HSBC Profits Hurt by Choppy Markets and Trade Tensions
19 February 2019 - 8:30PM
Dow Jones News
HSBC Holdings reported lower than expected fourth-quarter profit
as choppy financial markets, US-China trade tensions and Brexit
uncertainty weighed on the global bank.
KEY FACTS
-- HSBC said cost growth outstripped revenue at the end of 2018.
-- Customers held off on business when markets turned volatile last year.
-- That hit revenue in the global-markets, retail-banking and
wealth-management units.
-- Full-year net profit was $12.6bn, less than the $13.71bn analysts
expected.
WHAT THE BANK SAID
HSBC CEO John Flint in an interview said the bank had been on
track to meet fourth-quarter cost control targets until revenues
collapsed in parts of the bank in November. He said it was "very
much a fourth-quarter problem" and that the bank started 2019 in a
"fundamentally different" position.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Flint is marking his first year as CEO and didn't signal any
shifts in a strategy update on HSBC's focus on Asia for growth.
Since 2011, the bank has undergone major restructuring, in part by
exiting most of Latin America and placing more focus on its Asia
operations. The UK and Hong Kong are its two major markets.
A fuller story is available on WSJ.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 19, 2019 04:15 ET (09:15 GMT)
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