AstraZeneca is buying Fusion Pharmaceuticals for up to $2.4 billion as part of a plan to accelerate the development of next-generation cancer treatments, and marking the latest in an acquisition spree by the company. The deal follows a number of other recent billion-figure takeovers from AstraZeneca and comes at a time of intense merger-and-acquisition activity in the pharmaceutical industry, which has seen big companies snapping up smaller biotechnology businesses. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical heavyweight said Tuesday that it will pay an initial $21 a share for Fusion, with an extra $3 nontransferable contingent value right upon a specified regulatory milestone being reached. The initial price is a 97% premium to Fusion’s closing market price of $10.64 on Monday. Fusion had cash, cash equivalents and short term investments of $234 million as of Dec. 31. The deal for Fusion, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation radio conjugates delivering a radioactive isotope directly to cancer cells, is expected to close in the second quarter of this year. It is subject to customary closing conditions, including the approval of Fusion shareholders and regulatory clearances.

Despite a fairly positive mood across Europe, the Switzerland market ended weak on Tuesday, as investors remained a bit reluctant to pick up stocks ahead of policy decisions by the Federal Reserve and the Swiss National Bank. The benchmark SMI ended down by 45.83 points or 0.39% at 11,577.80. The index touched a low of 11,536.27 and a high of 11,613.72 intraday. On the economic front, data from the Federal Customs Administration showed Switzerland's foreign trade surplus dropped to CHF 2.2 billion in February, from CHF 2.7 billion a month earlier, as imports rose faster than exports. In real terms, exports rose 0.2% over the month, reversing a 0.5% decline in January. Imports also rebounded 3.8% after falling 3.9% in the prior month. Shipments of food products grew 3% over the month, while those of jewellery items showed a sharp decline of 13.5%. In nominal terms, both exports and imports increased by 0.1% and 2.9%, respectively. According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, watch exports decreased 3.8% year-on-year in February. Partners Group ended down 3.1%. Richemont and UBS Group closed lower by 1.55% and 1.32%, respectively. Nestle, ABB and Kuehne & Nagel lost 0.8 to 1%. Logitech International climbed 1.61%. Swiss Re gained about 1.25%, while Lonza Group, Swiss Life Holding, Geberit, Holcim and Sonova gained 0.6 to 1%.

European stocks closed higher on Tuesday, with investors digesting some regional economic data and earnings news, in addition to assessing the monetary policy decisions from the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of Japan, ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy announcement. The Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged. The central bank's accompanying statement and economic projections could have a significant impact on the outlook for rates.Recent hotter-than-expected inflation readings have reduced optimism about the likelihood of the Fed's first rate cut coming in June. The Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank are also scheduled to announce their interest rate decisions this week. Expectations of a rate cut by the European Central Bank in June aided sentiment a bit. The pan European Stoxx 600 gained 0.26%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 advanced 0.2%, Germany's DAX climbed 0.31% and France's CAC 40 ended 0.65% up. In the UK market, Unilever gained more than 3%. The consumer goods major announced plans to separate Ice Cream division, and to launch a major productivity program to drive faster growth and higher margin.

After coming under pressure early in the session, stocks showed a significant turnaround over the course of the trading day on Tuesday. The major averages climbed well off their worst levels of the day and into positive territory. The major averages reached new highs for the session going into the close of trading. The Dow advanced 320.33 points or 0.8 percent to 39,110.76, the S&P 500 climbed 29.09 points or 0.6 percent to 5,178.51 and the Nasdaq rose 63.34 points or 0.4 percent to 16,166.79. The turnaround on Wall Street partly reflected a rebound by Nvidia (NVDA), as the AI darling's performance has recently been a key driver of activity on Wall Street. After tumbling as much as 3.9 percent early in the session, shares of Nvidia are currently jump by 1.1 percent on the day. The recovery by Nvidia came after traders digested news out of the chipmaker's first-ever GTC Conference on Monday, when the company unveiled its latest line of AI chips, called Blackwell. Meanwhile, traders also continued to look ahead to the Federal Reserve's highly anticipated monetary policy announcement on Wednesday. On the U.S. economic front, a report released by the Commerce Department showed a substantial rebound in new residential construction in the U.S. in the month of February. The Commerce Department said housing starts spiked by 10.7 percent to an annual rate of 1.521 million in February after plunging by 12.3 percent to a revised rate of 1.374 million in January. Oil service stocks moved significantly higher over the course of the session, driving the Philadelphia Oil Service Index up by 2.2 percent to its best intraday level in well over four months. The rally by oil service stocks came amid an increase by the price of crude oil, with crude for April delivery climbing $0.75 to $83.47 barrel.

After Japan and Australia, the week of the central banks enters another round on Wednesday and continues to keep the stock markets in East Asia and Australia on tenterhooks. However, there is not much movement in late trading there, and nothing at all in Japan due to a public holiday. Following the Japanese central bank's interest rate decision, the yen remains on a downward trend.

In the US bond market, treasuries regained ground after trending lower over the past several sessions. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, fell by 4.3 basis points to 4.297 percent.

UBS raises the GSK target to 2,040 (1,860) GBp – Buy
Deutsche Bank raises the Givaudan target to CHF 4,000 (3,800) – Hold
HSBC raises the Inditex target to EUR 51 (44) – Buy

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