Live news: EY’s global CEO says planned split ‘is on hiatus for a while’

Events: The Reserve Bank of Australia’s monetary policy rate-setting meeting begins today. The Asian Development Bank Annual Meeting begins in Incheon, South Korea. Finance ministers and central bank governors of ASEAN Plus Three countries hold a press conference on the sidelines of the event.

Data: South Korea releases April consumer price index figures. Hong Kong shows growth in gross domestic product.

Earnings: Japan Airlines and Mitsui & Co. present their annual financial results, as does Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone in India. DBS Group publishes first quarter performance data.

Markets: Chinese stock exchanges are closed for Labor Day. Futures in Hong Kong and Japan rose after Wall Street stocks closed on Monday, when most markets in Europe and Asia were closed. The S&P 500 stock index closed flat, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.1%.

Morgan Stanley plans to cut an additional 3,000 jobs by the end of June as the Wall Street bank scrambles to survive a prolonged decline in trading.

People familiar with the talks say senior executives are aiming to cut around 5% of staff, excluding client-facing financial advisers in Morgan Stanley’s wealth management division, who will be spared.

The cuts will be spread widely across the rest of the New York-based bank, which employs 82,000 people. The investment banking and securities divisions are expected to suffer more than other parts of the bank.

EY’s global chief executive, Carmine Di Sibio, admitted the plan to split the business in two was “on hold for a while”, in his first public comments since US leaders called off last month a spin-off from its consultancy business.

“We’re not a company where the CEO says something and it just gets done,” he told the Milken Institute. “We’re a series of partnerships… We couldn’t get a particular group of people to vote for this and so it’s on hiatus, and it’s really on hiatus for a while.”

Di Sibio had pushed the split to spur growth by freeing EY consultants from rules prohibiting them from working with audit clients.

US President Joe Biden said US commitment to defending the Philippines was ‘ironclad’ days after Washington accused Beijing of to harass dangerously a patrol vessel in the South China Sea.

In a joint statement after meeting with his Filipino counterpart Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Biden said any attack on Philippine planes or ships in the South China Sea would trigger their mutual defense treaty.

Marcos is on a four-day visit to the United States that marks the Biden administration’s latest effort to strengthen alliances in the Indo-Pacific to counter the Chinese military.

Contract talks between Hollywood screenwriters and movie studios continued on Monday, leaving the threat of the first strike in more than 15 years hanging over the industry.

The Writers Guild of America, which has 11,500 members, authorized a strike in mid-April, arguing that studios must agree to change pay and labor practices that have taken root in the streaming era.

If the two sides fail to reach an agreement by midnight in Los Angeles, a strike could begin as early as Tuesday – although they could continue talks beyond the deadline if there is progress.

The U.S. government risks running out of money as early as June 1, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned congressional leaders on Monday in the latest sign that Washington is heading for a crisis over the debt ceiling that could lead to a catastrophic failure.

“After reviewing recent federal tax revenues, our best estimate is that we will not be able to continue to meet all government obligations by early June, and potentially as early as June 1, unless Congress increases not or suspend the debt ceiling before that time,” Yellen said.

The Treasury estimate was based on the latest available tax revenue data, she added.