Earnings season. AXA, Schneider Electric, Lloyds Banking Group, Telefonica, Swiss Re, Fresenius, BAE Systems, UCB, Bouygues and Teleperformance are among companies reporting their earnings today.

$13 billion purchase. Morgan Stanley has announced the acquisition of online broker E Trade Financial for $13 billion, the largest acquisition by a Wall Street-listed bank since the financial crisis.

ViacomCBS posted lower-than-expected earnings and revenues as it published its first results since the merger of the two US television and media groups.

New head at Reuters. Thomson Reuters said it should announce next week the departure of its CEO Jim Smith and his replacement by the former president of the American investment fund Nielsen Holdings, Steve Hasker.

Airbus D&S to the rescue. Airbus will cut more than 2,300 jobs in its Defense and Space branch due to "the sluggishness of the space market and the postponement of several defense contracts". This project was long awaited. 404 jobs will be affected in France, but Germany will pay the heaviest price, with 829 job losses. Possible financial implications could be communicated by the industry at a later stage.

HNA, one down. China could nationalize the over-indebted conglomerate HNA to avoid its bankruptcy because of the coronavirus. Analysts have long been predicting the downfall of the group, which has always had eyes bigger than bellies. Bloomberg says the Chinese authorities will "nationalize" the holding company and its subsidiaries to save it. HNA is present in several fields, in particular finance and real estate but also air transport and logistics, two sectors particularly affected by the consequences of the virus.

Passing of power. Sergio Ermotti's successor at the helm of UBS Group will be Ralph Hamers, the current head of ING Groep. He will not return to his new position until November 1, 2020. Hamers' track record at the head of ING is good, particularly in terms of the stock market: +20% for the share in recent years, when the STOXX Europe 600 of the banks lost 20%.

Already 19.5% capital gain. Tesla obtains 2.3 billion dollars thanks to its capital increase. The price of the operation had been set at USD 767 per share. The subscribers did not make a bad deal, since the stock has not stopped rising since then, to go up to USD 917 last night.

Victoria's Secret in private. L Brands will give up control of the Victoria's Secret lingerie brand to a private equity fund on the basis of a $1.1 billion valuation, Reuters learned from a good source. This confirms a Wall Street Journal report, which had revealed that the fund Sycamore Partners could take a 55% stake in the brand's capital.

In other news. Virgin Galactic becomes a must-have on the American stock exchange, after having gained 400% since December and buried a few short sellers. Diageo reaches a $5 million compromise with the SEC in an accounting smoothing deal. Lenovo's quarterly results exceed expectations. The Finma slaps Julius Bär's fingers when he mentions serious shortcomings in the fight against money laundering.