10 things you need to know in markets, Monday September 24

The
Comcast NBC logo is shown on a building in Los Angeles,
California.
Thomson
Reuters

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

1.
Asian shares stumbled in holiday-thinned trading on Monday as
China’s decision to cancel talks with the United States
reinforced fears of a protracted trade war. China
added $60 billion of US products to its import tariff list,
retaliating against US duties on $200 billion of Chinese goods
that came into effect on Monday.

2.
US cable giant Comcast scored a big win in the scramble for media
assets by beating Rupert Murdoch, and his backer Disney, in the
battle for Sky with an eye-watering $40 billion bid.
It was a “great day” for Comcast, chairman and CEO Brian L.
Roberts said of Saturday’s auction victory.

3.
Dell Technologies is exploring an IPO after shelving the option
earlier this year in favor of going public by buying back a
special type of stock from investors, people familiar with the
matter said on Sunday. Dell’s IPO deliberations come
as several hedge funds, including Elliott Management and Canyon
Capital Advisors, as well as activist investor Carl Icahn, resist
a $21.7 billion cash-and-stock offer from Dell to buy back
“tracking stock” from them tied to Dell’s 81% stake in software
company VMware.

4.
Britain’s opposition Labour Party will vote this week to keep a
second Brexit referendum on the table if Prime Minister Theresa
May fails to pass her plan to leave the European Union through
parliament, media reported. Earlier, Labour leader
Jeremy Corbyn said he would back a second Brexit referendum if
his Labour Party voted to pursue the move, heaping pressure on
May, whose plans for a divorce deal with the EU have hit an
impasse. Meanwhile, May’s aides have begun contingency planning
for a snap election in November to save both Brexit and her job,
the Sunday Times
reported.

5.
German engineering group Siemens is working on a deal worth up to
€9 billion ($10.6 billion) to supply energy generation technology
to Iraq, business daily Handelsblatt reported, citing government
and industry sources. Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser has
traveled to Iraq to secure a memorandum of understanding with the
country on Sunday, the paper said.

6.
Singapore’s anti-trust watchdog fined ride-hailing firms Grab and
Uber a combined S$13 million ($9.5 million) over their merger
deal, and ordered Uber to sell vehicles from its local leasing
business to any rival that makes a reasonable offer.
US-based data-qa-component=”highlight-text”> Uber sold its
Southeast Asian business to bigger regional rival Grab in March
in exchange for a 27.5% stake in the Singapore-based firm.

7.
The world’s largest advertising company WPP is preparing to
consolidate some of its businesses in a bid to keep pace with the
industry’s digital shift, the Wall Street Journal reported on
Sunday. The company, under its new boss Mark Read,
is considering a merger between Young & Rubicam and WPP’s
digital-ad firm VML, putting the combined group under the
leadership of VML CEO Jon Cook, WSJ reported, citing sources.

8.
A reshuffling of Wall Street benchmark industry sectors that
transferred high-flying FANG stocks like Facebook and
Google-parent Alphabet out of the technology label may be a boon
to some under-the-radar companies that used to compete with them
for investor attention. Companies such as Cisco,
Juniper Networks, Xerox, Akamai, and Texas Instruments that do
not often grab headlines could be among the unexpected winners
from the largest reclassification of companies on Wall Street
since 1999, fund managers say.

9.
The deputy head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned US and
Israeli leaders on Monday to expect a “devastating” response from
Iran, accusing them of involvement in Saturday’s attack on a
military parade in the city of Ahvaz that killed 25
people.“You have seen our revenge before … You
will see that our response will be crushing and devastating and
you will regret what you have done,” Hossein Salami said in a
speech before the funeral of the victims in Ahvaz, broadcast live
on the state television.

10.
A New Zealand supermarket chain pulled a brand of Australian
strawberries off its shelves after needles were found in punnets
purchased from a store in Auckland. A scare has
gripped neighboring Australia, where police are investigating
more than 100 reports of needles found in fruit during recent
weeks.