10 things you need to know in markets September 28

Tesla CEO Elon
Musk.
Scott Olson / Getty
Images

Good morning! Here is what you need to know on Friday.

1. The Securities and Exchange Commission is
suing Tesla CEO Elon Musk on charges that he made “false and
misleading statements” and wants to bar him from helming a public
company. The SEC says the charges stem from Musk’s tweets about
taking his electric-car company private at $420 a share,
a claim he tweeted to his 22 million followers on August 7.
Tesla shares
fell as much as 11% in after-hours trading on the news.

2. The US Senate Judiciary Committee will
vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court on
Friday morning, after a day of contentious hearings during
which Christine Blasey Ford testified about her claim that
Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, and Kavanaugh testified in his
own defense. If the committee’s confirmation vote on Friday lands
in Kavanaugh’s favor, then senators would move forward with a
procedural vote on the Senate floor Saturday. That could
potentially set up a final confirmation vote next week.

3. The dollar rose against peers,
advancing to a nine-month high versus the yen, after data
reinforced upbeat views about the US economy and backed the
Federal Reserve’s signal for a steady course of rate increases
over the next year. US gross domestic product grew at a 4.2% clip
in the second quarter, the fastest in nearly four years,
according to government data on Thursday.

4. Ryanair is bracing on Friday for
another strike by staff as walkouts in six European
countries, mainly cabin crew, force flight cancellations that
will disrupt the plans of more than 40,000 travellers. Europe’s
largest low-cost carrier has faced a string of strikes since it
recognized trade unions for the first time in December, damaging
bookings and forcing it to consider cutting short-term growth
plans if labor unrest continues.

5. Streaming service
Netflix plans to double its investments in France and produce
14 local shows, twice as many as previously planned, chief
executive Reed Hastings said Friday. Hastings did not disclose
how much Netflix would invest in France, though it would be “many
millions of euros”, he told French radio station BFM Business.

6. Italy’s government on Thursday
targeted the budget deficit at 2.4% of gross domestic product
for the next three years, defying Brussels and marking a victory
for party chiefs over economy minister Giovanni Tria, an
unaffiliated technocrat. Tria had initially wanted a deficit set
as low as 1.6% next year, hoping to respect European Union
demands that Italy progressively cut the fiscal gap to rein in
its high debt.

7. Global
mergers and acquisitions dropped to $783 billion in the third
quarter, down 35% from the prior quarter, as the escalating trade
dispute between the United States and China cast a shadow on the
financial and regulatory prospects of some deals.

8. Britain’s biotechnology industry
has raised a bumper £1.56 billion ($2.05 billion) in the first
eight months of this year, surpassing the £1.2 billion
reached in the whole of 2017, despite anxiety in the sector about
the fallout from Brexit. The increase has been fueled by recent
changes to venture capital tax incentives, according to UK
BioIndustry Association (BIA) CEO Steve Bates, as well as global
investor enthusiasm for drug discoveries emanating from biotech
labs.

9.
Macquarie Bank CEO Nicholas Moore has been implicated in a
financial investigation by German authorities. The inquiry
concerns a complex dividend trading scheme that is currently the
subject of civil litigation. In a statement to the ASX this
morning, Macquarie said the Cologne Prosecutor’s Office is
expected to speak with at least 30 senior staff members involved
in the deal.

10. Sword-wielding headhunter: A senior executive at one of Wall
Street’s top recruiting firms was
arrested for allegedly slashing a bride with a sword after a
dispute broke out. Luckily, the bride suffered non-life
threatening injuries to her arm. The man, however, now faces
multiple charges and has been suspended without pay, pending the
result of the investigation.