HSBC Profits Hurt by Choppy Markets and Trade Tensions

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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