10 things you need to know in markets, November 16

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

REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

1.
“Am I going to see this through? Yes.” UK Prime Minister Theresa
May said Thursday evening about Brexit amid doubts about her
tenure as prime minister and after key cabinet members
resigned. She is due to speak on LBC radio at 8.00
a.m. in London. The pound is rebounding against the dollar
after a rout in the currency yesterday. 

2.
Meanwhile, France is preparing various measures, notably those
dealing with customs controls and checks at ports, in case there
is no Brexit deal, said French transport minister
Elisabeth Borne.

3.
Oil prices gained on Friday, supported by expected
supply cuts from OPEC but held back by record U.S.
production. Brent crude oil futures were up 1% at $67.25 a
barrel.

4.
Italy’s draft budget for 2019 “significantly” deviates from
commitments, the vice president of the EU Commission Valdis
Dombrovskis said on Friday, threatening a procedure
for excessive debt against Rome. Earlier this week Italy
re-submitted its draft 2019 budget to the EU Commission with the
same growth and deficit assumptions as a draft previously
rejected for breaching EU rules, stepping up its showdown with
Brussels.

5.
The Department of Justice is preparing to bring charges against
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, The Wall
Street Journal reported Thursday. Over the past year,
prosecutors are said to have discussed a variety of charges they
could bring against Assange, who is currently seeking asylum at
the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

6.Speculators are staging a forceful comeback in China’s
stock market, bidding up shares in loss-making
companies as regulators ease rules around trading, fundraising
and backdoor listings to prop up struggling bourses.

7.
Volkswagen’s supervisory board is due to vote on a multi-billion
euro investment plan on Friday, including steps to
retool three German plants to mass produce electric cars and to
explore alliances with battery partners and rival carmakers.

8.
US President Donald Trump may have shown his cards on the Russia
investigation and it could get him into trouble. In
a ‘self-defeating and self-incriminating’ tweet, Trump seemed to
say that he installed the stand-in US Attorney General to stop
the ongoing Russia probe.

9.
Despite Facebook’s mesmerizing run of scandals, Mark Zuckerberg
insists he’s still the right Zuck to run it. And
because of Facebook’s stock structure Zuckerberg dominates the
company and no-one could force him out anyway.

10.
Prince William has taken a pretty good, out-of-character crack at
tech giants in general. The Prince says social media
juggernauts “seem unable to engage in constructive discussion”
about the hurt they cause.