10 things you need to know in markets August 22

Muslims
offer Eid al-Adha prayers at the Jama Masjid (Grand Mosque) in
the old quarters of Delhi, India, August 22,
2018.

REUTERS/Adnan
Abidi

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

1.
Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud, and
campaign finance violations and said he broke the law “at the
direction” of a 2016 presidential candidate, widely believed to
be President Donald Trump. S&P 500 futures
and Nasdaq futures are both down around 0.3% at the time of
writing (7.25 a.m. BST/2.25 a.m. ET), with analysts pointing to
the Cohen testimony as the driver.

2.
Facebook says it removed 652 pages and accounts on its services
that were linked to Iran, as well as numerous Russia-linked
accounts involved in inauthentic behaviour. The Iran
and Russia campaigns were distinct but used similar tactics,
Facebook said.

3.
US stocks on Tuesday rose to record highs for the first time
since January 26. Led by tech and utilities
companies, the benchmark S&P 500 index surpassed its previous
intra-day record of 2,872.87. It traded up 0.6% to 2,872.93 at
1:10 p.m. ET.

4.
Asian stocks were flat in early trade on Wednesday after Wall
Street ended higher and as low-level trade talks between the US
and China due this week boosted hopes of easing trade
tensions. Japan’s Nikkei closed up 0.58%. The Hong
Kong Hang Seng is up 0.26% at the time of writing (7.23 a.m.
BST/2.23 a.m. ET) and China’s Shanghai Composite is down 0.76%.

5.
Bitcoin prices jumped by as much as 7% almost instantly at around
9 p.m. EST. The move coincided directly with a
scheduled shutdown of trading platform BitMEX for maintenance
purposes. Insiders say the shutdown led to wild trading
opportunities.

6. After three
years of searching, Uber has filled a key executive role
necessary to move forward with its plans to hold an initial
public offering in 2019. Nelson Chai has joined Uber
as its CFO, the company announced Tuesday.

7.
Morgan Stanley dropped coverage of Tesla on Tuesday, becoming the
second bank to restrict the stock. Shares surged as
much as 5% following the news.

8.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has moved to an overweight on the
industrials and healthcare sectors. The bank’s
equity strategists don’t see the bull market in stocks ending
soon, mainly because earnings growth is still strong.

9.
Samuel Tombs, the chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics,
says clients have asked him if companies stockpiling of goods in
case of a “no deal” Brexit could actually give a short-term boost
to the economy. Tombs is unconvinced and outlines
four reasons why company stockpiles are unlikely to help UK
growth.

10.
UBS completely disassembled a Tesla Model 3 to compare it to the
Chevy Bolt and BMW i3. The car’s electronics are an
easy winner thanks to their simplicity — but the bank worries
such centralization could cause headaches down the road.