Asia markets UBS and Credit Suisse; China, home loan rates

The People’s Bank of China left the main interest rates for the 1-year and 5-year loan unchanged, after lowering the required reserve ratio for Almost all banks rose 0.25 percentage points last week.

The 1-year LPR remained at 3.65% while the 5-year LPR remained at 4.3%, both unchanged since August last year.

The offshore Chinese yuan rose 0.14% to trade at 6.8795, while the onshore Chinese yuan stabilized, trading at 6.885 against the US dollar.

– Lim Hwi Ji

The technology sector was a bright spot last week as the banking crisis rocked the markets.

But is it time to buy on the rise? Market professionals urge caution — but they think some stocks will outperform.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

– Wizen tan

The US Federal Reserve along with five other central banks have them jointly announced To increase the frequency of USD swap line arrangements from weekly to daily.

The five central banks are the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank.

The frequency of operations with a maturity of 7 days will increase from weekly to daily, starting March 20 and continuing until “at least” the end of April.

In doing so, the monetary authorities said the move “will serve as an important liquidity pillar to ease pressures in global financing markets, and thus help mitigate the effects of such pressures on the provision of credit to households and businesses.”

The move comes ahead of the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting this week and announcing its interest rate intentions.

– Lim Hwi Ji, Jeff Cox

The opportunity in global electric vehicles is enormous, with the European market alone set to be worth $300 billion by 2030, Bernstein estimates.

While electric automakers may be an obvious gamer, Wall Street analysts have named a slew of stock picks across a range of sectors as a way to capitalize on them.

Professional subscribers can read more here.

– Xavier Ong

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced a deal to sell “substantially all deposits and certain loan portfolios” from Signature Bank to Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp.

The agency said the 40 former Signature subsidiaries will begin operating under the Flagstar name on Monday.

The agreement involves $38.4 billion in Signature assets, including $12.9 billion in loans that the FDIC said was purchased at a discount of $2.7 billion.

It said, however, that Flagstar’s bid did not include the $4 billion in deposits related to Signature’s digital banking business. The agency said it will provide these deposits directly to digital banking customers. The FDIC also said about $60 billion in loans would remain in custody.

– Christine Wang

UBS has finalized an agreement to buy rival Credit Suisse for $3.2 billion. Swiss regulators played a key role in facilitating the deal in an effort to quell a contagion threatening the banking sector.

Credit Suisse witnessed a decline in its shares last week after the largest investor, the Saudi National Bank, refused to provide additional financing. Despite subsequent actions from Credit Suisse and Swiss regulators to assuage investor fears – Including a loan of up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($54 billion) – Shares fell 25.5% by the end of the week.

Under the deal, Credit Suisse shareholders will receive 1 UBS share for every 22.48 Credit Suisse shares held. According to UBS, the joint bank will have $5 trillion in invested assets.

– Hakyung Kim

The Fed’s decision on whether or not to raise interest rates by 25 basis points at next week’s policy meeting may depend on what happens in the coming days, said Nick Timeraus, chief economics correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

The Fed is expected to agree to raise interest rates by a quarter point, or 25 basis points, at its meeting next week. But market watchers say the central bank’s next decision on interest rates has become less certain over the past week amid the banking crisis.

“I hear the same thing that other people are hearing, that there is a case to be made for turning 25, and there is a case to be made for skipping,” he said on CNBC’s “The Exchange.” “I think it really depends… on what happens with the state of the markets and this risk of financial instability over the next few days.”

– Alex Haring

First Republic Bank slipped in the afternoon trading session, dropping more than 30% as investors positioned themselves for the final hour of trading this week. Friday’s drop sent the stock down more than 70% from where it began the week.

The decline also affected the SPDR S&P Regional Banking Index ETF (KRE), which fell 6% on Friday and is poised for a weekly loss of more than 14%.