10 things you need to know in markets, October 5

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

The
company logo for Unilever is displayed on a screen on the floor
of the NYSE
Thomson
Reuters

1. US stocks got
hit hard overnight as yesterday’s global
bond rout weighed on risk sentiment. It followed
an equally
rough session for Asian stocks, and ASX
futures are pointing lower this morning.
Benchmark US 10-year bond yields reached a new
seven-year high of 3.23%, before edging back to around 3.19%. As
trading volumes in global bond markets surged, the yields on both
UK and German 10-year debt also rose sharply.

2. All-important US employment data
will take center stage today, as evidence of strong jobs growth
and higher wages could see bond yields rise again. The bond
market selloff on Wednesday night was partly due to strong ADP
payroll figures, which raised expectations for a bumper jobs
print later today.

3. Samsung Electronics on Friday said its

third-quarter operating profit likely rose to a record
high, on demand from data centers and improved production
yields. The third quarter is, however, expected to mark a
peak in earnings as a two-year super cycle of tight supply and
soaring demand comes to an end, with prices of some types of
chips already sliding sharply.

4. Wells Fargo is
planning its first post-crisis offering of bonds tied to US home
loans without government backing, Bloomberg reported
on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The
$441 million non-agency bond will include top portions, which
will be rated AAA and the sale will be finalized next week,
according to the report.

5. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said on Thursday its
head of institutional platform group and fifth employee, Adam
White,
is stepping down from his role. White’s
departure comes a day after the company said former chief
executive of brokerage Instinet Jonathan Kellner will be the
managing director of its institutional coverage group. Apart from
this job role, Kellner will take some parts of White’s role,
Coinbase spokesman Elliott Suthers said in a statement.

6. Apple is denying just about every fact in
a Bloomberg
published a blockbuster
investigation that found that
Chinese spies were able to plant tiny microchips on motherboards
in data servers supplied by SuperMicro to a slew of American tech
companies, including Apple. The goal of the Chinese
spies was reportedly to use these microchips to gain access to
sensitive corporate data and other secrets through advanced
hacking,
the Bloomberg report.

7. Warehouse club operator
Costco’s quarterly sales narrowly beat estimates on
Thursday, with online sales losing steam in the face of
intense competition from Amazon and Walmart . Net income
attributable to Costco rose to $1.04 billion, or $2.36 per share,
in the fourth quarter ended Sept.2, from $919 million, or $2.08
per share, a year earlier.

8. Unilever has abandoned its plan to scrap its
dual-listed structure and
move its headquarters to the Netherlands after opposition
from UK shareholders, the Financial Times reported. The
company said after a consultation with investors, the plan “has
not received support from a significant group of shareholders and
therefore consider[s] it appropriate to withdraw”.

9. Tesla CEO Elon Musk seemed to
take aim at the Securities and Exchange Commission in a
tweet on Thursday, calling it the “Shortseller
Enrichment Commission.” “Just want to that the Shortseller
Enrichment Commission is doing incredible
work,” he
said. “And the name change is so on point!” The tweet comes
only days after Musk reached a settlement with regulators
requiring Tesla to exercise more oversight of the CEO’s Twitter
account. 

10. The US and the European Union
must quickly flesh out their aim of cutting trade barriers,
German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said ahead of
an EU trade meeting on Friday. US President Donald Trump and
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker agreed in July
to hold back on threatened 25-percent car tariffs while the
United States and Europe talked about cutting other trade
barriers.