OpenAI’s board has turned down Elon Musk’s $97.4 billion offer to buy the company’s assets. The rejection, which was delivered in a letter to the billionaire’s lawyer Friday, said the board decided the bid was “not in the best interests” of OpenAI’s mission. In addition to the letter, OpenAI’s chairman, Bret Taylor, said the company was “not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition.” Musk and a consortium of investors made the unsolicited offer to OpenAI’s board to acquire assets of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI. In a court filing Wednesday, Musk’s attorneys said he would be willing to drop the takeover attempt if the company abandoned its efforts to convert to a for-profit structure. The decision by the board of directors is the latest turn in Musk’s war against OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman. In 2015, the pair were among the co-founders of what is now Silicon Valley’s leading artificial-intelligence company.

The Swiss market ended notably lower on Friday, after languishing in negative territory right through the day's trading session, as investors chose to take some profits after recent strong gains. The mood was cautious amid concerns over U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed reciprocal trade policy on countries that impose tax on U.S. imports. The benchmark SMI closed down 109.19 points or 0.84% at 12,839.87. Novartis ended nearly 2.5% down. Swisscom and Swatch Group closed lower by 2% and 1.87%, respectively. Nestle closed nearly 1.5% down. Kuehne + Nagel, Roche Holding, Zurich Insurance Group, Swiss Re, Alcon, Sandoz Group and SGS ended down 0.7 to 1.1%. Givaudan climbed nearly 3%. Logitech International and Lindt & Spruengli both gained a little over 2%. SIG Group and Partners Group gained 1.2% and 1.1%, respectively. Sika, Julius Baer and Holcim posted modest gains, while VAT Group edged up marginally. In economic news, data from the Federal Statistical Office showed Switzerland's producer and import prices declined at a slower pace in January 2025, dropping by 0.3% year-on-year, following a 0.9% decrease in December 2024. Further, this was the slowest rate of decline since the current sequence of fall began in May 2023, when prices had fallen the same 0.3%. The producer price index showed a flat change in January, while import prices registered a decrease of 0.8%. On a monthly basis, producer and import prices edged up 0.1% in January, as expected, after staying stagnant in December.

Europe
European stocks closed lower on Friday, but several markets in the region still posted weekly gains, having moved higher over the past few sessions as investors shrugged off concerns about Trump administration's tariff moves and chose to focus on earnings. Investors booked some profits. The mood remained cautious amid concerns about potential reciprocal tariffs by the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has announced plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on the nation's trading partners around the world, effective April 2025. Investors, digesting the data that showed Germany's wholesale prices increased for the second straight month in December, also continued to focus on earnings updates. Optimism about more monetary easing by central banks and hopes of an end to the Russia-Ukraine war contributed a bit to markets' good show earlier in the week. The pan European Stoxx 600 ended down 0.24%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 closed down 0.37% and Germany's DAX ended 0.44% down, while France's CAC 40 climbed 0.18%. Switzerland's SMI shed 0.84%. Among other markets in Europe, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Poland, Russia, Sweden and Turkiye closed weak. Austria, Finland, Greece, Norway, Portugal and Spain ended higher, while Netherlands closed flat. In the UK market, Schrodders lost more than 3%. Natwest Group ended lower by about 2% despite the lender posting higher earnings and issuing strong revenue guidance. The bank posted a profit of 4.519 billion pounds or 53.1 pence per share in the fiscal year 2024, up from 4.394 billion pounds or 47.7 pence per share in the prior year.

United States
Following the rally seen during Thursday's session, stocks turned in a relatively lackluster performance during trading on Friday. The major averages bounced back and forth across the unchanged line before eventually ending the day mixed. While the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 81.13 points or 0.4 percent to20,026.77, the S&P 500 edged down 0.44 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 6,114.64 and the narrower Dow fell 165.35 points or 0.4 percent to 44,54608. Despite the mixed performance on the day, stocks posted strong gains for the week. The Nasdaq surged by 2.6 percent, the S&P 500 jumped by 1.5 percent and the Dow advanced by 0.6 percent. The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders expressed some uncertainty about the near-term outlook for the markets following Thursday's rally, which saw the S&P 500 jump near its record highs despite data showing a bigger than expected increase by producer prices. Traders were also digesting a mixed batch of U.S. economic data, including a Commerce Department report showing retail sales slumped by much more than expected in January. Pharmaceutical stocks also showed a notable move to the downside, dragging the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index down by 1.7 percent.

Asia
Share prices in East Asia and Australia are not showing a consistent trend at the start of the week. Wall Street data is mixed. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index is up 0.1 per cent at 39,198 points. Although Japanese gross domestic product rose more strongly in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2024 than the consensus forecast by economists, private consumption only increased slightly.

Bonds
There was further movement on the U.S. bond market. Following the sharp rise in yields last Wednesday in response to surprisingly high US consumer prices and a countermovement the previous day, yields continued to fall dynamically. Participants pointed to the weak retail sales figures, which tend to favor interest rate cuts. The interest rate on the ten-year government bond was 4.48% on Friday evening. That of the two-year bond was 4.27%.

Analysis
Deutsche Bank raises Schindler target to CHF 287 (273) – Buy
Bank of America raises Rheinmetall target to 900 (762) EUR/buy – Trader
Citi raises BASF target to 51 (46) EUR/Neutral – Trader

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