Stock market news: Opening bell, August 15, 2018

Warren
Buffett speaks onstage during Fortune’s Most Powerful Women
Summit – Day 2 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on October 13, 2015
in Washington, DC.
Paul Morigi/Getty
Images

Here is what you need to know.

The lira surges after Turkey places huge tariffs on American
cars, alcohol, and tobacco. The Turkish lira
climbed as much as 7.37% Wednesday after the country’s government
announced tariffs of up to 140% on American automobiles, alcohol,
and tobacco. Currently, the currency is up 2.37% at 6.1990 per
dollar. 

UK inflation edges up. Consumer prices in the
UK rose 2.5% year-over-year in July (+2.4% previous) as
transportation and video games drove up costs, according to data
released Wednesday by the Office for National Statistics. 

Members of Tesla’s board of directors are lawyering up as the
crisis around Elon Musk deepens. Some members
of Tesla’s board are scarmbling to protect themselves amid the
fallout from Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s declarations about taking the
company private, the New York Times says. 

Eddie Lampert makes a $500 million offer for Sears
assets. The billionaire hedge fund manager’s
ESL Investments said in a regulatory filing out Tuesday that it
offered $400 million for Sears’ Kenmore brand, and up to $80
million for its SHIP home improvement business, the Financial
Times reports.  

The owner of MoviePass has massively diluted its stock after
announcing its 1-for-250 reverse
split. MoviePass owner Helios & Matheson
has increased its share count by 9,423%  — from 6.7 million
to 636.9 million — between July 31 and August 13, according to a
quarterly report filed Tuesday. 

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway now has a $3 billion stake in
Goldman Sachs. The Warren Buffett-led
conglomerate raised its stake in the Wall Street bank by 21% to
13.2 million shares during the second quarter, according to a
13-F filing out Tuesday. At Tuesday’s closing share price, that
stake is worth more than $3 billion.

Over
half the people who took the CFA exam
failed. The results of the 2018 Chartered
Financial Analyst exam were released on Tuesday, with just 43% of
candidates passing Level I and 45% passing Level II. The Level
III results are due out on August 28.

Stock markets
around the world are lower. China’s Shanghai
Composite (-2.08%) led the losses in Asia and Britain’s FTSE
(-0.4%) trails in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open down
0.23% near 2,834.

Earnings reporting remains slow. Macy’s reports
ahead of the opening bell and Cisco Systems releases its
quarterly results after markets close.

US economic data is heavy. Empire Manufacturing
and retail sales will both be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before
industrial production and capacity utilization cross the wires at
9:15 a.m. ET. Finally, the NAHB Housing Market Index is due out
at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 2 basis points at
2.88%.