Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Threads parent Meta Platforms, said the new microblogging platform hit 100 million sign-ups less than a week after launching. At least two third-party estimates suggest Twitter traffic has been falling in tandem, an indication that its users may be leaving it for Threads rather than attempting to juggle both. Twitter said it had roughly 535 million monetizable monthly active users in June, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. The two products look and function in similar ways. Both focus on sharing short snippets of text but also allow users to post photos and videos. One distinction is that joining Threads requires having an account with Meta’s Instagram, which has more than 2 billion monthly users. That has made signing up easy and fast, though deleting a Threads account means also having to delete one’s Instagram account. In the first two days that Threads was fully available, traffic to Twitter’s website was down 5% compared with the same two days of the previous week, according to SimilarWeb, which tracks online activity. Year over year, such traffic was down 11%, the firm said.

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The Swiss stock market opened slightly lower Monday morning, but swiftly moved into positive territory and stayed firm right through the day's session to eventually close on a firm note. The benchmark SMI ended with a gain of 47.11 points or 0.43% at 10,922.01. The index, which dropped to 10,859.43 at the start, climbed to a high of 10,952.15 later in the day. Holcim gained about 1.4%, Alcon climbed 1.25% and Novartis ended 1.02% up. Nestle, Lonza Group and Sika gained about 0.9%, 0.7% and 0.55%, respectively. Swisscom ended 1.1% down. Sonova, Logitech, Swiss Life Holding and Kuehne & Nagel posted modest losses. Among the stocks in the Swiss Mid Price Index, Straumann Holding, AMS, Bachem Holding, Dufry and Adecco gained 1 to 1.25%. Julius Baer, VAT Group, Galenica Sante, Ems Chemie Holding and Temenos Group also ended notably higher. Schindler Ps and Schindler Holding lost 2.3% and 2.16%, respectively. DocMorris ended 1.45% down and Swatch Group declined 1.02%.

European stocks closed higher on Monday, led by gains in energy sector. Investors shrugged off data showing a drop in eurozone investors sentiment, and picked up stocks amid hopes the Chinese government will announce more stimulus to boost the economy. Investors continued to assess the outlook for monetary policies of global central banks, and looked to quarterly earnings updates. The pan European Stoxx 600 gained 0.18%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 advanced 0.23%, Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 both climbed 0.45%, and Switzerland's SMI ended 0.43% up. Among other markets in Europe, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia and Turkiye closed higher. Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden ended weak, while Spain settled flat. Survey results from the behavioural research institute Sentix showed Eurozone investor sentiment declined for the third straight month to hit an eight-month low in July, suggesting that the region remained in a recessionary mode and the situation is more severe than the usual summer lull. The Sentix economic index posted -22.5 in July, which was the lowest since November 2022, when euro area was facing acute energy crisis. The reading was forecast to fall to -17.9 from -17.0 in June. Both the current situation and expectation measures of the survey reached the lowest since November 2022. The current situation index declined to -20.5 in July from -15.8 in the previous month. The expectations index registered -24.5, down from -18.3 in June. In the UK market, Flutter Entertainment rallied 3.2%.

A potentially busy week for markets got off to a quiet start Monday, with stock indexes edging higher despite an off-day for shares of big technology companies. Bouncing back from declines last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.6%, or about 210 points. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both ticked up 0.2%. A major engine of this year's stock rally, shares of Microsoft, Apple and Alphabet all lost at least 1.1% Monday, with Alphabet leading the way with a 2.5% decline. Meanwhile, financials, energy and industrials were among the better performing sectors. Investors and analysts largely shrugged off the poor day for tech stocks, saying some volatility was to be expected ahead of a key inflation report Wednesday and the start of earnings season later in the week. U.S. markets, though, were largely unaffected, as investors remained more worried about inflation at home than deflation elsewhere. For two months, legendary activist investor Carl Icahn has been on the defensive after a short-seller attack sent shares in his investment company down roughly 40%, raising alarms at a handful of major banks that had lent him money as the value of their collateral fell. Now, after months of negotiating with his lenders, the 87-year-old billionaire is aiming to put the episode behind him and limit potential fallout from future attacks. Silicon Valley Bank’s former parent company, SVB Financial, is suing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., seeking the return of about $2 billion that SVB Financial had deposited at the bank and that the regulator seized after its collapse.

Stock exchanges in East Asia and Australia are moving upwards in the course of trading on Tuesday. The focus is on Beijing's measures to support the economy. The Shanghai Stock Exchange index is up 0.5 per cent, while Hong Kong is up 1.5 per cent. Beijing has said it will extend the repayment period of existing loans to insolvent developers to ensure the timely completion of homes under construction. Participants expect the country to take further steps to strengthen the domestic economy.

On Monday, the U.S. yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note settled at 4.006%, down from 4.047% Friday

Citi lowers Julius Baer target to CHF 71 (72) – Buy

SocGen raises Hugo Boss to 78 (75) EUR/Hold – Trader

JP Morgan lowers Bayer target to EUR 55 (60)/Neutral – Trader

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