Fixed income

Apple is poised to be the first company to reach a $1 trillion market cap, RBC Capital analysts said Wednesday. Apple shares have been on a tear, with the stock gaining $56 billion in market capitalization a week after it reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings expectations.

Amit Daryanani at RBC Capital Markets says Apple’s share price would have to rise from its current level to about $192 to $195, depending on the rate of the company’s stock buybacks, to reach the $1 trillion value. With Apple trading at 16 times its estimated next year’s per share profits, profits would need to increase from an estimated $9 or so in 2017 to $12 in 2019, Daryanani calculates.

RBS reported a half-year profit for the first time in three years as the largely taxpayer-owned bank revealed plans to use Amsterdam as its EU hub post-Brexit.

The bailed-out lender made £939m in the first half of 2017, up from a £2bn loss a year ago. Despite the results, chief executive Ross McEwan warned that a full-year loss was likely. The bank has not made a full-year profit since it was rescued by the Government in 2008.

Booster Fuels, which operates a mobile gas station that functions via smartphone, on Tuesday announced a $20 million round from existing investors like Conversion Capital, which led the round, along with Maveron, Madrona Venture Group, Version One, Perot Jain LP, and RRE Ventures. New investors include Stanford’s StartX Fund, BADR Investments, and U.S. Venture Inc. Total funding to date is now $32 million.

Globally, the number of women working at Facebook has risen to 35 percent, up from 33 percent in 2016 while their number in the technical department has risen by two per cent in the past year to 19 percent, the company said.

According to a Facebook blog post on Wednesday, women now make up 27 percent of all new graduate hires in engineering and 21 percent of all new technical hires at Facebook.

Unicredit, Italy’s largest bank by assets, posted a stronger-than-expected net profit in the second quarter of the year thanks to lower costs and a drop in loan-loss charges.
Net profit came in at 945 million euros, well above a consensus forecast of 676 million euros distributed by the bank and also helped by a positive one-off item in Germany. Revenues for the second quarter fell 7.8 percent year-on-year to 4.85 billion euros. Net Interest Income (NII) totaled €2.7 billion.

Apple announced on Tuesday financial results for the third fiscal quarter of 2017, which corresponds to the second calendar quarter of the year. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $45.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $8.7 billion, or $1.67 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $42.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $7.8 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

The Council of the EU has received bids from 23 cities to host the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Agency, which will be relocated after Brexit.

In total eight offers have been made to host the EBA, which regulates the European banking sector, assessing risks and vulnerabilities by carrying out EU-wide stress tests. Some 19 cities are bidding to host the EMA, which is responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines in the EU and maintains the single market for medicines in the EU.

Freedom of movement for millions of British and EU citizens will end in 2019 when Brexit takes effect, the U.K. government insisted on Monday. The statement appeared to rule out transitional post-Brexit arrangements recently raised by a senior British minister.

“There were reports last week that we were looking for an off-the-shelf model; we are not looking for an off-the-shelf model. Precisely what the implementation model will look like is up for negotiation,” a government spokesperson said, adding more confusion to Brexit affairs.