10 things you need to know in markets August 15

Warren
Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, tours the exhibit hall at
the company’s annual meeting in Omaha
Thomson Reuters

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know in markets on
Wednesday.

1. Turkey has doubled tariffs on some U.S. imports, such as
passenger cars, alcohol and tobacco, in what its vice president
said was a response to deliberate U.S. attacks on the Turkish
economy. The move comes amid increased tension
between the two NATO allies over Ankara’s imprisonment of a
pastor and other diplomatic issues.

2. Asian stocks sagged on Wednesday, failing to track
Wall Street’s gains and with the dollar near a 13-month high as
concerns about Turkey’s financial crisis weighed on investor
appetite, despite the lira’s move away from an all-time
low. Wall Street’s three main indexes
rose on Tuesday as the lira’s climb eased fears of broader
financial contagion for now. 

3. Some members of Tesla’s board of directors are hiring lawyers
to protect themselves in the ongoing fallout from CEO Elon Musk’s
public declarations about taking the company
private. Fellow board members are also urging Musk
to cool it with the public statements about a go-private deal,
according to a New York Times story published Tuesday night.

4. Warren Buffett added to his stockpile of Goldman Sachs shares
during the second quarter. The investing
legend’s Berkshire Hathaway upped its stake in the investment
bank by 21% to 13.2 million shares, according to a regulatory
filing out Tuesday. It’s total position in the firm is now worth
more than $3 billion, assuming it has not sold any shares during
Q3. 

5. Royal Bank of Scotland will pay $4.9 billion to settle U.S.
claims that it misled investors on residential mortgage-backed
securities between 2005 and 2008, the U.S. Justice Department
said. The DoJ added that his was the largest
penalty imposed on a bank for misconduct during the financial
crisis.

6. Billionaire investor George Soros bet big on
music-streaming platforms in the second
quarter. His fund, Soros Fund Management,
bought 728,700 shares of Spotify currently valued at
$122.6 million in the second quarter, according
to documents filed
Tuesday. 

7. Theresa May’s government is considering plans to register EU
citizens who wish to stay in the UK after Brexit in alphabetical
order, multiple sources have told Business Insider.
The plans come as it struggles to design a system which will cope
with the millions of applications expected to flood in.

8. A U.S. decision to subsidize its renewable energy companies
and impose tariffs on imported products has seriously distorted
the global market and harmed China’s interests, China’s Ministry
of Commerce said late on Tuesday. China has lodged a
complaint to the World Trade Organisation to help determine the
legality of the U.S. policies, saying they not only harm China’s
rights but also undermine the WTO’s authority.

9. A federal judge on Tuesday said Goldman Sachs shareholders may
again pursue class-action claims that the bank concealed
conflicts of interest when creating risky subprime securities
before the 2008 financial crisis. U.S. District
Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan said shareholders could sue as a
group because Goldman had not shown it more likely than not that
its alleged misstatements had no impact on its stock price.

10. Apple could release augmented reality glasses by 2020, and a
car three to five years after that, highly-respected analyst
Ming-Chi Kuo predicted in a TF Securities research note
distributed on Tuesday. 
Kuo’s research
has a strong
track record of accurately describing Apple products
often months before they officially launch.