10 things you need to know in markets September 6

REUTERS

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

1. Global equities remained under pressure with stocks in Asia
down for the sixth straight day on Thursday amid fragile investor
confidence in the wake of turmoil in emerging markets and anxiety
about a major escalation in the U.S.-China trade
conflict. Investors were focused on the Sino-U.S.
trade war with a public consultation period in the United States
ending Thursday on additional $200 billion of U.S. tariffs on
Chinese goods.

2. Prices for Ethereum have fallen to their lowest level in a
year. The world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency has
been caught in the latest crypto selloff, which
saw Bitcoin lose around $1,000 over the last 24 hours. Ethereum
has lost around 20% in that time and a short time ago was trading
beneath $230, the lowest level since August 2017.

3. Citigroup on Thursday is expected to announce a restructuring
of its investment banking operations as it seeks to grab more
wallet share in one of Wall Street’s most high-profile
businesses. The firm is said to be combining
its corporate and investment bank with capital markets
origination, a move that will involve the reshuffling of key
senior executives, according to people familiar with the
matter. 

4. Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said on Wednesday the
ride-hailing company was on track to launch an initial public
offering next year and had no plans to sell its self-driving car
research arm. Khosrowshahi told Reuters in an
interview that the company was not planning to sell its Advanced
Technologies Group, which develops the company’s self-driving car
technology, “at this time.”

5. North and South Korea agreed to hold a summit of their leaders
in Pyongyang on September 18-20, and discuss “practical measures”
to realize denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, a senior
South Korean official said on Thursday. North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un “reconfirmed his determination to
completely denuclearise” the Korean peninsula, and expressed his
willingness for close cooperation with South Korea and the United
States.

6. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has hired two lawyers as the Securities
and Exchange Commission reportedly investigates statements Musk
made about converting Tesla into a private company, Fox
Business Network reports. One of the
lawyers Musk reportedly retained, Roel Campos, was an SEC
commissioner from 2002 until 2007. Campos is a partner at the
firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed and lists securities enforcement,
securities litigation, and regulatory cases among his areas of
focus.

7. Separately, 

Tesla’s
stock and bond prices dropped on Wednesday after Musk renewed an
attack on a British caver whom he had previously insulted on
social media and a day after Mercedes unveiled a challenge to the
electric car maker. The $1.8 billion high-yield
bond Tesla issued a year ago hit a record low price on Wednesday.
It also became more expensive to insure Tesla’s bonds against
default.

8. The United States and India are engaged in “very detailed
conversations” over Washington’s request to completely stop
India’s oil imports from Iran, a senior U.S. State Department
official told reporters on Thursday. “We’re
asking all of our partners, not just India, to reduce to zero oil
imports from Iran and so I’m confident that will be part of our
conversation with India,” the official said.

9. Pricing practices within American Express’ foreign-exchange
unit is being probed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar
with the matter. The investigation is in its
early stages and is focused on whether the foreign-exchange
international payments department misrepresented pricing to
clients in order to win their business, the Journal reported.

10. British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline said on Wednesday it would
cut about 650 positions in the United States related to a global
restructuring program it announced in July. The
job cuts would include about 100 each in its back office in
Philadelphia and at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and
450 sales representatives, GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Mary Anne
Rhyne said in a statement.