The global banking crisis took an historical turn this morning with investment bank, UBS, agreeing to buy Credit Suisse Group in a deal worth $4.5 billion to restore investor confidence in the global banking sector. The crisis worsened on Friday after a fourth bank, the First Republic bank, received a US$30 billion lifeline from a group of big banks including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, after customers began withdrawing their deposits from First Republic bank amid the collapse of SVB. Shares in First Republic Bank tumbled 33% on Friday to close the week down 72%. On Friday, the Dow Jones closed 1.2% lower, the S&P500 fell 1.1% and the Nasdaq closed down 0.74%. For the week though the Nasdaq rose 4.41% as investors bet on technology and growth stocks ahead of the FOMC meeting this week.

Over in Europe, markets closed lower on Friday as investors digest the fallout from Credit Suisse accepting financial help to stabilise the banking system. Germany’s DAX fell 1.33% on Friday while the French CAC lost 1.43% and in the UK the FTSE100 shed just over 1%.

In Australia, markets closed 0.42% higher on Friday but 2.1% down for the week as the local index was caught up in the global banking crisis driven sell-off. 

What to watch today:

• In commodities, oil Is trading 2.36% lower at US$66.74/barrel, gold is up almost 3.6% at US$1988.08 and iron ore is flat at US$132/tonne.
• The Aussie dollar has slightly strengthened to buy US$0.67, 88.53 Japanese Yen, 54.89 British Pence and NZ$1.07.
• Ahead of the local trading session the SPI futures are anticipating the ASX to open 1.4% lower as investor sentiment continues to ride on the unfolding global banking crisis.
• Stocks trading ex-dividend today include HUB24 (ASX:HUB), Adairs (ASX:ADH), and Duratec (ASX:DUR). If you’ve been thinking about these stocks it might be worth considering buying in today as stocks trading ex-dividend generally trade lower on the ex-dividend date.

Trading Ideas: 

• Bell Potter has downgraded its price target on Synlait Milk (ASX:SM1) from $4 to $3.20 but maintain a buy rating on the company. The downgrade in price target comes after the company downwardly revised FY23 NPAT expectations relative to market expectations ahead of its 1H23 result. NPAT guidance has been downwardly projected to now be $15-$25m NZ dollars, which is much lower than Bell Potter’s expectations of a forecasted NZ$35.8m and consensus expectations of NZ$50m. Major drivers of the change in NPAT forecast from the company have been attributed to order deferrals from major IMF customers, inflationary cost pressures, lower milk production and higher working capital costs.
• Trading Central has identified a bearish signal on Ansell (ASX:ANN), following the formation of a pattern over a period of 40-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may fall from the close of $26.14 to the range of $20.90 to $21.80 according to standard principles of technical analysis.