10 things you need to know in markets August 30

An
employee works on Ford Mondeo vehicles on the production line
during assembly at Ford plant in Almussafes on February 5, 2015
in Valencia, Spain.
David
Ramos/Getty

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

1. U.S.
economic growth was a bit stronger than initially thought in the
second quarter, notching its best performance in nearly four
years, as businesses boosted spending on software and imports
declined. Gross domestic product increased at a 4.2%
annualized rate, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday in its
second estimate of growth for the April-June quarter. That was
slightly up from the 4.1% pace of expansion it reported in July
and was the fastest rate since the third quarter of 2014.

2. British
car production fell 11% year-on-year in July, hit by model
changes, seasonal adjustments and preparations for tougher new
emissions standards, an industry body said on
Thursday. Output stood at 121,051 units last
month, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT)
said, with demand at home slumping 35% compared with a drop in
exports of 4.2%.

3. Asian
stocks rose on Thursday as Wall Street hit record highs in the
hope that the current North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
negotiations will lead to a further easing of global trade
tensions. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific
shares outside Japan nudged up 0.1%.

4. Australia’s TPG Telecom agreed a merger with Vodafone
Group’s Australian business on Wednesday, easing competition in
the cut-throat sector and buying scale to take on bigger rivals
Telstra Corp and Optus. It combines Australia’s
third- and fourth-largest telecom firms into a larger third
player holding TPG’s fiber network and Vodafone’s mobile system,
sending shares on both sides of the deal soaring.

5.  U.S.
President Donald Trump has signed proclamations permitting
targeted relief from steel and aluminum tariffs from some
countries, the U.S. Commerce Department said on
Wednesday. Trump, who put in place tariffs on steel
and aluminum imports in March, signed proclamations allowing
relief from the quotas on steel from South Korea, Brazil and
Argentina and on aluminum from Argentina, the department said in
a statement.

6. Panasonic
is to move its European headquarters from London to Amsterdam in
October to avoid potential tax issues linked to Brexit, the
Nikkei Asian Review said on Thursday. Moving the
regional headquarters to continental Europe will also help
Panasonic avoid any barriers to the flow of people and goods,
Laurent Abadie, chief executive officer of Panasonic Europe, told
Nikkei.

7. A
U.S. judge has dismissed an antitrust lawsuit by investors that
accused nine big banks of rigging the roughly $9 trillion
government agency bond market from 2005 to 2015. In
a decision made public on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Edgardo
Ramos in Manhattan said the investors failed to show they were
injured by conducting any specific transactions in U.S.
dollar-denominated supranational, sub-sovereign and agency bonds
that were tainted by the alleged collusion.

8. Chipmaker
Micron Technology said Wednesday it plans to spend $3 billion
over the next 12 years to expand a plant in Virginia about 40
miles (64 km) west of Washington, D.C. Chief
Executive Sanjay Mehrotra told Reuters in an interview the
expansion aims to meet increasing demand for chips in
automobiles, which are gaining more computer power for features
such as collision avoidance systems or lane departure warning
systems. 

9. Salesforce.com
reported a 27% jump in quarterly revenue on Wednesday, as
customers looking to rein in costs boosted demand for its
flagship Sales Cloud business. Net income rose
to $299 million, or 39 cents per share, in the second quarter
ended July 31, versus $46 million, or 6 cents per share, a
year 

10. German
drugmakers have been asked by the government to examine their
supply chains for any vulnerability that could cause shortages of
essential drugs in the event that Britain leaves the European
Union without a Brexit deal. More than 2,600 drugs
have some stage of manufacture in Britain and 45 million patient
packs are supplied from the UK to other European countries each
month, while another 37 million flow in the opposite direction,
industry figures show.