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Crypto bank Silvergate collapses; HS2 delayed; US jobless claims jump – as it happened


Introduction: Crypto bank Silvergate to shut down in face of market turmoil

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

The turmoil in the crypto sector following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX has claimed crypto-focused bank Silvergate.

Silvergate Capital Corp announced last night that it plans to wind down Silvergate Bank‘s operations and voluntarily liquidate it in an orderly fashion, after incurring losses following the dramatic collapse of FTX in November.

Silvergate is one of the few mainstream financial organisations to have focused on providing services to the cryptocurrency sector. That helped it grow rapidly until the ‘crypto winter’ began last year, when prices of crypto assets tumbled.

Silvergate announced that:

In light of recent industry and regulatory developments, Silvergate believes that an orderly wind down of Bank operations and a voluntary liquidation of the Bank is the best path forward.

The Bank’s wind down and liquidation plan includes full repayment of all deposits. The Company is also considering how best to resolve claims and preserve the residual value of its assets, including its proprietary technology and tax assets.

The news sent Silvergate’s share price slumping in after hours trading, down 43% to $2.76. They’re down over 96% over the last 12 months.

Once a small community bank, Silvergate reinvented itself during the crypto boom to provide services to companies that struggled to work with conventional financial providers.

The collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX in November created a crisis of confidence in the sector, and drove investors to pull money from Silvergate.

At the start of January, Silvergate reported that customers had pulled more than $8bn (£6.7bn) of their crypto-related deposits in the final quarter of last year, forcing it to sell billions of dollars of assets to protect its balance sheet.

Silvergate’s future has been in doubt since it delayed the publication of its annual report last week, and announced a fresh sale of assets to repay debts.

The agenda

  • 9.30am GMT: Realtime business and economic activity data released by the Office for National Statistics

  • 12.30pm GMT: Challenger survey of US job cuts

  • 1.30pm GMT: US weekly jobless figures

Key events

HS2 to be delayed by two more years due to soaring costs

Gwyn Topham

Gwyn Topham

It’s official: HS2 will be delayed by another two years and major roadbuilding schemes will be mothballed.

Ministers have confirmed the move, our transport correspondent Gwyn Topham reports, after soaring inflation added billions to the cost of transport infrastructure projects.

Ministers insisted they remained committed to Britain’s high-speed rail network scheme, but the budget constraints have cast doubt over prospects for the rail project’s delivery.

Parts of the HS2 line between Birmingham, Crewe and Manchester will be “rephased” by two years, while trains may now not run all the way into central London until years later than planned as the government “takes time to ensure we have an affordable and deliverable station design” at Euston.

The biggest road schemes will also be kicked into the long grass as transport budgets face swingeing real-terms cuts from 2025. The flagship Lower Thames Crossing, a £7bn tunnel and road scheme linking Essex and Kent, will be deferred for at least two years, into the next five-year phase of National Highways’ roadbuilding.

The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said:

“We have seen significant inflationary pressure and increased project costs, and so we will rephase construction by two years, with an aim to deliver high-speed services to Crewe and the north west as soon as possible after accounting for the delay in construction.”

Here’s the full story:

The HS2 thing is a perfect example of how Treasury spending windows distort decision-making and raise long-term costs. See also every defence procurement project ever. pic.twitter.com/VlgFAchgxa

— Robert Colvile (@rcolvile) March 9, 2023

Afternoon summary

Time to recap… here are today’s main stories:

Joanna Partridge

Joanna Partridge

Morrisons and Asda have both started some of the restrictions on fruit and salad purchases.

Asda has lifted limits on customers buying cucumbers, salad bags, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries, after the retailer said supply of these items had improved. However, customers are still limited to buying a maximum of three packets of tomatoes and peppers each, but Asda said the situation is easing, and it expects to return to normal levels within a couple of weeks.

Morrisons has also removed the cap on purchases of cucumbers, but is still limiting shoppers to a maximum of two packets of tomatoes, lettuce and peppers per customer

Delaying HS2’s rollout could be a “body blow” to the economic recovery, warns Stephen Marcos Jones, CEO of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE).

ACE represents the companies who design, deliver and manage our national infrastructure and built environment.

Marcos Jones argues that delays would push up the construction cost in the long run:

“Today’s news on HS2 is potentially a real body blow for the UK’s economic recovery.

I think every sensible person knows that global events have driven inflationary pressures to record highs.

“But we have already spent significant sums on the design and delivery of this transformational major project. Scaling back ambitions at this stage will mean the economic and social benefits of HS2 for communities across the UK is further watered down – and major delays like this are actually going to cost more in the longer term.

“In a nutshell, the delays announced today are, quite simply, an absolutely false economy.”

The boss of Shell has warned that the next few winters are a worry for energy supply in Europe and that the continent needed to move away from reliance on luck for energy security.

Shell CEO Wael Sawan told the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston that:

“We haven’t structurally resolved the issues on energy security in Europe.”

Morrisons slumps to £1.5bn pre-tax loss after private equity takeover

Joanna Partridge

Joanna Partridge

The supermarket chain Morrisons slumped to a £1.5bn loss during its first full year in private equity ownership, according to its latest results.

The grocery retailer was bought by the US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) for £7bn in October 2021 after an intense bidding war.

The results for the period from late July 2021 to the end of October last year reveal the grocer’s struggles during the first year after it was taken private and delisted from the London Stock Exchange.

Morrisons – which employs more than 110,000 staff, including 95,000-plus working in its 500 supermarkets – made an operating loss of £58m before exceptionals for the 65 weeks to 30 October, according to a trading update from the chain’s parent company filed at Companies House.

A substantial portion of its £1.5bn pre-tax loss for the period was related to finance costs of £593m, which included interest payments on external debt, as well as interest on its lease liabilities and interest payable on loans to group companies.

The loss contrasts with the £201m pre-tax profit before one-offs made by the retailer made during its final year as a public company, on sales of £17.5bn.

Here’s the full story:

And here’s our recent investigation into the situation at Morrisons:

Wall Street has opened higher, after the rise in US unemployment claims last week calmed some concerns about rising interest rates.

The Dow Jones industrial average is up 130 points, or 0.4%, at 32,928, while the broader S&P 500 index has gained 0.35%.

Bonds are recovering a little too:

Initial jobless claims rose to 211k in the first week of March vs prior week’s 190k. That’s a sizable 11% w/w gain, but it’s just one reading so far. Treasury yields down a bit in response. pic.twitter.com/1GUuGqdbfo

— Liz Young (@LizYoungStrat) March 9, 2023

EDF Energy has said today it will extend the lifetimes of its Hartlepool and Heysham 1 nuclear plants in Britain by two years to March 2026, Reuters reports.

They had been slated for closure in 2024.

Keeping them open for longer could help the UK’s energy security.

Matt Sykes, managing director of EDF’s generation business, says:

Supplying zero-carbon and affordable electricity, whatever the weather, has never been more important than right now.

Our ongoing investment and careful stewardship of the UK nuclear fleet since 2009 has allowed us to make today’s decision and helps support the UK’s energy security at this challenging time.

UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt could afford to raise public sector wages, and to provide targeted support for households with energy bills, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research says.

The thinktank has calculated that the chancellor has a large amount of fiscal space ahead of his budget on 15 March, thanks to higher revenue and lower spending, together with the more favourable outlook for GDP and interest rates.

These factors mean the budget deficit his year is £30bn less than expected last November.

NIESR says:

  • At the macroeconomic level, some of this fiscal space should be used to reduce the planned rise in corporation tax, which would otherwise lower investment and GDP in both the short run and long run, and to increase the amount of public investment. Lower effective corporation tax and increased public investment are both growth-enhancing.

  • The Chancellor should allow public-sector wages to rise to catch up with the private sector, given private-sector wages have been rising much faster than public-sector wages of late. We can expect some spillovers from public-sector wage growth to the private sector, but any adverse macroeconomic effects need to be assessed against potential output losses if the public sector lost skilled workers.

  • A more targeted approach to provide support for households to deal with the high energy prices: specifically, a combination of an opt-in Social Tariff system and a Variable Price Cap. This is preferable in fiscal terms to a universal EPG [energy price guarantee], as this might cost as much as £29bn for 2023-24, and would provide both incentives to users of energy to limit demand, and also more support to those households who need it most.

The market reaction to the rise in US unemployment claims shows that Bad News is Good News again for investors.

Wall Street futures have pared their earlier losses (as a weak economy will mean interest rates won’t rise as high as feared).

Bad news is good news again.

Initial claims for unemployment insurance jumped above 200k for the first time since Christmas.
10-year yields reversed lower, and stock futures popped higher.

What’s holding back the stock market in the last few weeks? Not enough people have been… https://t.co/sk94aw1RSw pic.twitter.com/ag4iV6os1X

— Jim Bianco biancoresearch.eth (@biancoresearch) March 9, 2023

US jobless claims highest since December

The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless support has jumped.

In the week to 4 March, there were 211,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance, up from 190,000 the previous week.

That 21,000 increase in initial claims suggests that the US jobs market softened last week, although initial claims are still historically low.

The number of people receiving at least two week’s of support also rose by 69,000 to 1,718,000

Initial and continuing UI claims both rose last week to their highest levels since the end of December.

Initial: 211k from 190k
Continuing: 1.718m from 1.649m

Both increases mostly driven by CA & NY, which each saw initial & continuing claims jump >10k from the wk prior. pic.twitter.com/OOErtlABhk

— Daniel Zhao (@DanielBZhao) March 9, 2023

1/ Even after their jump in early March, initial claims are very low by historical standards – but “very low” won’t cut it to keep continuing claims down, because the break-even is currently below 190K. (This beakeven has fallen over the past year, probably due to lower hiring.) pic.twitter.com/GEV1ofcLYJ

— Guy Berger (@EconBerger) March 9, 2023

The dollar has weakened, as investors calculate that this may be a sign that the economy is slowing, meaning further increases in interest rates may not be as high as expected.

This has pushed the pound up half a cent to $1.19, recovering some of its losses earlier this week.

Tomorrow’s Non-Farm Payroll will show how many jobs were created in February.

Layoffs by US companies in the first two months of this year have hit their highest level since 2009 after the financial crisis, a report has shown.

The tech sector accounting for more than a third of the more than 180,000 job cuts announced in January and February, the report from employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas shows.

In February alone, layoffs in the United States stood at 77,770, more than five times higher than the 15,245 job cuts announced a year ago.

Challenger shows moderate pace of layoff announcements at 77k. Mostly concentrated in NY/SF/Seattle tech & finance. A couple datapoints of modest spreading. While its ticked up, during 18/19 saw 60k layoffs with falling UE rate.

Monthly numbers here: pic.twitter.com/3xUz0Jbt0r

— Bob Elliott (@BobEUnlimited) March 9, 2023

Nice thing about the report is all the detail it gives. Under the hood looks like big chunk was in tech/fintech/finance areas. Some signs of broadening possibly in some other sectors. Notably construction and real estate remains pretty low. pic.twitter.com/Gx8oPjcY6H

— Bob Elliott (@BobEUnlimited) March 9, 2023

The employers’ organisation BusinessLDN has criticised the expected delays to HS2.

John Dickie, chief executive at BusinessLDN, warns that the move could push up the cost of the project:

Delaying construction of HS2 to save money is a false economy. Failing to invest now will likely increase costs over the long-term while also delaying the benefits for people and businesses across England.

The country needs this project to remain on track through swift and efficient delivery to drive long-term growth and decarbonisation. Slowing down construction of sections will do little to help levelling-up, particularly in the North.

With shovels already in the ground, we cannot afford yet another delay. Ministers should not hit the brakes and instead seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a world-class, high-speed, capacity-boosting rail line that will transform connectivity between England’s major cities.

Like other construction projects, HS2 has been hit by rising costs of energy, fuel, raw materials and labour.

European stock markets have dropped into the red this morning, amid anxiety about rising interest rates.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index has dropped by 54 points, or 0.7%, to 7875 points, further away from the record highs set last month.

Endeavour Mining, which owns and operates gold mines in Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Senega, are the top faller, down almost 5% after reporting a 26% drop in EBITDA earnings for last year.

Mining group Rio Tinto (-4.6%) is next, followed by packaging firm DS Smith (4.5%) which reported signs of weakness in the corrugated box market today.

Investors are anticipating that the US Federal Reserve could lift its key interest rates by half a percentage point this month, following warnings from Fed chair Jerome Powell this week that interest rates are ‘likely to be higher’ than previously anticipated.

The Fed’s challenge is to slow inflation without sinking the economy, as Neil Wilson of Markets.com explains:

Sticking with 25bps this month would risk further loosening of financial conditions, which will only make the job to tame inflation harder. Unless there is a stinker of a jobs report tomorrow, the Fed will either need to go with 50bps or do 25bps and stress a much higher terminal rate.

And this comes back to the central dilemma – once a structural inflationary dynamic is let loose, the only way to rein it back in is to crash the economy, Volcker style.

[Paul Volcker put the US economy into a recession in the 1980s to get inflation under control].

Responding to the report that the high-speed HS2 project will be delayed or cut, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman has said:

“ou will know there’s work already under way on HS2.

Equally the rail minister has been clear we’re continuing to look at any cost pressures and ensure the project delivers value for money for taxpayers.

Supermarkets have started to drop customer limits on buying certain fresh fruit and vegetables as supply issues that led to widespread shortages begin to ease.

Asda confirmed it had removed limits of three on cucumbers, lettuce, salad bags, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries, leaving restrictions of three on just tomatoes and peppers, PA Media reports.

The supermarket said availability overall had improved as expected, and supplies of tomatoes and peppers were also expected to be back to normal within a couple of weeks.





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