What You Need To Know This Week — August 10th, 2019
What You Need To Know This Week
A weekly recap to keep you informed on the most important events this week impacting markets, business, tech and the global economy.
U.S. LABELS CHINA A CURRENCY MANIPULATOR AS THE RENMINBI HITS 11-YEAR LOW
The U.S. Treasury officially labeled China a currency manipulator as the People’s Bank of China allowed the renminbi to fall past RMB 7 per U.S. dollar for the first time since May 2008. The Chinese currency dropped only -1.6%, but the significance of crossing the key threshold of RMB 7 spooked global markets. The S&P 500 dropped -3% on the news.
CRUDE OIL HITS SEVEN-MONTH LOW AS TRADE WAR SLOWS ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
Oil declined into a bear market as prices declined nearly -5% on Wednesday and -24.5% from their peak in April. Crude oil futures came under selling pressure from an expected build in stockpiles combined with concerns of slowing demand due to the ongoing trade war.
DISNEY BUNDLES DISNEY+, HULU AND ESPN+ AT $12.99 IN A CHALLENGE TO NETFLIX
Disney announced that it will bundle streaming services Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+in a package that will cost $12.99 per month, the same price as a Netflix subscription. Disney’s highly competitive streaming offering will present a challenge to Netflix’s pricing power.
Recommended Articles, Podcasts, Books and Tweets
Listen to Tobias Lütke, founder and CEO of Shopify*, talk about how we built it into a $51 billion publicly-traded company. *Disclosure: long Shopify in the Accelerate Enhanced Canadian Benchmark Alternative Fund.
Short seller Muddy Waters announced that it is short London-listed litigation financing firm Burford Capital. Burford’s stock declined -56.2% on the news.
The Ontario Securities Commission is investigating cannabis producer CannTrust as a “quasi-criminal” case. The commission brought in its Joint Serious Offences Team to investigate whether fraud and insider trading were committed.
Private equity firm Blackstone invested EUR500 million in European competitor BC Partners for a 10–15% stake in the firm.
Two of America’s largest newspaper owners, GateHouse Media and Gannett, are merging in a $1.4 billion deal.
Chat app start-up Kik is fighting back against the SEC’s cryptocurrency lawsuit, which claimed the company undertook an unregistered securities offering related to its 2017 offering of Kin tokens.
Negative yielding debt hit $15 trillion globally.
The Canadian government-bond yield curve hit -0.40%, the most inverted yield curve since December 2000.
-The Accelerate Team
