US markets are closed on Monday for Presidents’ Day, making it a quieter start to the week, with fewer earnings releases on the agenda.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD<\/a>) was in focus on Monday morning, after Bloomberg reported<\/a> that the company is considering reopening sales negotiations with rival Paramount Skydance (PSKY<\/a>).<\/p>\n Read more: Markets higher ahead of UK jobs and inflation data<\/a><\/p>\n Members of Warner Bros’ board are looking at whether Paramount (PSKY<\/a>) could offer a path to a superior deal, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the matter. However, the board has reportedly not yet decided how to respond, with Warner Bros still in an acquisition agreement with Netflix (NFLX<\/a>).<\/p>\n Warner Bros had not responded to Yahoo Finance UK’s<\/a> request for comment at the time of writing. Shares in Warner Bros were little changed in extended trading on Monday morning, with Paramount and Netflix also hovering just above the flatline.<\/p>\n In Asia, Chinese tech stocks were in the spotlight on Monday, after it was reported that the Pentagon had briefly added some key names to a list of companies it claimed to be aiding the military.<\/p>\n Bloomberg reported on Monday that Alibaba (9988.HK<\/a>, BABA<\/a>), BYD (1211.HK<\/a>) and Baidu (9888.HK<\/a>) had appeared on the updated Pentagon list<\/a> on the US Federal Register. However, it was later declared “unpublished”.<\/p>\n Read more: Gold prices dip as investors book profits<\/a><\/p>\n Hong Kong-listed shares in Alibaba closed the session on Monday down 0.5%, while BYD hovered around the flatline and Baidu recovered in the session, to close 1.3% in the green. Alibaba, BYD and Baidu had not responded to Yahoo Finance UK’s<\/a> request for comment at the time of writing.<\/p>\n In the UK, NatWest (NWG.L<\/a>) was the biggest gainer on the FTSE 100 (^FTSE<\/a>), with shares up 3.7% at the time of writing.<\/p>\n The bank posted a 24% jump in annual operating profit, in results<\/a> released on Friday. Operating profit before tax for the year came in at \u00a37.71bn, topping expectations of \u00a37.49bn, according to consensus estimates provided by the bank. For the fourth quarter, this figure was \u00a31.94bn, also besting forecasts of \u00a31.72bn.<\/p>\n Read more: Stocks that are trending today<\/a><\/p>\n On the back of the results, Interactive Investor head of markets Richard Hunter said they were “a sparkling set of numbers by any standards, as NatWest (NWG.L<\/a>) continues the relentless recovery from its historic woes.”<\/p>\n “As far as investors are concerned, NatWest is in a sweet spot,” he said. “The government shackles have gone, the group has prodigious amounts of cash and acquisitions to boost growth further are playing out.”<\/p>\n At the start of last week, it was announced that NatWest (NWG.L<\/a>) had agreed to buy wealth manager Evelyn Partners<\/a> for \u00a32.7bn.<\/p>\n In the insurance sector, it was announced on Monday that Swiss giant Zurich (ZURN.SW<\/a>) had been granted more time to decide whether it will make a formal offer to take over rival Beazley (BEZ.L<\/a>).<\/p>\n The firms said on Monday that Zurich now had until no later than 5pm on 4 March to announce a firm intention to make an offer to buy FTSE 100-listed Beazley (BEZ.L<\/a>).<\/p>\n Shares in Zurich (ZURN.SW<\/a>) rose 1.4% on Monday morning, while Beazley (BEZ.L<\/a>) stock hovered just below the flatline at the time of writing.<\/p>\n Read more: Stocks to watch this week: Walmart, Analog Devices, BAE Systems and Rio Tinto<\/a><\/p>\n Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell (AJB.L<\/a>), said: “Beazley has been courted by Zurich for some time, and while it finally looked as if they were ready to get hitched, there still isn\u2019t an official bid. So far, they\u2019ve only agreed in principle on the terms of a takeover deal.”<\/p>\n “So-called \u2018put up or shut up\u2019 extensions are common, so the extra time isn\u2019t necessarily a sign that Zurich is having second thoughts,” he said. “It\u2019s more likely the bidder is being thorough in its due diligence than anything else.”<\/p>\n Swiss – Delayed Quote \u2022 USD <\/p>\n 560.60 +8.60 (+1.56%) <\/p>\n As of 12:10:51 CET. Market open. <\/p>\n Read more:<\/p>\n Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple<\/a> and Android<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US markets are closed on Monday for Presidents’ Day, making it a quieter start to the week, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[7070,7071,1186,7072,7068,7069,219],"class_list":{"0":"post-8846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-zurich-insurance","8":"tag-alibaba","9":"tag-monday-morning","10":"tag-natwest","11":"tag-psky","12":"tag-warner-bros","13":"tag-warner-bros-discovery","14":"tag-zurich-insurance"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}