S&P/ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) shares are rebounding on news of stronger-than-expected jobs data and an $80 billion central bank bailout for Switzerland's second-largest bank.
During morning trade, the benchmark ASX 200 index fell by more than 150 points following dramatic trading sessions across Europe and in the United States overnight.
At the time of writing, the ASX 200 has recovered somewhat to be down 101 points, or 1.43%.
What's helping the ASX 200 recover this afternoon?
Credit Suisse Group AG has announced it is taking out an A$81 billion loan from Switzerland's central bank.
This follows a 24% plunge in Credit Suisse shares overnight after its major shareholder refused to up their stake.
This caused a bank share rout in France, Germany, the United States, and here in Australia this morning.
Credit Suisse has been besieged by various problems over time, with its market capitalisation halved since 2021.
The bank's shares have tumbled by more than 50% since early February.
In a statement, Credit Suisse said:
Credit Suisse is taking decisive action to pre-emptively strengthen its liquidity by intending to exercise its option to borrow from the Swiss National Bank (SNB) up to CHF 50 billion under a Covered Loan Facility as well as a short-term liquidity facility, which are fully collateralized by high quality assets.
Credit Suisse also announces offers by Credit Suisse International to repurchase certain OpCo senior debt securities for cash of up to approximately CHF 3 billion.
The cash tender on 10 US-dollar-denominated senior debt securities will expire on Wednesday, 22 March.
What other news is pushing the ASX 200 higher?
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released its monthly labour force data today.
The data revealed a surprise fall in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to 3.5%.
This is back to where it was in December. The rate went up to 3.7% in January.
ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said:
The latest monthly increase in trend employment was only slightly below the monthly average for the 20 years before the pandemic.
This now shows that, while underlying employment growth has slowed down compared with what we saw through much of 2022, it is still increasing at close to its long-term historical rate.
The better-than-expected data indicates the economy is still doing well despite inflationary pressure.
Low unemployment indicates businesses are thriving, which is why the ASX 200 is up on the news.
