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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

A bitcoin investor has sued telecommunications giant AT&T for $224 million after losing millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency in a theft that he says is the cellular service provider’s fault. According to CNBC, California resident Michael Terpin has filed a 69-page complaint against AT&T in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, in which he

The post Bitcoin Investor Sues AT&T for $224 Million after Mobile-Linked Theft appeared first on CCN

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Stocks fell Wednesday after the Chinese technology giant Tencent reported a rare profit decline. Technology and energy companies took the biggest hits following the disappointing earnings report, which stoked fears of slowing growth. The dollar rose, and Treasury yields fell. 

Here's the scoreboard:

Dow Jones industrial average: 25,161.45 −138.47 (-0.55%)

S&P 500: 2,818.98 −20.98 (-0.74%)

Nasdaq Composite: 7,774.93 −95.96 1.22%)

1. Amid escalating tensions between Washington and Ankara, Turkey hiked tariffs on American imports including vehicles, tobacco and alcohol. The Trump administration had last week announced it would double tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum. Following Turkey's announcement, the country secured a $15 billion investment from Qatar.
2. Federal securities regulators sent subpoenas to Tesla after CEO Elon Musk tweeted about plans to take the company private last week. "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured," Musk said in the tweet that is under scrutiny for possibly breaking federal securities law. Goldman Sachs is advising Musk on his privatization plans.
3. US retail activity sped up more than expected last month. Retail sales jumped a seasonally adjusted 0.5% in July from a month before, the Commerce Department said, beating economist forecasts for a 0.1% rise. 
4. Earnings season rolls on. Tencent reported its first profit decline in 13 years. Macy's disappointed with a decline in total sales. Uber, a private company, narrowed its losses from a year earlier but still saw slowing growth.

And a look at the upcoming economic calendar:

• Building permit and housing start numbers are out in the US.
• Walmart and Nvidia report earnings.

SEE ALSO: IT'S OFFICIAL: Goldman Sachs is advising Elon Musk on his plans to take Tesla private (TSLA)

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• Uber gave CNBC its second-quarter fianancials.
•  Uber's Q2 net revenue was $2.7 billion, up 51% from the same quarter last year, and gross bookings were $12 billion, up 41% year-over-year.
• That represents a slight slowdown in growth from Q1.

Uber is cruising toward $10 billion in revenue this year, despite a recent slump in growth, according to the company.

On Wednesday, Uber provided its second quarter financials to CNBC, reporting that the company generated $2.7 billion in net revenue, up 51% from the same quarter last year. Gross bookings were $12 billion, an increase of 41% year-over-year.

Uber's revenue and bookings growth dropped off slightly since Q1.

Here's what Uber told CNBC:

• Net revenue for Q2: Uber reported $2.7 billion, up 51% from the same quarter last year. At that rate, Uber is on track for $10 billion in revenue this year.
• Gross bookings for Q2: Uber reported $12 billion, up 41% year-over-year.
• Adjusted net loss for Q2: Uber reported $659 million, up from $577 million in Q1. There's no standard definition for how a company comes up with this "adjusted" figure.
• Gross cash on hand for Q2: Uber self-reported $7.3 billion at the end of the June quarter. That's an increase of $1 billion from the quarter before.

Uber is a private company, which means the company volunteers these financials to its own investors on a regular basis, but it does not publicly report them in a government filing every quarter. However, in the past, it has shared these figures with the media. 

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has said that he sees the startup on track for a 2019 IPO. It was last valued at $69 billion by private-market investors, though SoftBank recently purchased shares in the company at a $48 billion valuation. 

Read the full CNBC article here>>

SEE ALSO: https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-lyft-win-endorsement-in-santa-monica-california-over-bird-2018-8

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NOW WATCH: An early investor in Uber, Airbnb, and bitcoin explains why it's actually a good sign that no one is spending their crypto

• Verizon will bundle YouTube TV along with 5G in its four initial 5G cities.
• YouTube TV typically runs at $40 a month and offers more than 60 channels, including networks like CBS, Fox, and ESPN.
• The move seems aimed to disrupt the cable industry.

Verizon wants to help give you a great line up of TV channels — without any need for a cord.

The wireless giant will include YouTube TV service and Apple TV 4K along with 5G service to customers in each of its four initial markets — Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento — when the service hits these cities later in 2018.  

The announcement seems an indication that Verizon believes it can compete with rivals in the telecom and pay-TV industries without acquiring content (unlike AT&T, which just closed a massive deal to acquire Time Warner). 

Indeed, amid a buying frenzy for media content that has grasped the broader industry, Verizon has retained its focus on technology and network improvements.

That move isn't just about better cell phone service — Verizon is aiming much higher. It seems to view 5G as a cable-TV alternative.

5G may help accelerate cord cutting

Specifically, the decision to offer bundling of residential broadband service and live TV implies that customers would be able to cut linear-TV subscriptions to get similar programming for free.

"We think our technology and our network is out asset," Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said on CNBC Wednesday. "And whatever partners we can get them and we announced yesterday, partnering with Apple, YouTube — I think we have another way to deal with our assets. Our distribution is fantastic."

YouTube TV typically runs at $40 a month and offers live TV distributed OTT, or "over the top," without a cable subscription. It includes more than 60 channels, including networks like CBS, Fox, and ESPN. Apple TV 4K is a product that allows viewers access to streaming services, like Netflix, HBO, and Hulu, and retails for around $179.

Verizon sees its 5G technology as a way to offer more choices within their home, whether that be how they access the internet or the kinds of content they can stream, a spokesman for Verizon told Business Insider.

Verizon doesn't seem likely to follow AT&T's playbook

"They recognize the value of content but don't feel that they need to control it or own it," said Mary Ann Halford, a former Fox International executive vice president who is now a senior adviser at the strategy consulting firm OC&C Strategy Consultants. "They believe there are plenty of players that are open to licensing or packaging their content with 5G."

Verizon also seems to have disruption of the industry in mind. 5G will give you "totally new innovation, how you can disrupt industries, change the way you're thinking about technologies," Vestberg said Wednesday.

It's unclear financially what the announcement means for consumers. Verizon has yet to announce how much 5G broadband service will cost, and it hasn't confirmed how long it will offer the YouTube TV bundle to customers. 

But what's clear is that Verizon doesn't think it needs to pursue deals to compete with AT&T in the market. It's committed to its focus on 5G and what that means for technology improvements for customers.

"We we started to design the 5G, we decided we'll have a cordless world," Vestberg said. "You're going to get the connectivity that is 100% all of the time. And the speed that you have never seen before wireless."

SEE ALSO: A decision to allow the AT&T-Time Warner merger to go ahead (again) could depend on a random draw — and AT&T may have shot itself in the foot

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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

• Martin Tripp, the former Tesla employee being sued by the company, has filed counterclaims including allegations Tesla tried to intimidate him after he spoke out about waste, quality and safety issues.
• Another former Tesla employee, Cristina Balan, told Business Insider the company silenced her and seven other employees on her team who voiced concern over waste and quality internally.
• Tesla ignored repeated requests for comment on this story.
• At a 2014 meeting, she and Tesla's interior design team voiced concerns about the quality and safety of some of Tesla's parts. She claims these concerns were ignored by Tesla, and that she was then pushed out of the company.
• After being fired she then initiated an arbitration with Tesla claiming whistleblower status and alleging discrimination and retaliation.

In early August, a former Tesla process technician, Martin Tripp, counter-sued the company. 

Tripp claims Tesla, which filed a lawsuit against him in June, falsely accused him of hacking into the company's operating system. He also alleges Tesla waged a smear campaign against him in order to silence his claims of poor part quality and waste at the company.

For another former Tesla employee, Cristina Balan, Tripp's story feels familiar. 

Balan began working for Tesla as an engineer in 2010. In a series of interviews with Business Insider, Balan said she was pushed out of Tesla four years later.

Balan says this happened shortly after she and her seven-member interiors team shared concerns about poor part quality and waste they observed on the job with their superiors. Balan sued Tesla alleging discrimination, retaliation, and other issues. A multi-year arbitration ensued.

Business Insider reviewed emails, testimonies, text messages and other information from Balan's tangle with Tesla.

Here's how a once-celebrated Tesla engineer — who used to work on top secret projects for Tesla's top brass and whose initials were actually carved onto the battery of the Model S — says she wound up on the wrong side of the company.

It could be a cautionary tale for what Martin Tripp is about to face.

A Saturday venting session spirals: 'I feel like a sheep in a slaughterhouse'

In March 2014, Balan and her interiors team had brewing concerns about Tesla.

They worried about design flaws in the cars and felt their concerns were being overlooked or mishandled by managers.

According to internal emails and testimony from the arbitration, Balan's team had every intention of taking their issues straight to Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk. 

Musk had, after all, told employees that Tesla was not a hierarchical company. They should feel free to approach him whenever they deemed it necessary.

Before she scheduled a meeting with Musk, though, Balan reached out to one of the heads of her department, Chris Porritt, who was Tesla's VP of Vehicle Engineering. Porritt asked to meet with Balan and the team about their concerns.

They met with him on a Saturday for a meeting that lasted around 2 hours.

There, they described an aggressive, high-pressure atmosphere. They also described a version of business-as-usual at Tesla that was full of part defects, opaque relationships with suppliers and waste. 

The engineers said they felt frustrated because they believed their immediate bosses may have been shielding them from contacting suppliers. This made it difficult for the interiors team to finish projects thoroughly and correct design flaws.

Balan said she suspected this bottleneck was really just a way for her bosses to hide mistakes. For instance, her concern about the so-called "rat hole" — a gap she had found in the design of the Model S's roof headliner that separated the roof from the rest of the car — had been met with what Balan saw as clear resistance from her managers.

Tesla, she claimed, ultimately stuffed a piece of styrofoam in the gap of the $100,000 car to fix it. And while the DIY-sounding solution didn't present a safety issue, Balan said it did create a rattling noise in some of the vehicles, which customers later complained about. 

At the Saturday meeting, members of the group shared instances when they felt their attempts to fix faulty Tesla car parts were thwarted by management. 

One engineer said he had wanted to fix a problem with the Model S's driver's seat floor mat since 2012. As designed, the floor mat could potentially interfere with the brake, the engineer claimed.

But when he tried to investigate the issue with the supplier, his managers stopped him and either demanded to take over or asked him to focus on something else, he said.

The engineer told the group that the still-unfixed floor mats were a safety issue, even as Tesla had tens of thousands of cars on the road. Porritt agreed. Porritt also lamented that the company would potentially have to scrap $90,000 worth of defective parts. 

Tesla ignored repeated requests for comment on this exchange.

Porritt agreed with just about everything the team said during that long Saturday meeting. He listened when the employees complained about being allegedly bullied by managers. He thanked them for meeting and said that what was happening on their team was certainly not "the Tesla way."  He also said the team could trust him and he promised to help find a solution.

Instead, in the following days, the team members were pulled into meetings with their bosses and pressured to recant their statements, according to text messages, emails, and arbitration documents seen by Business Insider. 

"I feel like a sheep in a slaughterhouse," one engineer wrote in a text to teammates.

Another engineer who attended the meeting later testified that he felt pressured to deny his attendance at the meeting with Porritt and any complaints about the team's superiors. He said he felt that if he didn't, he might lose his job and claimed the rest of the team felt the same way.

Balan's Final Days

Tesla handled Cristina Balan differently from her colleagues.

In emails dated April 2nd, 2014, her managers and a member of Tesla's HR team discussed how to deal with her going forward and, according to emails viewed by Business Insider, they did not see much of a future for her at Tesla.

Balan understood she had become an increasing headache to her immediate superiors with whom she constantly clashed, so superiors and HR discussed a plan to either coach her or determine other paths for her, according to an email.

They decided to check in with Balan about her health rather than any work performance issues. She had expressed concern about it to a superior months before, and had health issues during her first stint at Tesla. Then they would decide the best way forward, according to their correspondence.

"If for any reason we are unable to substantiate the health issue, we will need to then set a different plan of action," Tesla's HR wrote in the email to Balan's managers and Porritt. 

Tesla ignored repeated requests for comment on this email exchange.

Balan ultimately left Tesla on April 16th, 2014, less than a week after Tesla's counsel told her via email that she was the only person on her team who "accused" her managers "of wasteful spending and the covering up that wasteful spending."

"You were the only one who made the accusation to Chris," Tesla's counsel said in an email. "You were the only one who made such an accusation to HR. Thus there is no reason for me to speak to the others who complained to Chris..."

Balan said it felt as if Tesla wanted to go on as if the Saturday meeting with Porritt never happened, and none of her colleagues had ever spoken up at the company. 

Electric culture shock

In the arbitration that followed her departure, Tesla claimed that Balan resigned in 2014 because she didn't get along with her bosses and couldn't get work done.

Tesla's lawyers argued that she complained often and was only concerned with her own designs.

A former colleague familiar with the situation who felt Balan was a "creative," capable engineer, also said she was overly excitable and too intense.

But Balan maintains a belief that her resignation was prompted by a campaign to "push her out of Tesla" after she and her team complained about quality issues with cars.

Balan said she believes that even in the subsequent arbitration, Tesla found ways to continue to discredit and silence her.

Balan recorded conversations with her colleagues while at Tesla, but the former San Francisco Superior Court judge who presided over the arbitration would not allow any of them to be used in the case.

The arbitrator found that Tesla underpaid Balan by misclassifying her as an employee below her talent level. But he did not find that there had been any gender discrimination or that Balan was a whistleblower.

The defects she was concerned about, like the "rat hole," were simply not a safety risk to the arbitrator, and Tesla's witnesses also denied that the defects were severe.

Balan said she was offered to settle with Tesla "seven or eight times" and the money she was offered would have allowed her to stop working for at least a decade. But Tesla wanted Balan to sign away her right to speak about her experience, which she found troubling, so she never agreed.

"We are living in an era of autonomous driving and artificial intelligence," Balan told Business Insider. "We cannot afford to have engineers on that level being afraid to speak up [when they see mistakes]. We cannot afford this."

Two Teslas. Same Tripp.

To Balan, her story is a tale of two Teslas. 

During her first stint at the company, Balan worked in the battery department. There, she said everything was about pushing creativity and innovation, and saving every penny the fledgling company could find.

But her experience on the interiors team felt different.

"As soon as the Model S came out the door and Elon realized how cool he’d become, everything went down the drain," she said. 

She said she feels Tesla went from a scrappy startup with high integrity to one engulfed by Silicon Valley hype.

When a company becomes the hot company to work for and rich with funding, the type of people who flock to work can change. Priorities sometimes change. And culture can change too.  

"The reason Tesla is what it is is because it transformed from a company of innovation to a company of sales," Balan said. "The only thing they care about is how many cars they come up with per week. It doesn’t matter what the quality is."

This opinion is perhaps why Balan saw so much of her story in Martin Tripp, the former technician who is now counter-suing Tesla.

Like Balan, Tripp is trying to claim whistleblower status after he pointed out perceived issues with Tesla's production process to Business Insider.

He claims in his filing that the quality of Tesla's battery manufacturing is low — to the point of dangerous — and that he fears batteries could overheat and go into thermal runaway. He also claims that Tesla's production process is so wasteful that it's not living up to its environmental mission.

Also like Balan, he claims that now the company is trying to intimidate him into silence. 

"I think they are just too full of themselves," Balan said of Tripp's situation. "They think Tesla can get away with everything. And it worked — up until now."

SEE ALSO: Internal documents reveal Tesla is blowing through an insane amount of raw material and cash to make Model 3s, and production is still a nightmare

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• Goldman Sachs is working with Tesla on its bid to go private, the bank confirmed Wednesday.
• It's still unclear whether there was a formal agreement when Elon Musk tweeted about working with the Wall Street firm.
• Follow Tesla's stock price in real-time here.

Two days after Elon Musk said he was "excited to work with Silver Lake and Goldman Sachs" as financial advisers in his bid to take Tesla private, at least half of the tweet has been confirmed.

In a note to clients Wednesday, Goldman Sachs said it was suspending research coverage of Tesla because it was "acting as a financial advisor in connection with a matter that is fundamental to the reasonable analysis of the rating and price target for the stock."

"Earnings estimates during this period will be made without regard to the proposed matter," Goldman said, adding that the "not rated" status "will continue until such time as sufficient information is available, and/or contingencies appear resolved, to allow such analysis."

It is typical for a bank to suspend coverage when its investment-banking unit does business with a company under the bank's sell-side department's research coverage. The two departments of any given bank are legally required to maintain independence through what is known as a Chinese wall.

It's unclear whether the arrangement was finalized at the time of Musk's tweet. On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that the Goldman Sachs Tesla analyst David Tamberrino had not yet received a mandate to suspend coverage at the time of the tweet.

Curiously enough, Goldman Sachs is one of the most bearish on Wall Street when it comes to Tesla. It's surprising that Musk, who has often publicly bemoaned his skeptics and short sellers, would choose such a pessimistic firm. A University of Michigan professor told Business Insider last week that companies were much more likely to choose a firm with a more favorable outlook on the stock.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Silver Lake, the other half of Musk's tweet, had been assisting in an unpaid role with the transaction but had not yet been formally tapped as an adviser.

Musk's cryptic tweets have wreaked havoc on Tesla's stock price since his first announcement last Tuesday. After surging to an all-time high of $389 shortly after Musk suggested there was "funding secured" to take Tesla private, shares have since given up all their gains.

Shares sank another 4% on Wednesday, as low as $333, after a Fox Business report said the Securities and Exchange Commission had formally subpoenaed Tesla over Musk's tweets. That report follows stories from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg saying the top stock regulator was investigating Musk's tweets.

Goldman's confirmation has brought Tesla up from its session lows, and the stock is now trading down about 4%, at $336.

Tesla shares are up about 5% this year.

More about Tesla's bid to go private:

• The SEC reportedly sent subpoenas to Tesla concerning Elon Musk's tweets about taking Tesla private
• Elon Musk may only face a minor fee if the SEC investigates his tweetstorm about taking Tesla private — here's why
• Members of Tesla's board of directors are said to be lawyering up as crisis around Elon Musk deepens
• Elon Musk says he's hired Goldman Sachs to help take Tesla private — even though the bank's analyst is one of the most bearish on Wall Street
• Pressure mounts on Tesla as it gets hit with a third securities fraud lawsuit in wake of Elon Musk's 'funding secured' tweet
• There's an X-factor in Tesla's go-private deal that no one is considering while they try to figure out what Elon Musk is thinking

Now read:

• There’s a $1 trillion question hanging over stocks right now — and the answer could determine the ultimate fate of the market
• One dirty word keeps popping up as Wall Street weighs the next market crash — and it should strike fear into the hearts of investors everywhere

SEE ALSO: The SEC reportedly sent subpoenas to Tesla concerning Elon Musk's tweets about taking Tesla private (TSLA)

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

• Netflix plunged as much as 4.89% Wednesday, hitting its lowest level in more than 3 months.
• Shares have been under pressure since the streaming giant reported disappointing second-quarter results.
• Netflix "is in a vicious spiral to the bottom in content spend," long-standing Netflix bear Michael Pachter recently told Business Insider.
• Watch Netflix trade in real time here.

Netflix plunged as much as 4.89% Wednesday, hitting a low of $321, a level not seen in more than three months. Shares are trading in a bear market — down more than 23% from their June highs.

Wednesday's selling comes as tech stocks have come under pressure in the wake of Chinese tech giant Tecent reporting its first profit drop in almost 13 years. The disappointing results have reignited fears the tech giants responsible for the market's gains this year are becoming vulnerable.

Netflix shares have been under pressure ever since the streaming giant reported underwhelming second-quarter results on July 16. The company posted $3.91 billion of sales and added 5.1 million subscribers, missing the $3.94 billion and 6.3 million that Wall Street analysts were expecting. Netflix also warned of subscribers would fall short of estimates in the third quarter.

All these underperformance are warning signals in the eyes of Michael Pachter of WedBush, a long-standing Netflix bear. "They're in a vicious spiral to the bottom in content spend," Pachter, who has a $125 price target, recently told Business Insider. 

He says Netflix needs to raise its prices to around $20 a month, nearly double its current fee of $10.99 a month.

Netflix shares are up 70% this year. 

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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

• The US dollar has already been rallying this year, which puts emerging markets with dollar-denominated debt in a hard position.
• A currency crisis in Turkey could lead to a "rapid appreciation," analysts warn.
• Follow the dollar in real time here.

A rallying US dollar has been clobbering emerging market currencies this year, and analysts warn it could soon appreciate further and faster.

"The dollar right now is a flat-track bully, really," Deutsche Bank macro strategist Alan Ruskin said Wednesday on CNBC. "It's just knocking over every weak currency it can find."

The greenback is up more than 5.5% this year on the Dollar Index, which measures the currency against a basket of peers. And an unwinding currency crisis in Turkey, which has trimmed more than a fifth of the lira's value in the past week, could accelerate its climb.

If Turkey were to introduce capital controls and repudiate some of its foreign debt, Macquarie strategists Viktor Shvets and Perry Yeung said the dollar could see a rapid appreciation.

"We are concerned that declining liquidity, attempts to raise rates & China’s hesitancy is a recipe for stronger US$," they wrote in a note. "Turkey might tip it over."

Any sharp rise in the dollar's value could raise risks for emerging markets even further as it puts those with large amounts of dollar-denominated debt, including Turkey, in difficult positions. Some currencies that have already been affected by contagion fears include the South African rand and the Indian rupee, which hit an all-time low Tuesday. 

"Currencies are far too complex to forecast," they wrote. "But getting the dollar wrong is deadly."

Issuing a reserve currency comes with downsides. According to the Triffin dilemma, a theory named after a Belgian economist, a country has to run increasing deficits or find other ways to achieve sufficient liquidity. That can create a balancing act between short-term domestic objectives and a global agenda.

"It is not only a problem for issuing country but it is also a major headache for the rest of the world," Shvets and Yeung said.

But William Jackson, chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics, doesn't think "significant" capital controls are likely to happen in Turkey.

"The economy is heavily dependent on foreign funding and the imposition of some controls might raise fears about the next steps, leading to a slowdown in foreign inflows," Jackson said. 

SEE ALSO: The lira surged 7% after Turkey hit back at US 'attacks' by slapping American cars, alcohol, and tobacco with huge tariffs

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The Bitcoin market on Wednesday attempted a decent bullish recovery, extending the recent marginal gains to an impressive 10% upside from the previous lows. The Asian trading session witnessed an influx of buying orders in an attempt to pierce through $6,500-resistance. As we hiccuped through the European course, the bullish sentiment weakened and pulled the

The post Bitcoin Price Intraday Analysis: BTCUSD Recovers on Weak Upside Promise appeared first on CCN

• The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued formal subpoenas to Tesla, Fox Business reported Wednesday.
• Shares of Tesla sank by as much as 4% following the report.
• Follow Tesla's stock price in real-time here. 

Shares of Tesla sank as much as 4% in trading Wednesday as the flurry of news surrounding Elon Musk’s plan to take his electric car maker private continued.

Fox Business reported Wednesday that the US' top equities regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, had issues subpoenas to Tesla regarding its privatization plans and Musk's "funding secured" tweet. Reporter Charles Gasparino said the investigation — which was first reported on by the Wall Street Journal last week and confirmed by Bloomberg — had reached "formal" stages.

Business Insider has not been able to confirm the Fox Business report. Both Tesla and the SEC declined to comment on the report. 

Further complicating Tesla’s situation were subsequent tweets from Musk, saying he was excited to work with Goldman Sachs and the private equity firm Silver Lake on the transaction. However, Bloomberg reported that no formal agreement had been signed between the firms as of Tuesday. Goldman Sachs declined to comment when asked by Business Insider if it had been hired by Musk or Tesla. 

Securities lawyers have told Business Insider that Musk’s tweet, followed up with an explanation that funding was not actually secured at the time of the announcement, could leave Tesla and Musk liable to lawsuits from the SEC and shareholders.

Tesla initially skyrocketed to a new record high of $389.57 shortly after the announcement last week, but has since given up all of its gains and is now trading around $333 — 26% below the $420 price laid out by Musk.

Now read:

• There’s a $1 trillion question hanging over stocks right now — and the answer could determine the ultimate fate of the market
• One dirty word keeps popping up as Wall Street weighs the next market crash — and it should strike fear into the hearts of investors everywhere

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk may only face a minor fee if the SEC investigates his tweet storm about taking Tesla private — here's why

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign up here to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox.

These are the countries most at risk if Turkey's lira crash spirals into a debt crisis

The collapse of the Turkish lira against the dollar is the focus of global markets but emerging market currencies are getting hammered across the board and there are concerns that the issue could spiral from a currency crisis into a debt crisis.

The Indian rupee hit an all-time low against the dollar overnight, the South African rand has been diving, Argentina's central bank hiked rates by 5% on Monday to arrest the peso's decline, and Indonesia's government is meeting to discuss emergency measures to defend the sinking rupiah.

"EM [emerging market] currencies (judged by the Bloomberg EM currency basket) are now at their lowest nominal value in the past three years - below the level reached in early 2016 at the time of the commodity price fall and period of US$ strength," analysts Stuart Culverhouse and Hasnain Malik from emerging market specialist bank Exotix said in a note on Tuesday.

The SEC reportedly sent subpoenas to Tesla concerning Elon Musk's tweets about taking Tesla private

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent subpoenas to Tesla concerning the company's plans to explore going private and CEO Elon Musk's statements about the process, Fox Business reports.

Fox Business reporter Charles Gasparino said on Twitter that sources suggested the agency was moving into a formal investigation of Tesla.

The Wall Street Journal reported last Wednesday that the SEC had made an inquiry into Tesla about whether one of Musk's tweets regarding the possibility of taking the company private was truthful. And on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the agency was "intensifying" its inquiry.

Apple could launch glasses in 2020, Apple Car in 2023, predicts analyst with strong track record

Apple could release augmented reality glasses by 2020, and a car three to five years after that, highly-respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted in a TF Securities research note distributed on Tuesday.

Kuo's research has a strong track record of accurately describing Apple products often months before they officially launch.

In the speculative note, seen by Business Insider, Kuo discusses how Apple could reach a $2 trillion market cap after it reached the $1 trillion mark earlier this month.

"Services, AR, and Apple Car will create Apple's next trillion-dollar market cap," he wrote in the research note.

In markets news

• Billionaire investor George Soros made a big bet on music streaming services, and it looks like it's paying off

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NOW WATCH: An early investor in Uber, Airbnb, and bitcoin explains why it's actually a good sign that no one is spending their crypto

• The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent subpoenas to Tesla concerning the company's plans to explore going private and CEO Elon Musk's statements about the process, Fox Business reports.
• Fox Business reporter Charles Gasparino said on Twitter that sources suggested the agency was moving into a formal investigation of Tesla.
• Tesla and the SEC declined Business Insider's requests for comment.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent subpoenas to Tesla concerning the company's plans to explore going private and CEO Elon Musk's statements about the process, Fox Business reports.

Fox Business reporter Charles Gasparino said on Twitter that sources suggested the agency was moving into a formal investigation of Tesla.

The Wall Street Journal reported last Wednesday that the SEC had made an inquiry into Tesla about whether one of Musk's tweets regarding the possibility of taking the company private was truthful. And on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the agency was "intensifying" its inquiry.

Tesla and the SEC declined Business Insider's requests for comment. 

Last week, Musk expressed his desire to take Tesla private in a now-controversial tweet.

"Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured," Musk said via Twitter.

Some were confused in the hours and days following the tweet, since Musk did not initially disclose who might provide the funding he mentioned.

The Wall Street Journal reported on August 8 that the SEC had made an inquiry into Tesla about whether one of Musk's tweets regarding the possibility of taking the company private was truthful. On August 9, Bloomberg reported that the agency was "intensifying" its inquiry.

Three lawsuits have been filed against Tesla and Musk alleging securities fraud.

Musk said in a statement on Monday that he used the phrase "funding secured" because he believed there was "no question" Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund would provide funding for a deal to convert Tesla into a private company after a July 31 meeting with the fund's managing director. He made the announcement via Twitter, he said, because he wanted all Tesla investors to know about the possibility of Tesla going private at the same time.

But Musk didn't mention any legally-binding agreements that were in place at the time he sent the "funding secured" tweet ("He has expressed support for proceeding subject to financial and other due diligence and their internal review process for obtaining approvals," Musk said of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund's managing director) and said he was in discussions with the Saudi fund and other investors, which suggested some sources of funding may not have been settled before the tweet was sent.

Musk said all relevant parties would be able to review a proposal before a decision was made about going private. He said a proposal would not be presented, however, until discussions with potential investors were finished.

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund first met with Musk early last year about taking Tesla private, Musk said, adding that they'd met multiple times. After the fund purchased about 5% of Tesla's shares, it requested another meeting with Musk, which Musk said took place July 31. Musk said that during this meeting the fund's managing director "strongly expressed his support" to contribute funding to take Tesla private.

Musk notified Tesla's board of directors of his desire to take Tesla private on August 2, he said. But The New York Times reported on Monday that Musk’s “funding secured” tweet surprised the board, which reportedly had not approved the tweet. According to the Times, Musk told an informal advisor he sent the tweet because he had difficulty keeping information to himself and was frustrated with the company’s critics.

The Times later reported that some board members had hired lawyers to protect themselves from the potential legal fallout of Musk’s statements and urged Musk to stop using Twitter.

On Tuesday, Tesla said its board of directors had formed a special committee to consider any forthcoming go-private proposals.

Tesla has been public since 2010, but Musk has previously said he would like to take Tesla private.

"I wish we could be private with Tesla," Musk said in an interview with Rolling Stone published in November. "It actually makes us less efficient to be a public company."

Last week, Musk said taking the company private was "the best path forward." He said the pressures of being a public company created distractions and promoted short-term thinking that may not produce the best decisions in the long term.

Musk has also said on multiple occasions that Tesla would become profitable by the end of this year and would not need to raise additional funds, despite its increased cash-burn rate in recent quarters.

At the end of June, Tesla said it achieved its goal of making 5,000 Model 3s in one week. Musk previously said that the company would hit that number by the end of 2017 and that sustaining such a production rate was critical for Tesla to become profitable.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk may only face a minor fee if the SEC investigates his tweet storm about taking Tesla private — here's why

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• Tencent reported its first profit decline in nearly 13 years Wednesday.
• Shares are trading down almost 7% on Wednesday.
• The results are weighing on Chinese tech stocks traded in the US. 
• Watch Tencent trade in real time here. 

Chinese tech stocks slid Wednesday in US trade after Tencent reported a surprise 2% drop in second-quarter net profit, the first decline for the Chinese tech giant in nearly 13 years. Tencent shares are down 6.67% following the results.

The results were dragged down by slowing growth in mobile gaming and a decline in PC gaming. Mobile gaming revenue jumped 19% year-over-year, making for a sequential decline of 19%. Meanwhile, PC gaming revenue fell 5% versus a year ago.

Those results are causing a sharp reaction in Chinese internet stocks across the board. Here's the scoreboard:

• Bilibili (BILI) -12% 
• Huya (HUYA) -9%
• Pinduoduo (PDD) -7%
• JD.com (JD) -6%
• IQiyi, the Netflix of China, (IQ) -5.2%
• YY (YY) -5%
• Alibaba (BABA) -4%
• Weibo (WB) -4%
• Baidu, the Google of China, (BIDU) -3%
• Renren, the Facebook of China, (RENN) -2%

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• The US Fed is unwinding its balance sheet, driving up the price of the dollar.
• This is the underlying cause of the Turkish lira crisis.
• Lots of countries, like Turkey, have external debt denominated in US dollars.
• The higher the dollar goes, the more expensive this debt becomes, and the closer we get to "contagion" in the shakier emerging markets.
• The Fed has only just begun.

The chart above shows the value of everything on the US Federal Reserve's balance sheet since the 2008 crisis. This, basically, is how the Fed rescued the global economy: It bought $4.8 trillion in bonds and other assets. Those purchases showered the planet with $4.8 trillion in cash. Some of it probably went into your paycheck.

It was rescue money, basically.

That little dip in the line this year, right near the end? That's the Fed beginning its long reversal. The global economy is now growing nicely. It does not need to be rescued. So it is starting to sell those assets, taking all that cash back.

America is not alone. The European Central Bank is tapering off the increases in its balance sheet, too. After September, there will be no more new rescue euros. In Britain, the Bank of England has started increasing its interest rate — another way of gathering in cash. The rescue sterling are going back into the vault, too.

The rescue money is saying bye-bye

That little dip doesn't look like much. But it represents a coming reduction of $600 billion annually, according to Russ Mould, AJ Bell's Investment Director.

Here is a closeup of the Fed's balance sheet from 2015 through to today:

Ah. That looks a lot more dramatic, doesn't it?

Now you can see why it is causing so much trouble in the global currency markets.

The narrative around Turkey and the crash of the lira is that this is a dispute between US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, over steel and aluminum sanctions, and whether the Turks should give up an America preacher they are holding under house arrest.

But neither of those issues is big enough to wipe 40% off the value of the lira.

The backdrop — the real driver — is the Fed's balance sheet.

As the Fed takes in dollars, it reduces the supply of those dollars globally. The value of each dollar goes up as the supply declines. A relative appreciation in dollars is the same as a relative depreciation for everyone else. That is what you see on this chart from Finviz, below. In dollar terms, most other currencies are taking a big hit:

Turkey has suffered more than everyone else — a 40% collapse in the lira — because its economy was built on high levels of deficit spending and "external" debt. That works when times are good. If your own currency is gaining in value, then it becomes easier over time to pay off debts in foreign currencies. And it tempts you to take on more of this ever-cheaper debt. You can keep an economy roaring along with that stuff.

And Turkey was roaring — 7% GDP growth (compared to 2 or 3% in the US and UK). But while the Turks were enjoying their economic miracle, their gross external debt reached $466 billion, about 60% of GDP, according to Bank of America Merril Lynch analyst Ferhan Salman. 

The global tide of cash is receding

With the global tide of cash receding, and the scarcer dollar going up, it is now much more difficult for Turkey to obtain the money it needs to pay its debts and finance its government spending. The cost of Turkey's dollar-denominated debt is going through the roof as the lira plunges:

This is the tipping point

This is why you're hearing a lot of about "contagion" in emerging markets (small foreign countries, basically) and currency crises. This is why the Australian dollar is taking so many hits: The country does a lot of trade with China, Asia, and all those other Pacific nations. The Australian economy is a train. There has not been a recession Down Under in twenty-six years. But it's using the wrong dollar, so its currency now looks like this:

This is how recessions start

Economies that are doing just fine suddenly discover that their currency is no longer valuable enough to pay their bills. Recessions start like this. If one country can't pay its debts, people start pulling out of other countries like them. 

This chart from Deutsche Bank shows you the global effect of that "little dip" we talked about earlier:

You'll notice that Turkey is actually the second country to be derailed by the strong dollar. Argentina has been grappling with a currency crisis all year.

Who's next?

Russia and Brazil are on the weak end of that chart, and they are major economies. The last time something like this happened was the Russian financial crisis of 1998, in which the entire country defaulted on its debt. Adding those two to the "crisis" list would be serious.

It is not yet clear that we're going to see a repeat of the emerging markets crises of the late 1990s. These things are not guaranteed. Perhaps, this time, it will be different.

But look again at that first chart of the Fed's balance sheet. The reason this is a truly scary moment in economics is that we've already got Argentina and Turkey scrambling, and the Fed has only just begun. There is a long, long way to go.

More on the Turkish lira crisis:

• UBS: Turkey could be heading into a balance-of-payments crisis
• The reason Turkey's economic collapse is so scary is that Iran, Russia, and Syria are waiting in the wings
• The lira's crash 'looks certain to push the Turkish economy into recession and may well trigger a banking crisis'
• Turkey's lira crisis may be down to Erdogan's fundamental misunderstanding of how 'evil' interest rates work

Join the conversation about this story »

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• If the pound ends Wednesday lower, it will have seen its longest losing streak since the financial crisis.
• It will have dropped for 11 consecutive days against the dollar.
• Factors hitting sterling include the rising risk of a no deal Brexit and the currency crisis in Turkey.
• The bad news for investors and Brits going on holiday is that things don't look likely to get better any time soon.
• You can track the pound on Markets Insider.

LONDON — The pound is headed for its longest losing streak against the dollar since the depths of the financial crisis as a perfect storm "unravels" the UK's currency.

After a strong start to 2018, the pound has slumped in recent months and is trading below $1.27 for the first time in 14 months on Wednesday. Sterling hit a low of $1.2669 during mid-morning trade.

If the pound remains at this level, it will mark 11 consecutive days of losses against the dollar. That would be a run not seen since 2008 during the depths of the global financial crisis.

"The pound seems to be unraveling against the US dollar due to a confluence of factors," ING currency strategist Viraj Patel told Business Insider on Wednesday.

Patel identified three separate drivers of recent weakness: first, the continued uncertainty around whether or not Britain will secure a Brexit deal; second, the fact that August is generally a weak month for the pound; and third, geopolitical concerns, particularly around trade wars and the growing crisis in Turkey.

On the first point, a 'no deal' Brexit is seen almost universally as a substantial negative for the UK economy and, by extension, the pound. If Britain can't secure an agreement with the EU on post-Brexit trading arrangements by next March, the UK will crash out of the EU and trade between the two could slow or stop.

The likelihood of a no deal Brexit appears to be rising, with UK Trade Secretary Liam Fox recently saying there is a 60% chance of it happening.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said this morning there would be a sharp fall in the pound in the case of a no deal outcome. In late July, Thu Lan Nguyen, a currency strategist at Germany's Commerzbank warned that the pound would likely suffer losses similar to the night Britain voted to leave the European Union.

"I would anticipate at least a reaction to the extent we saw after the referendum," she said.

Until there is at least a little clarity on a post-Brexit trade deal, the pound is unlikely to rally much.

But that story is not particularly new and Patel believes global uncertainty has played as much — if not more — of a role in the renewed slump of the pound over the last few days.

"While there's the obvious Brexit story, the recent move lower has been a global move," he told Business Insider, adding: "Broad emerging market turmoil is spilling over into a strong US dollar — especially against European currencies."

Emerging market currencies have seen a big downward spike in recent days, spurred by the crisis in Turkey where the lira lost 25% of its value in just a week.

The lira's initial slide came amid rising tensions between the US and Erdogan over trade. US President Donald Trump authorized increased tariffs against Turkey on Friday in response to Turkey's unwillingness to release an American evangelical pastor, Andrew Brunson.

"The pound, therefore, has two sources of risk premia," Patel added. "Domestic Brexit and global political uncertainty. Both are at the highest they've been for a while now — making the pound particularly vulnerable.

"We don't see either fading anytime soon," Patel said. "The momentum in pound weakness is too hard to fight."

SEE ALSO: Here's what a no deal Brexit would mean for the British economy

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• General Electric plunged to a post-crisis low of $12.01 on Wednesday.
• The once-sprawling conglomerate is in the middle of a turnaround effort, led by new CEO John Flannery, but those changes have been slow to change the stock's trajectory.
• Follow GE's stock price in real-time here. 

Shares of General Electric sank 2.7% Wednesday, to hit $12.01, the stock’s lowest level since the financial crisis in 2009.

GE’s gross profit has fallen significantly from $59.19 billion in 2010 to just $11.49 billion in 2017. The stock has fallen in step.

CEO John Flannery, who took over last year from Jeff Immelt, has promised to "maintain a disciplined financial policy” that so far has involved slashing the company’s once-dependable dividend yield and selling or spinning off underperforming units like healthcare and oil and gas.

Flannery has trimmed the once-sprawling conglomerate down to three main industries: aviation, which produces jet engines; power, which supplies power plant turbines; and renewable energy, which makes wind turbines. Together, these three units generate about $71 billion in annual revenue, the Boston Globe reported.

"We are aggressively driving forward as an aviation, power and renewable energy company—three highly complementary businesses poised for future growth," Flannery said in a June press release.  "We will continue to improve our operations and balance sheet as we make GE simpler and stronger."

Wall Street appears to be slightly convinced of Flannery’s turnaround efforts, giving the stock an average price target of $15.75, 30% above where the stock was trading Wednesday.

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SEE ALSO: The world's biggest marijuana stock is surging after a $4 billion investment from the maker of Corona (CGC)

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Crypto exchange Gemini CEO Tyler believes “it will take time” for the majority of Wall Street to enter the cryptocurrency sector. The Winklevoss brothers also said they won’t be slowing down anytime soon after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected their proposal for a Bitcoin ETF recently, speaking in a Bloomberg interview. It’s been

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• Constellation Brands is upping its stake in Canopy Growth by $4 billion to 38%.
• The investment overshadowed a bigger-than-expected first-quarter loss by the Canadian cannabis company.
• Shares of CGC surged more than 50% following the announcement.
• Follow Canopy's stock price in real-time here. 

Canopy Growth, the largest publicly traded marijuana company, fell short of Wall Street’s earnings expectations on Tuesday, but news of a new investment overshadowed the larger-than-expected loss. 

Shares of the Canadian company surged more than 50% in early trading Wednesday after Canopy announced Constellation Brands — the $42 billion company behind Corona — had upped its investment in the marijuana grower by $4 billion and now owns a 38% stake.

Canopy Growth said in a press release that the proceeds will allow it to "strategically build and/or acquire key assets needed to establish global scale in the nearly 30 countries pursuing a federally permissible medical cannabis program, while also rapidly laying the global foundation needed for new recreational cannabis markets."

In an interview with Business Insider in July, Canopy Growth's CEO, Bruce Linton, explained he wouldn't have chosen just any alcohol brand to work with, but that Constellation's entrepreneurial spirit made it stand out despite its $42 billion market cap.

"Part of the reason we like them isn't just because they're a diversified beverage maker — meaning they do beer, wine, and spirits — but because they're actually entrepreneurial," he said. 

"Why are you having a beverage on a Friday night? It's about a social lubricant. I think they didn't view themselves as a beverage company so much as an entity that provides those occasions with some kind of lift if you will — and that's an easy way to look at cannabis, not as a threat, but as an alternative or additional."

Constellation shares rose about 3.7% in early trading following the announcement. 

For the first quarter of 2019 (ended June 30,2018), Canopy posted a loss of $0.40 a share, far outpacing the $0.11 loss that was expected. Revenue also fell short of the expected $26.33 million, at $25.9 million.

"With our unparalleled success in Canada and Europe, Spectrum Cannabis’ expanding global operational footprint now covering 11 countries, our active regulatory and global market development efforts, as well as approvals to proceed with the first of many planned clinical trials of cannabis-based medical therapies for both humans and animals, our leadership position in international medical cannabis markets continues to strengthen,” Bruce Linton, Canopy’s chief executive, said in a press release.

Linton also said 36% of Canopy’s total supply was now committed to its home country of Canada. When Canada's government voted to legalize marijuana throughout the country earlier this year, Canopy’s stock surged. But in as nascent an industry as cannabis, shares took a 5% hit on Tuesday when the province of Ontario, home of Canada's largest city, said it would delay the roll out of private retail stores.

Wednesday’s gains, if materialized when markets open, could easily take Canopy’s stock price past Wall Street’s $30 target, as high as $37.

Canopy is up 29% this year.

*An earlier version of this article misstated the size of Constellation's $4 billion investment. 

Now read: 

• There’s a $1 trillion question hanging over stocks right now — and the answer could determine the ultimate fate of the market
• One dirty word keeps popping up as Wall Street weighs the next market crash — and it should strike fear into the hearts of investors everywhere

SEE ALSO: Millennials are snapping up the world’s largest publicly traded marijuana company ahead of its earnings report

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

• Macy's beat on the top and bottom lines.
• Sales slumped 1.1% versus a year ago.
• The retailer raised its full-year earnings and sales forecasts.
• Watch Macy's trade in real time here.

Macy's reported second-quarter results that topped Wall Street estimates and raised its outlook for earnings and sales for the full year. However shares are down more than 5% ahead of the opening bell as the better than expected results came as sales slumped.  

The retailer earned an adjusted $0.70 a share, beating the $0.50 that Wall Street analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were anticipating. Net sales in the second quarter dropped 1.1% to $5.57 billion, from $5.64 billion, but beat the $5.55 billion that was expected.

The company also reported comparable sales on an owned basis that were flat in the second quarter versus a year ago.

"Our strategic initiatives are gaining traction," Macy's Chairman and CEO Jeff Gennette said in the earnings release.

"They contributed to our first half results and will continue to have a positive impact on our performance in the back half of the year. This, combined with continued strong execution and a healthy consumer spending environment, gives us confidence to raise sales and earnings guidance for fiscal 2018,” said Gennette.

Macy's now expects to earn an adjusted $3.95 to $4.15 a share in fiscal 2018, up from its previous estimate of $3.75 to $3.95. Wall Street was hoping for full-year earnings of $3.85. 

As for full-year sales, the retailer sees them flat to up 0.7% versus a year ago. It previously forecast a drop of 1% to an uptick of 0.5%.

Macy's shares were up 66% this year through Tuesday. 

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• Commodity prices across the board sell off on emerging market crisis contagion fears and a stronger dollar.
• Industrial metals in particular are suffering, with copper falling to its lowest level in more than a year.
• Oil is also falling, pushed lower by a combination of contagion and rising inventories.
• You can track the latest movements at Markets Insider.

Commodities across the board are selling off on Wednesday as the emerging market currency crisis continues to wreak havoc in global markets.

Metals in particular are suffering as a higher dollar caused by the EM currency sell-off pushes commodity prices sharply lower.

Copper is being hit, dropping to a low not seen in over a year. The industrial metal, used in electronics and wiring, is down by close to 4% at 11.50 a.m. BST (6.50 a.m. ET), trading at just $5,884 per metric tonne, according to Markets Insider data. It has not been below $6,000 since summer 2017.

Other metals are also feeling the pain, with aluminium down 3%, lead losing 2.9%, and platinum falling 3.3% on the day.

Here's the scoreboard for industrial metals:

Oil is also having a bad day, dropping thanks to a combination of emerging market woes, and news out of Saudi Arabia that it is considering ending recent increases in production.

Prices per barrel for West Texas Intermediate oil are down 0.86% to $66.06.

"There are signs that the dominant OPEC member sees risks of a return to oversupply," Ken Odeluga, market analyst at City Index said in an email.

"With global cyclical indicators beginning to warn in chorus that growth outside of the United States will become more uneven and slower on approach to 2019, oil demand is expected to moderate, at least."

Odeluga pointed in particular to the recent data on increasing oil stocks in the USA. On Monday, for instance, data from market research firm Genscape showed inventories at the Cushing delivery hub for WTI rose by 1.7 million barrels in the week ending August 10.

Commodity prices dislike a strong dollar, and thanks to the growing crisis in Turkey, which risks contagion in other emerging markets, the greenback has rallied sharply in recent days. The Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar against a basket of currencies, has risen close to 2% in the last week, and is trading at its highest level since last June.

SEE ALSO: The lira surged 7% after Turkey hit back at US 'attacks' by slapping American cars, alcohol, and tobacco with huge tariffs

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Over the past 12 hours, Bitcoin and Ethereum have risen by more than 6 percent in value, but some analysts are still not convinced about the short-term trend of the crypto market. Generally Positive Sentiment The quick recovery of Bitcoin and Ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, has led the general sentiment of

The post Bitcoin and Ethereum Rise 6% as Market Rebounds During Dark Skies appeared first on CCN

Bitcoin looks to have fought off recent bear attacks that saw prices landing just above the yearly low of $5,755.

• Chief Executive pay at Britain's largest companies grew six times faster than the wider workforce from 2016 to 2017, a review by The High Pay Centre has found.
• Median pay of bosses rose 11% to £3.9 million while the salaries of employees struggled to keep up with inflation, the study found.
• It revealed that an employee on a median salary of £23,474 would have to work 167 years to make the same amount that a FTSE 100 boss on median pay makes in a year

Chief executive pay at Britain's largest listed companies grew six times faster than the salaries of the wider workforce, as pay for an average FTSE 100 CEO rose to £3.9 million ($5 million per year).

CEO median pay rose 11% among FTSE 100 bosses in 2017 as remuneration for the rest of the workforce went up by just 1.7%, an annual review by The High Pay Centre has found.

The report revealed that an employee on a median salary of £23,474 would have to work 167 years to make the same amount that a FTSE 100 boss on median pay makes in a year, up from 153 years in 2016.

The CEO’s with the largest pay were Simon Peckham, the boss of corporate turnaround firm Melrose at £42.8 million per year, and Jeff Fairburn of housing and construction firm Persimmon at £47.1 million, more than 20 times his pay in 2016.

The review's median figures give an accurate representation of pay for the middle-of-the road worker and CEO without the risk of being skewed by large and small anomalies at either end of the scale as averages can be.

When calculated by averages the figures are higher still, showing a 23% increase in CEO pay from 2016 to 2017. 

"Investors have repeatedly highlighted their concerns with excessive CEO pay, so it is frustrating that the message does not appear to be getting through to some FTSE 100 boardrooms," Andrew Ninian, director of stewardship and corporate governance at the Investment Association told The Guardian.

This year we have seen more FTSE 100 companies get significant votes against their remuneration reports than in previous years," he added.

The report which was put together by Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development comes after statistics released on Tuesday showed that wage growth in Britain slowed to its weakest rate in 43 years.

Chair of UK Parliament’s House of Commons business committee, Rachel Reeves, said that "Excessive executive pay undermines public trust in business. When CEOs are happily banking ever-larger bonuses while average worker pay is squeezed, then something is going very wrong."

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• UK rate of consumer price inflation rises to 2.5% in July, up from 2.4% in the previous month, according to the Office for National Statistics.
• The rise in inflation was down in part to the increased cost of video games in the UK, as well as higher transport fares.
• CPIH, the ONS' preferred method of measuring inflation was at 2.3% in July, unchanged from the previous month.

LONDON — Inflation in the UK climbed in the month of the July, as had been expected, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics released on Wednesday.

The ONS reported that the rate of consumer price inflation, the most watched measure, increased from 2.4% in June, to 2.5% in July, reversing a trend of gradually declining inflation over the course of 2018.

CPIH, the ONS' preferred method of measuring inflation was at 2.3% in July, unchanged from the previous month.

"Transport tickets and fuel, along with often erratic computer game prices, drove up costs for consumers," the ONS' head of inflation, Mike Hardie, said in a statement alongside the data release.

"On the other hand, there was a drop in prices for women’s clothing and footwear, and some financial services," he added.

Inflation in the UK had been subdued for several years prior to the vote to leave the EU in June 2016. But the vote caused a fall in the value of the pound which pushed up inflation. As the pound has recovered, inflation once again started to fall, dropping from 3% at the end of 2017, to 2.4% last month.

It has now risen again, although the ONS suggested this is likely a blip, noting that computer game prices — which helped drive inflation higher — are "highly variable from month to month."

The latest inflation figures come just 24 hours after the ONS showed that unemployment in the UK has fallen to just 4%, a low not witnessed since the early 1970s. 

Tuesday's data also showed that real wages in the UK continue to grow, although not by much, something that will be made worse by Wednesday's higher inflation reading.

"These figures show that the cost of living squeeze is not yet a thing of the past," Tej Parikh, a senior economist at business lobbyist the Institute of Directors said in an email.

"For households this isn’t good news, as the already weak growth in their pay packets is being further eroded by high prices. This is likely to weigh down consumer spending, posing fresh problems for embattled high street businesses," he added.

SEE ALSO: Britain's unemployment rate has plunged to 4% — a level not seen in more than 40 years

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• Turkey's currency, the lira, bounced back sharply on Wednesday morning, falling back below six per dollar.
• It appears that the move was triggered by the introduction of new rules by the BDDK — Turkey's banking watchdog — designed to stop investors betting against domestic assets.
• The lira remains more than 14% from this time last week.
• Also on Wednesday, the Turkish government doubled tariffs on a number of US imports, including cars and alcohol.

LONDON — Turkey's downtrodden currency, the lira, surged on Wednesday morning hours after the country's government hit back at what it believes are "deliberate attacks" against its economy by the US, by levying significant tariffs against American goods.

Around 8.00 a.m. BST (3.00 a.m. ET), the lira made a rapid and large upwards movement against the dollar, briefly moving back below six to the dollar, and reversing some of the big downwards moves seen over the last week.

By 8.30 a.m. BST (3.30 a.m. ET) the lira was trading at roughly 6.08 to the dollar. The lira, however, remains more than 14% lower than at this time last week.

It appears that the move was triggered by the introduction of new rules by the BDDK — Turkey's banking watchdog — which, according to a Reuters report, has cut "the limit for Turkish banks’ forex swap, spot and forward transactions with foreign banks to 25 percent of a bank’s equity." This move is designed to make it more difficult for Turkish institutions to buy and sell derivatives in foreign markets, and to prevent investors betting against Turkish assets.

The appreciation of the lira also comes just hours after the Turkish government hit numerous American goods being imported to the country with punitive tariffs.

Tariffs have been doubled on goods including cars, tobacco, and alcohol, while coal, rice, and cosmetic products have also been hit by increases.

American automobiles will now be subject to a tariff of 120%, while alcohol will have a 140% tariff rate. The levy on leaf tobacco is at 60%.

"The import duties were increased on some products, under the principle of reciprocity, in response to the U.S.administration’s deliberate attacks on our economy," Fuat Oktay, Turkey's vice president said, according to numerous translations of a tweet he sent in Turkish.

Earlier in the week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked Turkish citizens to boycott the use of American technology like iPhones, in response to US tariffs levied late last week.

The lira's initial slide came amid rising tensions between the US and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over trade. US President Donald Trump authorized increased tariffs against Turkey on Friday, in response to Turkey's unwillingness to release an American evangelical pastor, Andrew Brunson, who has been 

Erdogan exacerbated problems with the currency on Friday when he urged citizens to sell dollars and gold in exchange for lira. He doubled down over the weekend, saying there was a "currency plot" against Turkey and arguing that the fall in the lira was not connected to economic fundamentals.

SEE ALSO: Turkey is blaming social media and 'fabricated news' for the collapse of its currency

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Prime Trust, a Nevada trust company, says it can handle custody for bitcoin, ether and any token issued on ethereum under the ERC-20 standard.

Bitcoin could get better privacy with Taproot, but there's one big obstacle - it can't be deployed until another technology goes through.

• Some members of Tesla's board of directors are hiring lawyers to protect themselves in the ongoing fallout from CEO Elon Musk's public declarations about taking the company private.
• Fellow board members are also urging Musk to cool it with the public statements about a go-private deal, according to a New York Times story published Tuesday night.
• By all appearances, Musk has ignored that advice.
• In the days since he tweeted that a privatization deal was "funding secured," the chief executive has only waded further into murky legal territory, seemingly hashing out the plan in real time, on Tesla's blog and on social media.
• Tesla is now facing multiple lawsuits over this.

Some Tesla board members are getting nervous while Elon Musk publicly ruminates about taking his electric-car company private — so much that some have hired attorneys to protect themselves from legal exposure, The New York Times reported Tuesday night.

Fellow board members are also urging Musk to cool it with the social media posts about a go-private deal. But by all appearances, Musk has ignored that advice. The chief executive has talked out the plan on Tesla's blog and on Twitter, even as the Securities and Exchange Commission said it was monitoring the situation.

It is unusual for the CEO of a publicly traded company to approach financial strategy the way Musk has in the past week. The company is now facing multiple lawsuits over this.

Musk's online musings have rattled shareholders, and, according to the Times, that anxiety is most tangible among some on the board. Independent members have hired Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to address the emerging SEC inquiry. A source familiar with the matter cited by the newspaper said the board believes the SEC matter could become a "full-blown investigation."

Three directors have retained the law firm, Latham & Watkins, to assist them with an official proposal from Musk to take Tesla private.

Musk's first tweet about going private reportedly caught the board off guard, The New York Times reported on Monday.

Citing two people familiar with the internal response to Musk's August 7 posting, The Times said the tweet was sent "with little forethought," and that "some members of the board had been totally blindsided" by Musk’s move to announce the plan on Twitter.

Read more about Tesla possibly going private:

• There's an X-factor in Tesla's go-private deal that no one is considering while they try to figure out what Elon Musk is thinking
• 'It was, at best, hasty and naive, and, at worst, manipulative': Experts slam Elon Musk's confusing defense of why he tweeted 'funding secured'
• Elon Musk says he is working with Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake to help take Tesla private
• Some of Tesla's board members were reportedly 'totally blindsided' by Elon Musk's tweet about going private
• People close to Saudi investment fund reportedly cast doubt on Elon Musk's claims about negotiations to take Tesla private
• It is now abundantly clear that Elon Musk does not have 'funding secured'

SEE ALSO: Pressure mounts on Tesla as it gets hit with a third securities fraud lawsuit in wake of Elon Musk's 'funding secured' tweet

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• Billionaire George Soros' firm made big bets on the music-streaming industry in the second quarter, according to regulatory filings.
• Soros Investment Management took stakes now worth $178.7 in newly-public Spotify and Pandora, the documents showed.

Billionaire investor George Soros bet big on music-streaming platforms in the second quarter.

His fund, Soros Fund Management, bought 728,700 shares of Spotify currently valued at $122.6 million in the second quarter, according to documents filed Tuesday. It also loaded up on 7.12 million shares of Pandora stock currently valued at $56.1 million, the filing showed. That's a total of $178.7 million invested across the two services.

Although it's not known when exactly Soros took these positions, Spotify spiked 27% in the period from its initial public offering at $132 per share through the end of June. It's since risen another 15%. Meanwhile, Pandora soared 57% in the second quarter, ending the period at $7.88.

Spotify was Soros' fourth-biggest position at the end of the second quarter, trailing Liberty Broadband ($556.1 million), VICI Properties ($443.7 million), and NXP Semiconductors ($209.9 million).

It's possible Soros exited its position at some point during the first half of the third quarter.

According to the 13F, Soros also made the following decisions in the second quarter:

• Bought 500,000 shares of Coupa Software, valued at $31.1 million
• Bought 159,200 shares of Facebook, valued at $30.9 million
• Sold 5.91 million shares of Kennedy-Wilson, valued at $102.9 million
• Sold 283,230 shares of Lam Research, valued at $57.5 million

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• There’s a $1 trillion question hanging over stocks right now — and the answer could determine the ultimate fate of the market
• One dirty word keeps popping up as Wall Street weighs the next market crash — and it should strike fear into the hearts of investors everywhere

SEE ALSO: There’s a $1 trillion question hanging over stocks right now — and the answer could determine the ultimate fate of the market

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