Disney posted its first-ever streaming profit and benefited from a strong movie lineup, offsetting weaker-than-expected theme-park results at the entertainment company. Disney’s streaming unit, which includes flagship platform Disney+, general entertainment service Hulu and the sports-focused ESPN+, became profitable one quarter ahead of schedule, producing operating income of $47 million on $6.38 billion in revenue, the company said. “We’ve made great progress,” Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston said on a conference call with analysts. “We were losing $1 billion a quarter not that long ago.” The company’s Experiences unit - which includes Disney’s six global theme-park resorts, a cruise line, consumer products sales, videogame licensing and other businesses - saw revenue increase slightly to $8.39 billion. But operating income fell 3.3% to $2.22 billion despite steady parks attendance numbers and per-visitor spending, largely owing to increased costs and soft consumer demand toward the end of the quarter.

The Switzerland market ended on an upbeat note on Wednesday as investors tracked positive cues from global markets and kept picking up stocks right through the day's session. The benchmark SMI ended with an impressive gain of 332.72 points or 2.89% at 11,843.18. The index touched a low of 11,587.56 and a high of 11,865.57 in the session. SIG Group climbed 4.2%. VAT Group, UBS Group, Novartis, Holcim, Sika, Partners Group, Alcon, SGS, Sonova, Sandoz Group, ABB and Kuehne + Nagel gained 3 to 4%. Roche GS, Lindt & Spruengli, Zurich Insurance Group, Lonza Group, Logitech International, Swiss Life Holding, Swiss Re, Julius Baer and Richemont gained 2.4 to 2.9%. Roche Holding gained 2.2%. The company is considering divesting cancer data specialist Flatiron Health, the Financial Times reported. Schindler Ps, Straumann Holding, Nestle and Swatch Group also ended sharply higher.

European stocks moved higher on Wednesday as global markets extended gains from the previous session with investors shrugging off fears of recession and focusing on earnings and reacting to the latest batch of economic data. The pan European Stoxx 600 gained 1.54%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 surged 1.75%, Germany's DAX climbed 1.5% and France's CAC ended 1.91% up, while Switzerland's SMI jumped 2.89%. Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Turkiye ended sharply higher. Iceland closed modestly up. Denmark declined sharply, while Poland ended flat. In the UK market, Vodafone Group gained nearly 4% after commencing its EUR 500 million shares buyback program. Entain, Pershing Square Holdings, Natwest Group, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and Ashtead gained 3 to 4%. Glencore gained more than 2.5%. The miner said it will not spin off its coal business after securing backing from most of its investors. In the German market, Continental rallied nearly 7%. Shares of the car parts maker surged after the company announced solid second-quarter results.

After extending yesterday's rebound early in the session, stocks gave background over the course of the trading day on Wednesday. The major averages pulled back well off their early highs and into negative territory. The major averages ended the day just off their lows of the session. The Nasdaq slumped 171.05 points or 1.1 percent to 16,195.81, the S&P 500 slid 40.53 points or 0.8 percent to 5,199.50 and the Dow fell 234.21 points or 0.6 percent to 38,763.45. Stocks initially continued to benefit from bargain hunting, as traders picked up stocks at relatively reduced levels following the recent sell-off. Buying interest waned shortly after the start of trading, however, as concerns about the outlook for the U.S. economy continued to hang over the markets. Among individual stocks, shares of Super Micro Computer plunged by 20.1 percent after the technology company reported weaker than expected fiscal fourth quarter earnings. Meanwhile, grocery delivery company Instacart surged after reporting second quarter results that exceeded analyst estimates on both the top and bottom lines. Substantial weakness also emerged among semiconductor stocks, as reflected by the 3.1 percent slump by the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Computer hardware stocks also showed a considerable move to the downside on the day, with the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index tumbling by 2.8 percent. Housing, airline and pharmaceutical stocks also showed notable moves to the downside, while significant strength remained visible among telecom stocks.

The mood on the Asian markets continues to be characterized by heightened nervousness following the extremely volatile previous days. After very weak trends at the start, most indices have recovered significantly from their lows. In Tokyo, Sony gained just under 1 percent after raising its profit forecast.

In the U.S. bond market, treasuries moved notably lower, extending the pullback seen in the previous session. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, jumped 8.0 basis points to 3.968 percent.

UBS lowers the HSBC target to 658 (680) p – Neutral
Citi lowers Siemens Energy to EUR 29 (29.50) – Neutral
JP Morgen increases the MTU target to 325 (300) EUR – Overweight

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