Early Morning Call: Hang Seng drops on Covid concerns, Europe indices open lower

Equity markets overview

Equity markets opened lower this morning, following the path set by Asia-Pacific indices.

China kept its benchmark lending rates unchanged for the third straight month. As expected, the one-year loan prime rate (LPR) remained at 3.65%, while the five-year LPR was unchanged at 4.30%.

In Germany, producer price index (PPI) unexpectedly fell in October, by 4.2% yeawr-on-year (YoY). Economists anticipated a 0.9% rise.

Elsewhere on the equity market, CompassCompass this morning posted an 88% increase in adjusted operating profit to £1.59 billion, beating company-compiled analysts' estimates of £1.54bn. Adjusted operating margin came in at 6.2%, also higher than the company-compiled consensus of 6.1%.

The world's largest catering group forecast profit growth to be more than 20% in 2023 and margins to be above 6.5%.

In the US we learned overnight the surprise reappointment of Bob Iger as Disney CEO. He will replace Bob Chapek, who struggled to turn Disney's streaming TV services into a profitable business.

Bob Iger, who retired last year after 15 years as chief executive, has agreed to serve as CEO for two more years. Chair of Disney's board, Susan Arnold, said it her statement, "The Board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the company through this pivotal period."

Tesla is recalling more than 300,000 vehicles in the US because of potential problems with their rear lights. Meanwhile, analysts say Tesla could undertake its first-ever share buyback within the next year, however this is dependent on the outcome of the pending lawsuit against Musk and Tesla over his near $56bn pay package.

Dell is scheduled to post earnings of $1.61 per share tonight after the US closing bell. That would be around a 30% decline on the same quarter a year ago. Revenue is forecast to decline by about 14% to $24.42bn.

Dell is expected to have benefited from strong growth in servers and networking revenues. But Client Solutions Group revenues are forecast to have suffered from a declining PC demand.

Zoom Video Communications is set to report a drop in earnings for the third quarter (Q3). Analysts expect earnings of 83 cents per share. A year ago, the group posted EPS of $1.11. Revenue is anticipated at $1.09bn, broadly unchanged on last year.

The video conferencing provider became a household name nearly three years ago when the Covid 19-pandemic stranded hundreds of millions of people around the world. But now the pandemic is behind us, Zoom has focussed on its $100,000+ customers as they are a relatively reliable source of steady revenue. Last year their number reached just over 2,500. Estimates for this quarter is 3,347.