked his 81 million followers if they thought that Twitter was dying and pointed out that several top accounts, including those of artists Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, rarely tweet. Other tweets seemed less serious. "Delete the w in twitter?" Mr. Musk asked his Twitter followers in a poll. Mr. Agrawal said that the board had many discussions with Mr. Musk about joining. Mr. Agrawal and the board were excited about collaborating with Mr. Musk but expected him "to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders," Mr. Agrawal wrote Sunday night in a note posted on his Twitter account. Mr. Musk's appointment was set to start on Saturday, but, Mr. Musk "shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board," Mr. Agrawal wrote. Most of the provocative tweets appeared to come after Mr. Musk decided not to join the board.

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The Swiss stock market went firmly into the weekend. As seen on previous days, it again lagged neighbouring stock markets, but this time on the way up because the SMI market barometer includes some heavily weighted defensive stocks. The SMI gained 1.1 per cent to 12,508 points. Among the 20 SMI stocks, there were 17 gainers and 3 losers. 37.79 (Thursday: 39.79) million shares were traded. The price gains were across the board with no discernible sectoral focus. The previous day's loser Swiss Re led the way, followed by Novartis, Credit Suisse and Richemont with gains of 2 to 2.4 per cent. At the very bottom were Zurich Insurance. However, the minus of 2.1 per cent or 9.30 francs was due to the dividend discount of 22 francs. Adjusted for this, the share gained a good 12 francs. Sika went down by 0.1 per cent. The analysts at Baader Helvea downgraded the stock to "Add" from "Buy", as did several other European chemical stocks. EMS Chemie, which was confirmed at "Add", slipped 0.2 per cent.

European equity indices rallied on Friday after a week of high volatility, linked to fears of tighter monetary policies and the continuing war in Ukraine. The Stoxx Europe 600 index gained 1.3% to 461.0 points. In Paris, the CAC 40 and SBF 120 also gained 1.3%. In Frankfurt, the DAX 40 gained 1.5% and in London, the FTSE 100 gained 1.6%. Swedish truck maker Volvo AB said Friday it has booked a 4 billion Swedish kronor ($422.5 million) provision in the first quarter of 2022 due to the suspension of all sales, service, and production in Russia. Volvo has a heavy-duty truck production plant in Russia and employs around 700 staff. The company’s total assets in the country are valued at around SEK9 billion, it said. The SEK4 billion provision mainly relates to its financial-services unit and will hurt operating income, it said. Credit Agricole SA said late Thursday that it has bought a 9.18% stake in Italy’s Banco BPM SpA, building on an existing partnership between the two banks. The French lender said it would aim to expand strategic partnerships with Banco BPM after the stake acquisition, the financial details of which it didn’t disclose. The two already collaborate on a consumer-finance joint venture called Agos. Explaining the move, the bank highlighted Banco BPM’s strengths including a “solid franchise, positive financial perspectives and a strong and performing management team.”

Uncertainty about Federal Reserve policy and the war in Ukraine pushed the S&P 500 to a weekly loss and stoked a selloff in the government bond market. The broad stock-market gauge lost 11.93 points, or 0.3%, to 4488.28 Friday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 186.30 points, or 1.3%, to 13711.00. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average reversed early losses to close up 137.55 points, or 0.4%, to 34721.12. All three major indexes ended the week with losses. The S&P 500 snapped a three-week winning streak that had sent it toward its best performance since November 2020, losing 1.3%. The Dow and Nasdaq lost 0.3% and 3.9%, respectively. Spirit Airlines Inc. said it would entertain JetBlue Airways Corp.’s unsolicited $3.6 billion bid to buy the airline and start talks with its new suitor. Spirit had already struck a $2.9 billion merger agreement with Frontier Group Holdings Inc., another budget airline, when JetBlue swooped in with a competing offer. Spirit said its board has determined that JetBlue’s offer “could reasonably be likely to lead to a ‘superior proposal’”—something that allows it to enter into talks with JetBlue under the terms of its merger agreement. “We are pleased the Spirit Board recognizes the compelling value for all stakeholders that JetBlue has offered,” JetBlue Chief Executive Robin Hayes said in a statement Thursday night. Starbucks Corp. said it is bringing aboard a new senior executive specialized in worker relations as more baristas at the coffee chain’s cafes this week voted to unionize. Six New York state cafes voted Thursday and Friday to join Starbucks Workers United, the union formed to help the first Buffalo, N.Y.-area locations unionize in late 2021. Additional tallies are slated for next week for Starbucks cafes in Massachusetts, Oregon and Virginia.

Stock markets in East Asia post losses on Monday, adding up to over 2 per cent in Hong Kong. In Japan, the Nikkei is down 0.9 per cent to 26,744 points. The Chinese stock exchanges in Shanghai (-1.7%) and Hong Kong (-2.4%) suffer more significant losses. The Kospi in South Korea, on the other hand, holds up quite well with a minus of 0.5 per cent. Things look even better in Sydney, where the Australian ASX is just about holding its ground.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to from 2.776% on Friday. Treasury yields carved out another round of three-year highs on Friday, with the 2-year rate posting its biggest five-week gain in more than a decade, as investors continued to assess the Federal Reserve's likely policy path.

UBS raises Novartis target to CHF 85 (84) – Neutral

CS lowers H&M target to SEK 125 (140) – Underperform

UBS raises Sartorius to Neutral (Sell)/ Target EUR 400

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