Bloomberg First-quarter gold purchases by central banks, led by Russia and China, were the highest in six years as countries diversify their assets away from the US dollar. Global gold reserves rose 145.5 tonnes in the first quarter, a 68 percent increase from a year earlier, the World Gold Council said in a report. Russia remains the largest buyer as ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer John Flint is pressing ahead with a plan to rein in costs after the Asia-focussed lender reported its best quarter in more than three years. The better-than-expected first quarter results were driven by revenue growth that increased at triple the pace of adjusted operating expenses, reversing a pattern that bedeviled Flint in 2018. ...

Bloomberg BNP Paribas SA reported the biggest fixed-income trading jump of all US and European banks in the first quarter, marking a rebound after recent losses and downgraded targets. Debt trading revenue unexpectedly rose 29 percent from the previous year, helped by growth in rates and foreign-exchange transactions, the French bank said. That helped BNP’s global markets unit — its ...