American Express Co. said it topped $2 billion in quarterly revenue from card fees for the first time in the second quarter, as it booked its 24th quarter in a row of of double-digit growth from such fees. The $2 billion-plus in card-fee revenue is “a super important metric for us, because it means that people are buying into the value proposition and renewing their membership,” Chief Financial Officer Christophe Le Caillec told MarketWatch. He said that Amex saw “a lot of stability” in spending trends during the second quarter, with particularly strong performance from U.S. customers traveling abroad, as well as from younger cardholders more generally. Millennial and Gen-Z cardholders grew their spending 13% from a year earlier, and they use their cards more frequently than older customers, according to Le Caillec. That’s partly because younger people are less likely to carry cash and more conditioned than older generations to use credit cards for smaller transaction sizes. Amex acquired 3.3 million new cards in its latest quarter.

The Switzerland market ended moderately lower on Friday on a day in which an IT outage affected many industries and countries across the globe. The global IT outage was due to an issue in cybersecurity group CrowdStrike's system update. The issue caused severe disruption and disabled the use of some Microsoft devices across the world. The benchmark SMI ended with a loss of 74.17 points or 0.61% at 12,173.44. The index touched a high of 12,243.73 and a low of 12,165.05 in the session. VAT Group shares ended down 2.27%, extending losses from the previous session. Lonza Group and Swiss Re lost 1.97% and 1.87%, respectively. Schindler Ps ended down 1.57%. Zurich Insurance Group, Swatch Group, Richemont, Sika, Sonova and UBS Group lost 1 to 1.4%. Novartis and Geberit also ended notably lower. Roche Holding settled flat. The company said that its proposed acquisition of certain assets held by LumiraDX has been cleared by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority. Alcon and Roche I ended higher by 0.5% and 0.46%, respectively. Swisscom, Givaudan and Partners Group edged up marginally.

Europe
European stocks closed lower on Friday amid concerns about slowing Chinese growth, deepening Sino-U.S. trade tensions, political uncertainty in France, and mixed corporate earnings updates. The pan European Stoxx 600 fell 0.77%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 ended down 0.6%, Germany's DAX lost 1% and France's CAC 40 closed lower by 0.69%, while Switzerland's SMI lost 0.61%. Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden ended weak. Norway edged down marginally. Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Russia and Turkiye closed higher. In the UK market, Burberry Group plunged more than 7%. Spirax Group shares ended down 5.74%. Beazley, JD Sports Fashion, Entain, Ashtead Group, Prudential, Weir Group, Easyjet, Glencore, Rio Tinto, Anglo American Plc, Croda International, M&G and Shell lost 1 to 3.3%. Marks & Spencer rallied 3%. Rolls-Royce Holdings gained 2.65%, while Antofagasta, Howden Joinery, Diploma and Smith (DS) ended higher by 1 to 1.2%. In the German market, Sartorius tanked 15.2% after the pharmaceutical equipment supplier cut its full-year guidance. Zalando and Infineon both ended nearly 4% down. Continental, Hannover Rueck, Qiagen, Bayer, Munich RE, Porsche, BASF, Adidas, Daimler Truck Holding, BMW and Merck lost 2 to 3%. Siemens Energy climbed about 2.3%. MTU Aero Engines, SAP and Vonovia posted modest gains. In the French market, Unibail Rodamco ended down 4.6%. STMicroElectronics closed lower by about 3.7%. Teleperformance, Stellantis, Renault, Pernod Ricard, ArcelorMittal, TotalEnergies, LVMH and Publicis Groupe ended lower by 1.5 to 2.5%. Dassault Systemes, Schneider Electric, Orange and Airbus Group posted moderate gains.

United States
U.S. stocks declined Friday after a global technology outage shut down airports and disrupted businesses around the world. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.8%, extending its weekly decline to 3.6%. The S&P 500 dropped 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 377.49 points, or 0.9%. The blue-chip benchmark is the only of the three major indexes that eked out a weekly gain. CrowdStrike, a provider of malware and virus protection to a large array of companies, filed an update that caused outages for millions of users of Microsoft Windows devices worldwide. The outage knocked out operations for banks, media companies and emergency services and forced airlines to ground flights. CrowdStrike’s chief executive later said a fix had been deployed, but shares of the cybersecurity-software company tumbled 11%. The stock was the worst performer in the S&P Friday. Microsoft fell 0.7%. The news also sent CrowdStrike rivals SentinelOne and Palo Alto Networks higher, with the stocks up 7.9% and 2.2%, respectively. Despite the cyber outage, trading functioned normally across U.S. exchanges. Some financial companies, such as TD Bank and the London Stock Exchange, reported earlier issues. Visa said its systems were working normally but it was aware of reported difficulties with payments. In corporate news, Travelers dropped 7.8% after the insurer reported weaker-than-expected revenue. Starbucks jumped 6.9% after The Wall Street Journal reported that activist investor Elliott Investment Management has built a sizable stake in the coffee company.

Asia
The Asian and Australian stock exchanges followed the weak U.S. data on Monday. This means that the growing uncertainty is also spreading to the regional markets. Only the Hong Kong stock exchange was able to buck the negative regional trend, with the HSI rising by 0.8 per cent. The index was supported by an unexpected reduction in the benchmark interest rate for bank loans (LPR) by the People's Bank of China (PBoC).

Bonds
There was no sign of increased demand for the supposedly safe haven of bonds on the U.S. bond market. This is because falling prices pushed yields into positive territory. U.S. benchmark 10-year Treasury yields ticked higher to 4.238%, from 4.188% Thursday.

Analysis
UBS increases Novartis target to 111 (108) CHF – Buy
UBS increases ABB target to 50 (47) CHF – Neutral
UBS lowers Bechtle target to 44.60 (49.50) EUR – Neutral

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