Elon Musk sold roughly $8.5 billion worth of Tesla Inc. stock in the three days after agreeing to buy Twitter Inc. for $44 billion, according to regulatory filings. The Tesla chief executive reported selling a total of more than 9.6 million shares on Tuesday through Thursday, at prices between around $820 and $1,000 a share, the filings show. That left him with around 163 million shares in the electric-vehicle maker, regulatory filings show, or nearly 16% of the company. Mr. Musk is Tesla’s largest shareholder and owned around 17% of the company before this week’s sales, according to FactSet. Mr. Musk tweeted Thursday: “No further TSLA sales planned after today.” The Tesla boss was for many years reluctant to part with Tesla stock, but he is on the hook to come up with $21 billion in cash to finance the Twitter deal. That funding plan also includes borrowing $12.5 billion from loans backed by more than $62.5 billion worth of Tesla shares that he owns.

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The Swiss stock market rose for the third day in a row on Friday. Good quarterly reports from Switzerland and abroad are currently pushing the uncertainty factors into the background. The SMI gained 0.5 per cent to 12,129 points. Among the 20 SMI stocks, there were 15 price gainers and five price losers. 34.79 (previously: 38.27) million shares were traded. Credit Suisse (+5.6%) recovered strongly from its recent losses; the bank held its virtual general meeting on Friday. The board of directors and management were discharged for 2021, but not for 2020, when the bank was rocked by scandals. The share has halved since the 2021 high. But UBS (+0.8%) was also sought after as market rates rose. Technology stocks ran up in the wake of the US tech exchange Nasdaq. Logitech gained 2.9 per cent and AMS-Osram 2.8 per cent.

European indices closed higher on Friday, while Wall Street lost ground, as investors analysed this week's growth and inflation figures from both sides of the Atlantic. The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.7% to 450.4 points. In Paris, the CAC 40 and the SBF 120 each gained 0.4%. In London, the FTSE 100 gained 0.5% while in Frankfurt the DAX 40 gained 0.8%. German authorities searched Deutsche Bank AG’s headquarters in Frankfurt on Friday, a move the bank said was related to suspicious activity reports it filed to an anti-money-laundering agency. Agents from Frankfurt’s prosecutor’s office, German financial regulator BaFin and the federal police showed up at Deutsche Bank with a search warrant issued by the Frankfurt local court, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. It said it couldn’t provide further information. A spokesman for Deutsche Bank said the bank is fully cooperating with authorities. Henkel AG shares dived Friday after it said it expects a lower earnings margin this year, as raw-material prices surge on the war in Ukraine. The German consumer-goods company now expects an adjusted earnings before interest and taxes margin of 9%-11%, from 11.5%-13.5% previously. Full-year adjusted earnings per share is now expected to decline 15%-35%, from between a positive rise of 5% and a decline of 15% previously, Henkel said.

Stocks sank on the last day of April, with the Dow dropping almost 1,000 points – and the S&P 500 capping off its worst four-month start to a year in more than half a century. The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday fell 939 points, or 2.8%, after climbing 614 points on Thursday. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.6% and 4.2%, respectively, after they each rallied more than 2.5% on Thursday. The S&P 500 has fallen 13.3% so far this year, for its worst January to April performance since 1939, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The Nasdaq is now trading in a bear market, down more than 20% from the all-time high of 16,057, hit on Nov. 19. The tech-heavy index had its worst first four-month start to a year on record. As for why the Nasdaq was so much worse off than the other two indexes: Amazon (ticker: AMZN) and Apple (AAPL) were both down significantly after earnings. As of Thursday's close, the two companies had a combined market capitalization of $4.14 trillion, about 20% of the Nasdaq's aggregate market cap. Amazon's profit missed estimates by nearly one dollar a share because of higher labor and shipping costs in the quarter. The company also gave weak sales guidance for the current quarter. The stock dropped 14.1% on Friday. Apple's profit and sales of $97.3 billion exceeded estimates, but the company said supply constraints in China resulting from the country's Covid-related lockdown could reduce.

The stock markets in East Asia and Australia show at the beginning of the week in negative territory. Sentiment is determined by the ongoing corona lockdowns in China and concerns about the economic development in the world's second largest economy.

The US bond markets appeared relatively calm on Friday. The 2-year Treasury yield, which reflects market expectations for the benchmark lending rate a couple of years from the present, was up a touch to 2.72% from around 2.7% before the PCE report came.

CS raises Barclays target to 240 (205) p – Outperform

UBS raises Totalenergies target to EUR 59 (57) – Buy

BoA raises Saint-Gobain target to EUR 80 (78) – Buy

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