10 things you need to know in markets, Friday September 21

Thomson
Reuters

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

1.
Asian stocks extended gains on Friday after Wall Street’s S&P
500 set a new all-time high, while the dollar slipped as
investors viewed Beijing’s and Washington’s fresh exchange of
import tariffs as less harmful than initially
feared. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific
shares outside Japan rose 0.2% in early trade, extending the
recovery from its 14-month low hit on September 12 to 3.6%

2.
Ride-hailing company Uber is in early talks to buy food-delivery
company Deliveroo, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people
familiar with the matter. London-based
Deliveroo was valued at more than $2 billion after raising $98
million from private investors last year. 

3.
Walmart has issued a warning in a letter to U.S. Trade
Representative Robert Lighthizer that it may have to raise prices
due to tariffs on Chinese imports, CNN Money
reported. “The immediate impact
will be to raise prices on consumers and tax American business
and manufacturers,” Walmart said, according to the CNN Money
report.

4.
Tesla’s vice president of global supply management, Liam
O’Connor, has resigned, Bloomberg reported, citing sources
familiar with the matter. The departure of
O’Connor, who joined Tesla in March 2015 from Apple, follows the
exit of a string of senior executives, including Chief Accounting
Officer Dave Morton and Chief People Officer Gabrielle Toledano.

5. Hong
Kong’s first bullet train glides out of a sleek harborfront
railway station bound for mainland China on Saturday, launching a
new era of integration and raising fears for some for the
territory’s cherished freedoms. Unlike other
cross-border connections, the $11 billion train project has
stoked considerable controversy, with Hong Kong, a former British
colony, having had to concede part of its jurisdiction to China
for the first time.

6. AT&T
on Thursday asked a federal appeals court to reject the Justice
Department’s challenge to its acquisition of Time Warner, saying
the government had offered no basis for second guessing key
conclusions of a ruling upholding the
transaction. The government is appealing U.S.
Judge Richard Leon’s ruling in June that AT&T’s $85.4 billion
acquisition of Time Warner could proceed. The government had said
it would lead to higher prices for consumers and was illegal
under antitrust law.

7.
The UK government is working on plans to set up an internet
regulator, Buzzfeed News reported on
Thursday. The regulator would, if
established, hold technology companies accountable for content
published on their websites and sanction sites if they failed to
take down illegal material and hate speech within hours, the
report said.

8.
Britain is significantly increasing its ability to wage war in
cyberspace with the creation of a new offensive cyber force of up
to 2,000 personnel, Sky News reported on
Thursday. The new force which is
expected to be announced soon would represent a near four-fold
increase in manpower focused on offensive cyber operations, Sky
said.

9.
Facebook said on Thursday that it would no longer dispatch
employees to the offices of political campaigns to offer support
ahead of elections, as it did with U.S. President Donald Trump in
the 2016 race. The company and other major
online ad sellers including Google and Twitter have long offered
free dedicated assistance to strengthen relationships with top
advertisers such as presidential campaigns.

10.
Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang died on Friday, state
television and radio announced. Quang, 61, died
in hospital on Friday morning from a “serious illness despite
efforts by domestic and international doctors and professors,”
Vietnam Television reported.