10 things you need to know in markets, October 12

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

The
alleged gold paste definitely didn’t look like
this.
Pixfiction/Shutterstock

1. Asian shares
held steady after a nine-day losing streak, but sentiment was
frail after Wall Street shares crumbled and expectations of
market volatility shot up to an eight-month high.
Worries about the economic impact of a China-US trade war, a
spike in US bond yields and caution ahead of earnings seasons are
all cited as potential reasons behind the selloff, the biggest
market rout since February.

2. US stocks fell by another 2% overnight. Losses
were led by energy and financial stocks, with smaller falls in
the big tech companies. The S&P500 has now fallen
below its 200-day moving average. Since Tuesday, the Dow Jones
industrial average has shed more than 1,300 points.
Gold surged higher on Thursday, after trading in a narrow
trading range for the best part of two months, breaking the
downtrend its been stuck in since mid-August this year.

3. Richard Branson and Virgin Group
are severing their business relationships with the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia and its leader Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman following the disappearance of Saudi journalist
Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey last week. In a blog post on Virgin Group’s
website, the company’s founder announced that Virgin Galatic
and Virgin Orbit will suspend its discussions with the
Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia. 

4. Kanye West called himself a
“motherf—er”
 in the Oval Office and gave
Trump a massive hug during his bizarre White House visit. He was
at the White House to discuss prison reform, but instead he
touched on a lot of topics during an enthusiastic, erratic
10-minute rant. West, who recently said he has changed his name
to “Ye,” said the speech came from the “soul.”

5.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump
could meet in Paris on Nov. 11 if both leaders take part in
the same event to commemorate the end of World War I,
RIA news agency cited the Russian foreign ministry as saying on
Friday. Russia is open to dialogue and would be ready to
consider times and locations of a possible meeting between the
two leaders if Washington were also interested, the ministry
said.

6. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group
fired over 200 staff for wrongdoing, including senior executives,
due in part to issues raised at a public inquiry into financial
sector misconduct, ANZ Chief Executive Shayne
Elliott said on Friday. In his first public comments addressing
criticism stemming from the quasi-judicial inquiry, Elliott said
the country’s third-biggest bank would take a tougher approach to
punishing bad conduct.

7. The German government
is considering tougher sanctions against companies that foster
criminal behavior in the wake of Volkswagen’s diesel
emissions scandal, the country’s justice minister said.
In an interview published in Friday’s edition of the Handelsblatt
newspaper, Katarina Barley said she had seen a pattern by which
companies try to blame individual managers for any wrongdoing.

8. The
five nations in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network
have been exchanging classified information on China’s foreign
activities with other like-minded countries since
the start of the year, seven officials in four capitals
said. The increased cooperation by the Five Eyes alliance –
grouping Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United
States – with countries such as Germany and Japan is a sign of a
broadening international front against Chinese influence
operations and investments.

9.
Pakistani officials met International Monetary Fund
representatives this week in Bali and formally requested
Islamabad’s 13th bailout since the late 1980s to
give the economy breathing room, while they implement reforms
aiming to end decades of boom and bust cycles. The bailout
highlights the hard choices facing Pakistan and poses a major
headache for populist new Prime Minister Imran Khan.

10. China
reported on Friday an unexpected acceleration in export growth in
September and a record trade surplus with the US,
which could exacerbate an already-heated dispute between Beijing
and Washington. September exports rose 14.5% from a year
earlier, Chinese customs data showed. That blew past forecasts
for an 8.9% increase in a Reuters poll and was well above
August’s 9.8% gain.