Corporate results:

  • Deutsche Telekom: The German telecom group revises its forecasts upwards and its first quarter net profit exceeds estimates.
  • Softbank: The stock gains 10% in Tokyo despite huge losses.

In other news:

  • Nissan believes that it is too early to decide on a possible split of its electric branch like Renault.
  • Toshiba will delay the announcement of board appointments.
  • Adecco finalizes the acquisition of Akka.
  • Aluflexpack finalizes the acquisition of Turkish Teko.
  • Twitter - Elon Musk announced Friday that his proposed $44 billion takeover of Twitter was on hold pending clarification on fake accounts and spam. In pre-market trading, Twitter cut its losses to 9.7 percent as Elon Musk said he intends to pursue the buyout. Tesla, of which Elon Musk is CEO, gained 5.3%.
  • Robinhood - Cryptocurrency exchange FTX CEO and founder Samuel Bankman-Fried has taken a 7.6 percent stake in Robinhood Markets, according to a stock document released Thursday night. In after-hours trading, Robinhood's share price was up 27%.
  • Berkshire Hathaway - Billionaire Warren Buffett's investment firm increased its stake in Occidental Petroleum this week by buying 901,774 shares for $51.7 million, according to financial notices.
  • Affirm Holdings said Thursday it raised its annual revenue target after quarterly sales grew 54 percent and extended a multi-year partnership with U.S. online shopping platform Shopify. The payment services group was up 25.6 percent in pre-market trading.

Main earnings reports today: Deutsche Telekom, KDDI, Honda Motor, Sumitomo Mitsui, Carl Zeiss, Sage, Reply...