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Salesforce beat in its second quarter earnings on Wednesday — its first time reporting since the $6.5 billion MuleSoft acquisition closed in early May.

It beat Wall Street expectations on both the top and bottom lines. However, Salesforce is projecting lower-than-expected earnings for the next quarter, though revenue is expected to be mostly in line with what Wall Street wanted to see. 

The stock was down about 1.5% in after-hours trading after reporting earnings. 

Here's what Salesforce reported:

• Revenue for the quarter (GAAP): Salesforce reported $3.28 billion, up 27% from the year before. Analysts expected $3.23 billion. 
• Earnings per share for the quarter (adjusted): Salesforce reported $0.71. Analysts expected $0.47. 
• Operating cash flow for the quarter: $458 million, up 38% from the year before.
• Revenue guidance for Q3 (GAAP): Salesforce expects $3.355 to $3.65 billion. Analysts were looking for $3.35 billion.  
• Earnings per share guidance for Q3 (adjusted): Salesforce expects to post earnings of $0.49 to $0.50 per share. Analysts were looking for $0.54. 
• Revenue guidance for Fiscal Year 2019 (GAAP): Salesforce expects $13.13 billion to $13.18 billion. Analysts were looking for $13.13 billion.
• Earnings per share guidance for Fiscal Year 2019 (adjusted): Salesforce expects $2.50 to $2.52. Analysts were looking for $2.32.

This story is developing...

SEE ALSO: Inside Salesforce Ventures — the investment arm behind a $1 billion software ecosystem fueling growth

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Strong economic data and optimism for easing global trade tensions powered the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite to touch record highs for a fourth straight session Wednesday. The dollar fell, and Treasury yields inched higher. 

Here's the scoreboard:

Dow Jones industrial average: 26,125.31 +61.29 (+0.24%)

S&P 500: 2,915.51 +17.99 (+0.62%)

Nasdaq Composite: 8,109.69 +79.65 (+0.99%)

1. Canadian officials said NAFTA talks could wrap up by Friday. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland met with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer for a second session of negotiations, days after President Donald Trump threatened to terminate the 24-year-old trade pact and to hit Canada with auto tariffs. 
2. The US economy expanded slightly faster than initially thought in the second quarter, bringing the growth rate to a four-year peak. Gross domestic product grew at 4.2% last quarter, the fastest pace since 2014 and up 0.1 percentage points from the advance estimate, according to revisions by the Commerce Department.
3. US corporate profits jumped to a six-year high last quarter. Thanks to a boost from tax cuts and a humming economy, a broad measure of corporate profits by the Commerce Department rose 16.1% in the second quarter from a year before.
4. OPEC will meet to discuss US sanctions against Iran. The cartel is planning to discuss whether producers can make up for an anticipated sharp drop in global oil supply come November, when the US enacts sanctions on Iranian barrels, Reuters reports.

And a look at the upcoming economic calendar:

• Consumer spending numbers are out in the US. 
• Canada reports monthly GDP.

SEE ALSO: US economic growth in the 2nd quarter gets revised higher, remains strongest since 2014

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• Goldman Sachs has bolstered its healthcare investment banking practice with yet another senior hire from a rival.
• Benjamin Wallace, a managing director in mergers and acquisitions at JPMorgan Chase, has left his old firm and will join Goldman later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.  
• Wallace has specialized in healthcare transactions, which has been one of the hottest M&A sectors in 2018.
• It's the latest in a string of outside hires by Goldman Sachs. 

Goldman Sachs has poached yet another senior dealmaker to bolster its healthcare investment banking practice. 

Benjamin Wallace, a managing director in mergers and acquisitions at JPMorgan Chase, has left his old firm and will join Goldman later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.  

Wallace has spent his entire Wall Street career at JPMorgan, according to LinkedIn, joining as a summer associate in 2006 and getting promoted to managing director in 2016. He spent much of his time on healthcare deals, as well as shareholder defense and activism, and has worked on more than $500 billion in announced transactions, according to a bio from Harvard Business School from 2017. 

JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs declined to comment. 

He's the second senior healthcare investment banker Goldman has hired in the past couple weeks, following the hire of Jonathan Piazza from Barclays earlier this month. 

Worldwide M&A activity has totaled $2.5 trillion during the first half of 2018, the strongest start to a year for deals in history. Healthcare was among the most active sectors for M&A, comprising about 13% of this activity thanks to deals such as Takeda's $62 billion takeover of Shire and Cigna's $67 billion acquisition of Express Scripts.

Wallace and Piazza are the latest in a slew of outside hires from rival firms by Goldman. Other recent hires from competitors include senior tech banker Kurt Simon from JPMorgan; consumer banker Ben Frost from Morgan Stanley; and industrials banker Chris Gallea from JPMorgan.

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• Morgan Stanley has increased its price target for Alphabet to $1,515, the highest on Wall Street.
• The bank current values Waymo, Google's self-driving car unit, at $45 billion — but says it could reach $175 billion soon.
• Follow Alphabet's stock price in real-time here. 

Morgan Stanley can’t get enough of Waymo.

After saying that Google’s secretive self-driving car project could be worth $175 billion — already a $100 billion uptick from its previous valuation — the bank now believes that once the automotive unit starts its ride-hailing service this year, Alphabet’s stock could surge 20% to $1,515 per share.

"Given the continued strong core fundamentals and growing Waymo visibility, we adjust our GOOGL price target calculation and raise our price target to $1,515 (from $1,325), which represents ~20% upside," analyst Brian Nowak said in a note to clients Wednesday.

"Our model and new valuation methodology more fully incorporate Waymo, as we see the launch of Waymo's ride-hailing service by year-end as a potential catalyst for value realization.”

The bank also says its price target increase is because there’s more profit left to be juiced from Google’s billions of users across the globe using its core services like search, YouTube, Maps and more.

"We remain bullish on the core GOOGL business as we believe GOOGL is still in the early innings of monetizing its seven +1 billion user platforms and that it is investing to build new monetization opportunities such as YouTube subscriptions, Maps, and hardware."

Of course, there’s still plenty standing between Waymo and fare collection. Human drivers are regularly taking over for the computer, The Information reported this week, and the beta program has received numerous complaints from those in its suburban Phoenix test zone.

Morgan Stanley’s price target is 9.6% above the Wall Street average of $1,382, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Shares have risen 18% since the beginning of the year.

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SEE ALSO: Amazon just got its highest price target ever — and could be worth $1.3 trillion

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• Bilibili jumped 7% in Wednesday trading.
• The rising trend followed a surge among Chinese video-streaming stocks in US action on Monday.
• Bilibili's second-quarter earnings beat on the top and bottom lines, and showed it's winning with China's Generation Z.
• Watch Bilibili trade in real-time here.

Shares of Bilibili, one of the biggest competitors of iQiyi, the Netflix of China, jumped more than 7% in Wednesday trading.

The price jump follows a surge among Chinese video-streaming stocks in US action on Monday. The company's strong second-quarter earnings also accelerated the rising trend.

Bilibili on Monday reported $155.1 million in quarterly sales, easily beating the Wall Street consensus estimate of $146.3 million, according to Bloomberg data. The company also said its adjusted net loss per share narrowed to $0.01 from last year's $0.4. Analysts were expecting a $0.02 loss per share.

Bilibili competes with IQiyi but is unique for its online hub themed around animation, comics, and games, where users can submit, view, and add commentary subtitles on videos.

"Dynamic, interactive content drove our strong second quarter performance, with continued growth momentum across our business," said Bilibili CEO Rui Chen in the earnings release.

"Our platform is actively attracting a growing number of users and we continue to see high levels of engagement and user retention rates, thanks to our flourishing community. As we move through the second half of the year, we remain committed to further expanding our user base, curating and acquiring premium content, optimizing our monetization strategy, and reinforcing our leading position as the premier platform for China's coveted Generation Z online entertainment community."

The company's focus on China's Generation Z community was highlighted by a team of analysts from Morgan Stanley led by Alex Poon.

"We like the company's multi-monetization channels (games, advertising, value-added service and live streaming), and niche market focus on the sticky Generation Z community with strong user generated content growth momentum, which should drive traffic, advertising business and margins in the long-run," the team said in an August 22 note to clients.

The team cut its price target to $13.50 from $15 and had an "Overweight" rating on the company before earnings. Bilibili hit its price target in Wednesday trading.

Shares of Bilibili are up 24% since their March initial public offering. 

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• Federal Reserve officials have long been baffled by the absence of wage growth for median US workers despite a long-standing economic recovery that has sharply lowered unemployment to 3.9%.
• A new paper offers a convincing hypothesis for the Fed's conundrum: underemployment and weak bargaining power for workers is more rampant than the official data suggest. 
• "There’s more labor slack then you think and therefore it’s an error for the Fed to raise rates," David Blanchflower, a former Bank of England member and the paper's co-author, told Business Insider.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has often expressed surprised at the lack of wage growth for US workers despite a historically low jobless rate below 4%.

"I certainly would have expected wages to react more to the very significant reduction in unemployment that we’ve had," Powell told reporters during his last press conference, held after the Federal Open Market Committee raised interest rates again in June.  "So it’s a bit of a puzzle."

The Fed chairman should take a look at a new paper from David Bell of Stirling University in Scotland and David Blanchflower, former Bank of England member and Dartmouth College professor. There, Powell will find a simple and convincing answer to his puzzle: the job market is really not as hot as the headline unemployment figure makes it look, leaving workers without the requisite bargaining power to ask for raises.

"The explanation the others have is that it’s coming — but it hasn’t. We have an explanation: There’s more labor slack then you think and therefore it’s an error for the Fed to raise rates," Blanchflower told Business Insider.

"In the post-recession period underemployment has replaced unemployment as the main indicator of labor market slack," Bell and Blanchflower write. "Underemployment has not returned to its pre-recession level in many countries, whereas unemployment has."

And the phenomenon extends well beyond the United States to other rich nations in Europe.

"Large numbers of part-time workers around the world, both those who choose to be part-time and those who are there involuntarily and would prefer a full-time job, report they want more hours," write Bell and Blanchflower. 

Most workers and job seekers are all too familiar with this pattern. In a post-Great Recession world, not only was there wage disinflation there was also requirement inflation — employers were able to get a lot more qualified workers for a lot less money. And those effects have lingered, in addition to worrisome trends like involuntary part-time work, contract and temp jobs, and job creation centered in low-wage industries. 

The official US jobless rate has fallen sharply from a crisis peak of 10% to just 3.9% last month. Underemployment as measured by including "discouraged" workers who are no longer seen as actively looking and those who are "part-time for economic reasons," (as in, not by choice, and measured by U-6) has also fallen steeply.

However, Bell and Blanchflower argue even these measures are inadequate because they fail to capture not only job quality but also workers who might be content with working less than full time but would like more hours than they are currently working. They use US census figures to close that gap and gauge how much more demand for more hours might have gone unreported. 

Their findings help explain why annual wage growth remained notably soft at 2.7% in July, the same pace as the prior two months and well below the 4%-or so clip economists would normally associate with a jobless rate this low.

The already-modest wage gains are also starting to be eroded by a gradually rising inflation rate, which remained stubbornly below the Fed’s 2% target for much of the recovery in another sign of underlying economic weakness.

"Underemployment is pushing down on wages while the unemployment rate contains little or no information on wage pressure at such low levels," the paper says. "Even though the unemployment rate is at historic lows in many countries this still does not suggest that these country's labor markets are anywhere close to full-employment."

Unlike Fed officials, who believe the US economy is at or beyond "full employment," Blanchflower estimates the jobless rate could drop to as low as 2.5% before any substantive wage gains materialize.

The problem is "amplified by weak unions, that have seen their membership decline around the world, which reduces workers’ bargaining power. Underemployment may be partly caused by the weakness of worker bargaining power."

The Fed has raised interest rates several times starting in December 2015 to a range of 1.75% to 2%, and is expected to continue lifting borrowing costs over the coming months and potentially next year. But Blanchflower thinks this is a policy error that could prematurely crimp the recovery.

SEE ALSO: There’s a worrying disconnect between how Fed officials look at the economy and the way workers experience it

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• A US judge has dismissed claims by investors that nine big banks colluded to rig the $9 trillion government agency bond market from 2005 to 2015
• The judge said investors failed to show they were harmed by any transactions tainted by the alleged collusion.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has dismissed an antitrust lawsuit by investors that accused nine big banks of rigging the roughly $9 trillion government agency bond market from 2005 to 2015.

In a decision made public on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos in Manhattan said the investors failed to show they were injured by conducting any specific transactions in U.S. dollar-denominated supranational, sub-sovereign and agency bonds that were tainted by the alleged collusion.

Investors led by the Iron Workers Pension Plan of Western Pennsylvania and the Sheet Metal Workers Pension Plan of Northern California said the banks used chatrooms and other means to share pricing data and coordinate trading to boost profit, infecting "each and every" transaction.

The defendants included Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc, Credit Agricole SA, Credit Suisse Group AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, Nomura Holdings Inc, Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Dan Brockett, a lawyer for the investors, said his clients plan to amend their complaint.

He also said Ramos' decision, which is dated Aug. 24, does not affect Deutsche Bank AG's and Bank of America Corp's respective $48.5 million and $17 million settlements in the case in August 2017.

Ramos preliminarily approved those settlements in March.

The federal court in Manhattan is home to a wide array of private litigation accusing banks of conspiring to rig various financial markets, interest rate benchmarks and commodities.

The case is In re: SSA Bonds Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 16-03711.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin price today remained in a bias-conflict, neither rising nor falling much. The BTC/USD started Wednesday just shy of 7010-fiat and managed to go as north as 7137-fiat by the end of Asian, and the beginning of European session. The lackluster volume didn’t offer many opportunities for the day traders, but it established that price

The post Bitcoin Price Intraday Analysis: BTC/USD Locked Inside Ascending Channel appeared first on CCN

• The market has been celebrating the climb toward record highs in tech stocks over the past few weeks, but a troubling situation has developed behind the scenes.
• It recently caused a proprietary indicator developed by The Leuthold Group to reach a sell signal for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index.
• The signal is just the latest in a long line of evidence suggesting that the tech rally is getting exhausted.

Everyone knows major tech indexes are sitting at record-high levels. But under the surface, a dirty little secret lurks.

Last week, the number of stocks in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index trading at one-year lows outnumbered those at one-year highs, according to data compiled by The Leuthold Group.

This is cause for concern.

The bottom line in this chart shows a proprietary indicator maintained by Leuthold that's designed to identify times when the numbers of new highs and new lows have been simultaneously large. The firm has found over time that when it climbs above a certain level, it signals selling in the Nasdaq.

As you can see, this "sell" threshold was breached during the fervor last week, which could mean a tough patch ahead for tech stocks. In fact, the indicator signaled sell in the periods around both the dot-com bubble and financial crisis — though it hasn't always indicated a bear market.

The Nasdaq signal is "unequivocally bearish for stocks in the short-term, and probably even the intermediate term," Doug Ramsey, Leuthold's chief investment officer, wrote in a client note.

Other signs of tech-stock exhaustion have been popping up with increased regularity. A recent analysis from Goldman Sachs showed that hedge funds had rotated out of tech and had begun favoring the healthcare sector over all else.

This trend has also been seen on a fund-flow basis. Since the beginning of July, the SPDR Technology Select Sector ETF has seen $63 million of outflows. That contrasts sharply with the whopping $1.4 billion of new capital that has poured into the fund's healthcare counterpart.

Further, short sellers — or investors betting on an asset to decline — have tech shares firmly in their sights.

They are shorted roughly $37 billion worth of stocks in the so-called FAANG group (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) over the past year, according data from the financial-analytics firm S3 Partners. That's a 42% increase from a year ago, Bloomberg finds.

In the end, Leuthold isn't necessarily calling for a bear market in the tech stocks that have so thoroughly dominated the past few years. He just sees a short- to medium-term reckoning in the cards.

But once the stocks hitting lows begin outpacing those hitting highs, that's when it'll be time to truly worry. Stay tuned.

SEE ALSO: There's a new area of the stock market that's quietly crushing it — here are some simple trades that can get you in on the action

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• PayPal has impressive core growth trends alongside strong Venmo trends, Jefferies analysts said.
• App downloads from PayPal platforms exceed that of most industry peers. 
• The company's second-quarter daily average users are twice that of its competitor Square.
• Watch PayPal trade in real-time here.

PayPal's booming growth is more than just Venmo, according to a group of analysts at Jefferies.

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• L. Lin Wood, a lawyer retained by the British diver Vernon Unsworth, whom Elon Musk called a "pedo,"  is "preparing a civil complaint for libel" against Musk.
• In a letter addressed to Musk obtained by Business Insider, Wood says Musk made "false and defamatory statements" suggesting that Unsworth is a pedophile.
• Wood also invites Musk or his legal representatives to contact him to avoid a lawsuit.
• A representative for Musk did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

L. Lin Wood, a lawyer retained by the British diver Vernon Unsworth, whom Elon Musk called a "pedo,"  is "preparing a civil complaint for libel" against Musk, according to a letter Wood sent to Musk on August 6 that was reviewed by Business Insider.

In the letter, Wood writes that Musk made "false and defamatory statements" suggesting Unsworth is a pedophile.

"You published through three different tweets to your twenty-two million followers that Mr. Unsworth engages in the sexual exploitation of Thai children, and you did so at a time when he was working to save the lives of twelve Thai children," Wood writes. Unsworth was involved in the Thailand cave rescue.

In the letter, Wood invites Musk or his legal representatives to contact him to avoid a lawsuit.

A representative for Musk did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

On Tuesday, Musk suggested via Twitter that it was unusual Unsworth hadn't sued him yet and asked a Twitter user who brought up the matter why he hadn't investigated it.

"You don't think it's strange he hasn't sued me? He was offered free legal services," Musk said after the Twitter user, Drew Olanoff, criticized Musk for the "pedo" tweet.

Musk then asked Olanoff multiple times why he hadn't investigated the matter and ended the exchange by suggesting that Olanoff was not a "truth-seeker" because he didn't investigate why Unsworth hadn't sued Musk.

In July, Musk called Unsworth a pedophile in a tweet and said he would bet money to back his accusation after Unsworth said the miniature submarine Musk designed and sent to Thailand to help with the rescue of a boys' soccer team and their coach would have been ineffective and was merely a publicity stunt. Musk later apologized to Unsworth and deleted the tweet.

Musk is known for being unusually candid on Twitter compared to other CEOs, but he has become increasingly combative on the site this year, lashing out at critics and reporters and spurring questions about his judgment when using the site.

He reportedly prompted an investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission in August when he said on Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private and had secured the funding to do so. The agency is reportedly investigating whether Musk was attempting to hurt the company's short-sellers when he published the tweet.

Reports that emerged after the tweet and a statement from Musk suggested that, at the time of the tweet, he did not have legally-binding agreements in place that would provide enough funding to convert Tesla into a private company. Musk said on Friday that Tesla would remain public, but said he believed there was "more than enough funding" to take the company private.

Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk asks why the diver he called a 'pedo' hasn't sued him yet

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• The British pound is surging after European Union negotiator Michel Barnier hinted at major Brexit compromise.
• "We are prepared to offer a partnership with Britain such as has never been with any other third country," Barnier said at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon.
• Traders welcomed his words, with the pound gaining close to 1% against the dollar on the comments.
• It has passed above the $1.30 mark for the first time since July.
• Watch the British pound trade in real time here.

The British pound has roared higher on Wednesday after the European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier suggested the bloc is ready to enter into an unprecedented "third country" relationship with the UK after it leaves the EU.

"We are prepared to offer a partnership with Britain such as has never been with any other third country," Barnier said at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon.

The more conciliatory stance of Barnier, who has been one of the strictest EU figures during negotiations, was looked on favourably by traders in the pound, with the currency gaining close to 1% against the dollar after the comments.

At 3.50 p.m. BST (10.50 a.m. ET), around 40 minutes after he spoke, the pound is trading at exactly $1.30, a gain of 1.03% on the day, and the first time since July it has broken to $1.30.

"While this doesn’t mean the EU's red lines have changed – in fact he explicitly confirmed that they must be respected, along with the UK’s – it does suggest that more constructive conversations can happen to find a workable solution that suits both sides, should one exist," Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda said in an email.

"That’s a big change from the focus on punishing the UK for voting to leave which appears to have been the case for the last two years."

SEE ALSO: The 'conundrum' at the heart of the British economy is getting worse — and economists are baffled

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The Brazilian government has reportedly sent the country’s top cryptocurrency exchanges an inquiry in an attempt to know more about their businesses and study their potential use in money laundering. According to a report from local news outlet Portal do Bitcoin, the government has been sending the crypto exchanges a 14-point questionnaire through their contact

The post Brazil’s Government Sends Local Cryptocurrency Exchanges a Questionnaire appeared first on CCN

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

• Elon Musk on Tuesday suggested via Twitter that it was unusual Vernon Unsworth, the British diver he called a "pedo" in July, hadn't sued him yet, and asked a Twitter user who brought up the matter why he hadn't investigated it.
• "You don’t think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me? He was offered free legal services," Musk said after the Twitter user, Drew Olanoff, criticized Musk for the "pedo" tweet.
• It's unclear if Musk was alluding to a settlement or financial compensation he gave to Unsworth to preempt a lawsuit.
• Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Elon Musk on Tuesday suggested via Twitter that it was unusual Vernon Unsworth, the British diver he called a "pedo" in July, hadn't sued him yet, and asked a Twitter user who brought up the matter why he hadn't investigated it.

"You don’t think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me? He was offered free legal services," Musk said after the Twitter user, Drew Olanoff, criticized Musk for the "pedo" tweet. It's unclear if Musk was alluding to a settlement or financial compensation he gave to Unsworth to preempt a lawsuit. Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk then asked Olanoff why he hadn't investigated the matter.

"Did you investigate at all? I’m guessing answer is no. Why?" Musk said.

When Olanoff's didn't answer his questions, Musk asked again.

"Answer the question @yoda. You brought it up, not me. Did you investigate or not? If so, what did you actually do?" he said.

He ended the exchange by suggesting that Olanoff was not a "truth-seeker" because he didn't investigate why Unsworth hadn't sued Musk.

"So you actually did nothing & yet imply you are a truth-seeker," Musk said.

In July, Musk called Unsworth a pedophile in a tweet and said he would bet money to back his accusation after Unsworth, who was involved in the Thailand cave rescue, said the miniature submarine Musk designed and sent to Thailand to help with the rescue would have been ineffective and was merely a publicity stunt. Musk later apologized to Unsworth and deleted the tweet. 

Musk is known for being unusually candid on Twitter compared to other CEOs, but he has become increasingly combative on the site this year, lashing out at critics and reporters and spurring questions about his judgment when using the site.

He reportedly prompted an investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission in August when he said on Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private and had secured the funding to do so. The agency is reportedly investigating whether Musk was attempting to hurt the company's short-sellers when he published the tweet.

Reports that emerged after the tweet and a statement from Musk suggested that, at the time of the tweet, he did not have legally-binding agreements in place that would provide enough funding to convert Tesla into a private company. Musk said on Friday that Tesla would remain public, but said he believed there was "more than enough funding" to take the company private.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk says he didn't cry when he told The New York Times about his 'excruciating' year and lonely nights at the Tesla factory. The Times says his 'emotion was audible.'

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• Tech has gotten all the attention lately as stocks have hit record highs, and as the bull market has become the longest of all time.
• But there are increasing signs that the bullish tide is shifting toward a new sector — one that appears to have great upside potential.
• We break down a handful of simple, long-only trades that can help you get involved.

Stock investors have had a lot to celebrate lately.

The benchmark S&P 500 hit all-time highs on Monday, and the ongoing bull market just became the longest on record.

As traders assess their good fortune, they keep coming back to one major driver: the exceptional outperformance of tech stocks — particularly the mega-cap consortium known as FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google).

But as the party has raged in tech, another industry has quietly assumed the role of top performer: healthcare.

Consider this: Since the start of the third quarter, healthcare stocks in the S&P 500 have returned 10% — two full percentage points more than any other sector, including tech. ...

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SEE ALSO: Warren Buffett disciple Scott Black explains why old-school value investing has gotten so difficult — and how he's managed to survive

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• Argentine President Mauricio Macri said he has asked the International Monetary Fund to speed up bailout payments to the country.
• The country received the largest bailout in IMF history in June.
• Watch the Argentine peso in real time here.

Argentina's currency sank Wednesday after President Mauricio Macri said he has asked the International Monetary Fund to speed up bailout payments to the country as its financial crisis deepens.

The peso was down 0.5% to 31.5 against the dollar after the announcement during a televised address. The currency has shed about 70% against the dollar this year and is the worst-performing emerging market currency of 2018. 

The decision aims to "eliminate any uncertainty that was created before the worsening of the international outlook," Macri said. It was not immediately clear how much the president had requested from the IMF.

In the largest bailout in IMF history, Argentina scored a $50 billion credit line from the institution earlier this year. As part of the three-year standby agreement, the government received the first $15 billion so far and was poised to get an additional $3 billion next month.

But the June deal has been slow to calm nerves about the country with an inflation rate of nearly 30%, soaring twin deficits, and a currency crisis. 

The rating agency Moody's on Tuesday cut its growth forecast for Argentina, estimating gross domestic product will contract by 1% next year, compared with previous expectations for a 3% expansion. The agency cited a ballooning debt burden and a weakening peso.

Further weakening of the Argentine peso will increase the burden of the country's foreign-currency debt, the agency said. Total debt burden in the country is expected to reach 70% of gross domestic product next year, up from 50% in 2017. 

An unfolding graft scandal in the country, which Moody's has previously labeled credit negative for Argentine corporations, could also weigh on growth. 

More than two dozen business and government officials, including a vice president, have been arrested in a case involving illegal payments for favors like public-works contracts that allegedly took place over a decade under President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

The scandal came to light in early August, when Buenos Aires-based newspaper La Nacion published excerpts from the notebooks of a former driver in the Fernandez administration. The notebooks purportedly detailed how he transported roughly $160 million in bribe payments from construction companies to government officials from 2005 until 2015.

IMF economists and technicians are in meetings with government officials in Argentina to review parts of the agreement, according to Bloomberg. 

SEE ALSO: Turkey has dived headfirst into a 'steep' and 'deep' recession

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• Morgan Stanley Wealth Management has told its clients to "consider taking profits" in the consumer-discretionary sector and has offered three alternatives. 
• Consumer spending contributes to more than two-thirds of the US economy's growth. 
• The firm's investment committee said the economic boost from tax cuts may be short-lived, and highlighted other trends that could set back the American consumer. 

The consumer-discretionary sector is the stock market's best performer of the last decade — but now it's time to consider taking profits, says Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. 

The sector's chart-topping performance on the S&P 500 is just one reason for the recommendation offered by Lisa Shalett, the head of investment and portfolio strategies, in a note on Monday.

Companies in the sector range from automakers to apparel makers and casinos, which make goods and services that consumers splurge on. Consumer spending contributes to more than two-thirds of the economy's growth. ...

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SEE ALSO: The stock market's record-breaking run is masking a dangerous trend brewing under the surface, Morgan Stanley says

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Digital payments firm Square has won a patent for a payment network that allows merchants to accept payments in any currency, including bitcoin or another cryptocurrency. Square Wins Patent for Crypto Payment Network Public documents published on Aug. 21 show that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has approved Square’s application to patent a

The post Bitcoin Accepted [Everyw]here: Square Wins Patent for Cryptocurrency Payment Network appeared first on CCN

• Turkey's economy has most likely dived into a "steep" recession after the lira's recent plunge, according to Capital Economics' Jason Tuvey.
• The Turkish economy was in a weak state even prior to the most recent collapse in the currency, he added.
• Tuvey expects the Turkish economy to contract as much as 4% year-on-year in the final quarter of 2018.
• "Overall, there’s no getting away from the fact that the Turkish economy is experiencing a deep downturn." 

Turkey's ailing economy has most likely plunged into a recession over the last month thanks to the rising crisis with the nation's currency, and a fragile banking sector, according to new research from Capital Economics.

On Wednesday, Jason Tuvey, a senior emerging markets economist at the research house told clients in a note titled "Turkey entering a steep recession" that data coming out of the country is indicating pretty clearly that a recession has arrived, and that it will be officially confirmed by the end of the year.

"The latest Turkish activity data suggest that the plunge in the lira since May, and the associated sharp tightening of financial conditions, has tipped the economy into recession," he wrote.

While the lira has been falling since May, issues in Turkey first came to mainstream attention when the lira's slump intensified after the Trump administration placed a series of sanctions against Turkey in retaliation for its refusal to release Andrew Brunson.

Brunson is an American pastor detained by Turkish authorities for his alleged support for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party and the Gulenist movement, both of which are accused of being involved in 2016's failed coup against President Erdogan.

A falling currency tends to mean rising inflation as the cost of imports increase, and that is just what has happened in Turkey. Even prior to the lira's second collapse after US sanctions, inflation had already hit a 15-year high in July — close to 16%.

"The latest signs show that higher inflation, coupled with a severe tightening of financial conditions, is filtering through into an abrupt slowdown in economic growth," Tuvey wrote.

"Hard activity data paint a grim picture of the economy even before the lira’s leg down this month," he continued, pointing to industrial production data from the second quarter, which show a contraction of 0.7% compared to 1.8% growth in the first quarter, as the chart below illustrates:

Added to slowing production numbers, confidence across the economy is tumbling. "Confidence in the construction, retail and services sector has plumbed record low," Tuvey wrote, pointing in particular to the Turksat Economic Confidence Index, which this month gave its worst reading since 2009. Based on past form, Tuvey said, the data is "consistent with the economy contracting by around 3% year on year."

Here's the chart:

Thanks to a strong start to 2018, Turkey's economy is likely to grow at a solid pace over the course of the year, but in the second half, a recession has clearly taken hold, Tuvey concluded.

"The economy is likely to contract by 2-4% y/y in Q4 of this year and in the first half of 2019. Our forecasts for stagnation in 2019 and growth of 3.5% in 2020 lie towards the bottom of the consensus," he wrote.

"Overall, there’s no getting away from the fact that the Turkish economy is experiencing a deep downturn." 

SEE ALSO: The Turkish lira is diving after Moody's warns the worst is yet to come for the country's banks

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• Tilray, the second-largest publicly traded marijuana company, posted quarterly earnings that topped expectations on Tuesday.
• The stock was up more than 18% following the news, with other marijuana companies also rising.
• Marijuana stocks have seen an impressive rally in recent months thanks to investments from major beverage companies. 
• Follow Tilray's stock price in real-time here.

After a brief selloff earlier in the week, shares of Tilray — the second-largest publicly traded marijuana stock — were up more than 17% Wednesday after the Canadian company posted quarterly sales nearly double a year ago.

For the second quarter, Tilray reported revenue of $9.7 million — topping an the $9.02 million was expected and up from $4.9 million a year ago. The company’s bottom line was also better-than-expected, coming in at an adjusted loss of $0.17 per share where Wall Street analysts had expected $0.85.

Prices per gram of cannabis roset 3% from to $6.38. The company’s chief executive told analysts on a conference call that this uptick was thanks to higher potency weed, but that it was also hampered by some wholesale deals.

"The drivers of the pricing improvement is really based on mix,” Mark Castaneda, Tilray’s chief financial officer, said on the call. "We sold some higher-potency flower, which was a higher percentage of the mix. We also sold some wholesale flower, which actually brought pricing down, and also extracts was a higher percentage in the mix as well."

Other marijuana stocks, like Cronos and Canopy Growth were also riding Tilray’s coattails Wednesday morning, up 9% and 4%, respectively.

Tilray is now valued at $4.9 billion, despite its losses, and could keep growing thanks to investments from major players in other sectors, especially alcoholic beverages. Constellation Brands — which makes Corona and Modelo, among other popular drinks — catalyzed a huge rally in Canopy Growth’s stock through the announcement of two recent investments.

"We expect more alcoholic beverage companies to announce deals with Canadian LPs over the course of the year, and view Tilray as an attractive partner for an alcohol company looking for exposure to cannabis," Vivien Azer, an analyst at Cowen, said in a note to clients on Wednesday.

Shares of Tilray are up 164% since the company’s IPO in July.

SEE ALSO: The 'world's biggest legal-pot dealer' talks about taking his company public and the future of weed

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Initial coin offering (ICO) funding is undergoing a significant pullback, per data from Crunchbase and CoinSpeaker. As of August 19, only three ICOs had raised $25 million or more during Q3 2018. This represents a 78% decline from Q2, when 14 ICOs raised $25 million or more.

Meanwhile, Q1's number was even higher, at 32. According to CoinSpeaker, total ICO funding stood at $617 million for August as of the 19th.

In contrast, $926 million was raised by ICOs in July, and $1.75 billion was raised in May. This points to a stark cooling in ICO activity, likely tied to the steep declines hitting the crypto industry in 2018.

• The crypto market has lost nearly three-quarters of its value since January. Since the all-time highs for major cryptocurrencies at the start of 2018, digital assets have undergone significant price losses, according to Coinmarketcap. Bitcoin is currently trading at a third of its all-time high of close to $20,000, while Ethereum has seen over 75% of its value wiped off since exchanging hands at over $1,300 in the middle of January. During these highs, total market capitalization for cryptos was around $829 billion, a figure that now stands at around $230 billion, marking a more than 70% decrease.
• Additionally, a number of reports have highlighted the high failure rate of ICOs. For example, researchers at Boston College found that, out of 2,390 ICOs, a mere 44% remained active post fundraising. Similarly, PwC research found that, out of 3,470 ICOs, only 30% managed to close their fundraising successfully.

This data suggests there is a growing cleavage between blockchain and crypto. While ICOs initially caught the attention of investors, their hyper-volatility and the proliferation of scams and failed projects seems to be dissuading ongoing capital injection into the space.

However, investments in, and developments of, blockchain-based projects continue at pace, with the World Bank’s $80 million blockchain-based bond raise serving as a prime example. This suggests that the crypto hype is falling away as investors and institutions show greater belief in the promise of the technology underlying these digital assets.

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• The US economy grew even faster than previously reported in the second quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released on Wednesday. 
• Gross Domestic Product, the value of every good and service produced domestically, rose at an annual rate of 4.2%, revised up from 4.1% in the advance estimate. This was still the fastest pace of growth in nearly four years. 
• The upward revision showed that business investments were stronger than had been estimated.

The US economy in the second quarter grew even faster than had been estimated, according to a report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday. 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the value of every good and service produced domestically, rose at an annual rate of 4.2%, the fastest since Q3 2014. The advance estimate released in July had penciled in growth at 4.1%. 

Wednesday's upward revision, based on more complete data, showed that business investment and inventories contributed more to growth than previously thought. 

The April-June period was the first full quarter with the tax cuts signed by President Donald Trump in effect. Consumer spending rebounded from the first quarter. As usual, it was the biggest contributor to growth, although the revised data showed it was slightly weaker than first reported; personal consumption increased 3.8% versus 3.9% prior. Spending on vehicles and healthcare was revised lower.  

Expectations for growth in the third quarter vary widely. The Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDPNow forecasting model estimates that the economy will grow 4.6% in the third quarter. But the New York Fed's Nowcast model has growth at just 1.96%. 

Many economists are doubtful that the economy can sustain a 4% growth rate, partly because of a yearslong slowdown in productivity.

See also:

• Morgan Stanley is urging its super-rich clients to pull out of one of the market's hottest corners, and it's a warning shot to the US economy

• A group of investors with $16 trillion at stake is struggling to find success, and its survival is in jeopardy

• Investors have turned complacent and are in danger of being sideswiped by a 'likely correction' that's approaching, Morgan Stanley says

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• Dick's Sporting Goods beat on earnings, but missed on sales.
• The sporting-goods retailer raised its full-year guidance, but to less than what analysts were expecting.
• Shares are tumbled in pre-market trading.
• Watch Dick's Sporting Goods trade in real-time here.

Dick's Sporting Goods plunged as much as 14% in pre-market trading on Wednesday as a slowdown in Under Armour sales weighed on top-line results. 

The sporting-goods retailer earned $1.20 a share during the second quarter, easily beating the the $1.06 that Wall Street analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting. Dick's recorded second-quarter sales of $2.18 billion, missing the $2.23 billion that was anticipated. Comparable sales fell 1.9%, worse than the 0.8% drop that was expected. 

"As we continue to focus on driving profitable sales, we are very pleased with our strong gross margin improvement. An improved product cycle, fewer promotions, and a favorable product mix contributed to the overall strength in our merchandise margin," CEO Edward Stack said in the earnings release.

"We delivered double digit growth in eCommerce, private brands, and athletic apparel excluding Under Armour, however, as expected, sales were impacted by the strategic decisions we made regarding the slow growth, low margin hunt and electronics businesses, which accounted for nearly half of our comp decline. In addition, we experienced continued significant declines in Under Armour sales as a result of their decision to expand distribution. We are very confident our sales trajectory will improve next year as these headwinds are expected to subside."

Looking ahead, the company lifted its full-year earnings per diluted share guidance to between $3.02 and $3.20, up from its previous range of between $2.92 and $3.12. Analysts had expected $3.09 per share.

Shares of Dick's Sporting Goods were up 13% this year through Tuesday.

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Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin has rebounded from $7,000 to $7,100, remaining on top of a key resistance level which traders were concerned about. Despite the relatively strong performance of Bitcoin, tokens understandably have not performed well against both Bitcoin and US dollar on August 29, considering the massive gains they recorded earlier this

The post Bitcoin Price Climbs to $7,100 as Crypto Market Hits $232 Billion, EOS Surges 15% appeared first on CCN

Since blockchain technology appeared, there has been a persistent problem in its development: how to make it scale to billions of users. Bitcoin was famously never really designed for this, and today other platforms like Ethereum are also struggling. If you could crack this problem, the thinking goes, you’d end up with the hottest property […]

Bitcoin may not cross the immediate resistance at $7,180 in the next 24 hours as the rally is looking overstretched on the short duration charts.

• JPMorgan promoted a banker to regional head of the financial sponsors M&A group, in a move that ended his talks for a role at Goldman Sachs.
• JPMorgan is competing fiercely with Goldman to win business advising the portfolio companies of private equity firms with their M&A strategies.
• Banks are expecting a wave of deals from private equity firms which hold $1 trillion in cash globally that they have to put to work — or must return to investors. 

Mahir Zaimoglu was almost a Goldman Sachs employee. Almost, until his JPMorgan bosses offered something sweeter.

JPMorgan elevated Zaimoglu, an investment banker, to a newly created role heading financial sponsors M&A for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to a memo earlier this year.

Known for being a talented banker to private equity clients, Zaimoglu scored the promise of a raise and backed out of his talks with Goldman, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations. 

While the give-and-take for talent happens often on Wall Street, this particular episode highlights the highly competitive nature of how big banks are gearing up to serve a private equity industry that’s sitting on $1 trillion in cash that must be deployed or returned to investors in the coming years.

The largest banks, already at or near the top of the league tables and looking for new sources of investment banking fees, are searching for ways to wring even more money from their clients.

Wall Street typically covers private equity with bankers in what’s called the financial sponsors group, who focus on the largest private equity firms, such as Blackstone Group or Apollo Global Management, and deal with everything from merger advice to bond underwriting.

But now, some of the largest banks are pouring resources into teams devoted exclusively to M&A deals for those clients, and increasingly family offices or sovereign wealth funds. These bankers tend to work closely with smaller investors, or directly with the CEOs and finance chiefs of the companies they own, according to David Friedland, head of Goldman’s business.

Their work includes representing companies looking to sell, spin off divisions, buy competitors, or acquire bolt-on businesses. The transactions are often no larger than a few billion dollars, a tier below the mega-deals that capture headlines. 

While regional investment banks like Harris Williams & Co and Bank of Montreal have traditionally done this kind of work, the largest banks have avoided it because the fees haven’t been plentiful enough to justify more bankers. But as private equity firms have amassed more money, that's boosted deal volumes as they put their billions to work. 

The bet that Goldman, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse and others are making is that these M&A bankers will be less distracted by bigger deals and more able to give personalized service.

"We're trying to target gaps between coverage," Friedland said in an interview at the firm's Manhattan headquarters. "Our focus is to grow the pie, in terms of both revenue and market share, not just reallocate the slices."

Last year, Goldman helped sell Phoenix Services, a company that reclaims metal from the smelting process, to companies owned by Apollo. The bank also advised on the sale of Asmodee, the maker of the Settlers of Catan board games, to PAI Partners. 

Not everyone is convinced. One private equity investor, who asked to remain anonymous, said he doesn't like to pay for M&A expertise. In his estimation, his employees who began their careers at the investment banks know it just as well. Instead, he counts on banks to provide financing, bring a greater diversity of deal flow, and deliver expertise from bankers with a deep knowledge of specific industries, he said. 

Reluctance from private equity isn't going to keep Wall Street from trying. Goldman's effort began with the May 2015 naming of Stephanie Cohen to run what's now known as the financial and strategic investor M&A practice. After Cohen was elevated to chief strategy officer in November, Friedland replaced her. The group now has 26 bankers who target deal sizes between $500 million and $3 billion.

Deals of that size, where volume can make up for smaller transactions, can mean real money. About 25% of Wall Street's total deal fees have come from private equity clients this year, up from 18% in 2011, according to Dealogic data. Goldman ranks number one in 2018, followed by JPMorgan, according to the data. 

"There’s still a perception that Goldman doesn’t do deals under $1.5 billion," said Friedland, whose group reports up through the M&A practice run by David “Dusty” Philip, Michael Carr and Gilberto Pozzi. "That’s no longer true."

It will now face more competition for smaller game. JPMorgan, which has about 50 managing directors across the globe devoted to M&A, took the first steps to a similar business model with Zaimoglu's May promotion. He's been asked to prioritize mandates, make decisions on how to staff projects, and drive performance of the group, according to the memo. Hernan Cristerna, co-head of global M&A for JPMorgan, cited "a real rapid increase in M&A activity led by sponsors" as an impetus for the move. 

"They have a wall of funds available, and it needs to be deployed," Cristerna said. "We had been expecting this, so we dedicated someone to focus on M&A full-time." 

That said, JPMorgan views the business differently than Goldman. It's more concerned with covering existing clients better rather than working with new clients, and it's got a more fundamental mission, Cristerna said.

"I would like to have the best M&A business on the Street," he said.

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Here is what you need to know. 

The Turkish lira is diving after Moody's warned the worst is yet to come for the country's banks. The lira was down about 2% at 6.4035 per dollar after the ratings agency Moody's said there's a "heightened risk of a downside funding scenario, where a deterioration in investor sentiment limits access to market funding."

The US Senate confirms the Fed's vice chair. Richard Clarida, a managing director at fund manager Pimco and an economics professor at Columbia University, was confirmed by a vote of 69 to 26, Reuters says.

Trump freezing Canada out in NAFTA negotiations is 'straight from the Art of the Deal'. President Donald Trump used a page from his book "Art of the Deal," which discusses successful negotiations as zero-sum games won by keeping others on their toes and maximizing leverage, by freezing out Canada in NAFTA talks. 

Morgan Stanley is urging its super-rich clients to pull out of one of the market's hottest corners.  Morgan Stanley Wealth Management has told its clients to "consider taking profits" in the consumer-discretionary sector and has offered three alternatives.

There's a new area of the stock market that's quietly crushing it — and a few simple trades can get you in on the action. S&P 500 healthcare stocks have quietly returned 10% since the start of the third quarter — two full percentage points more than any other sector. 

Thomson Reuters is buying back a ton of stock. The news and data company will buy back $9 billion worth of stock, using the proceeds of the sale of the majority of its Financial and Risk business to Blackstone Group, Reuters says. 

Aston Martin has plans to go public. The high-end British car maker is expected to go public at a valuation of around £5 billion ($6.44 billion).

Stock markets around the world are mixed. Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.23%) led the gains in Asia and Britain's FTSE (+0.5%) lags in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open little changed near 2,899.

Earnings reports keep coming. American Eagle and Dick's Sporting Goods will report ahead of the opening bell while Salesforce releases its quarterly results after markets close.  

US economic flows. The second estimate of second-quarter GDP will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET and pending home sales will cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 2.87%. 

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Here is what you need to know.

The Turkish lira is diving after Moody's warned the worst was yet to come for the country's banks. The lira was down about 2% at 6.4035 per dollar after the ratings agency Moody's said there was a "heightened risk of a downside funding scenario, where a deterioration in investor sentiment limits access to market funding."

The US Senate confirms the Fed's vice chair. Richard Clarida, a managing director at the fund manager Pimco who is also an economics professor at Columbia University, was confirmed by a vote of 69 to 26, Reuters says.

Trump freezing Canada out in NAFTA negotiations is 'straight from "The Art of the Deal."' President Donald Trump seems to have used a page from his book "The Art of the Deal," which discusses successful negotiations as zero-sum games won by keeping others on their toes and maximizing leverage, by freezing out Canada in NAFTA talks.

Morgan Stanley is urging its superrich clients to pull out of one of the market's hottest corners. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management has told its clients to "consider taking profits" in the consumer-discretionary sector and has offered three alternatives.

A new area of the stock market is quietly crushing it — and a few simple trades can get you in on the action. S&P 500 healthcare stocks have quietly returned 10% since the start of the third quarter — two full percentage points more than any other sector.

Thomson Reuters is buying back a ton of stock. The news and data company will buy back $9 billion worth of stock, using the proceeds of the sale of the majority of its Financial and Risk business to The Blackstone Group, Reuters says.

Aston Martin has plans to go public. The high-end British carmaker is expected to go public at a valuation of about £5 billion, or $6.44 billion.

Stock markets around the world are mixed. Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.23%) led the gains in Asia, and Britain's FTSE (+0.5%) lags in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open little changed near 2,899.

Earnings reports keep coming. American Eagle and Dick's Sporting Goods will report ahead of the opening bell, while Salesforce releases its quarterly results after markets close.

US economic data flows. The second estimate of second-quarter gross domestic product will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET, and pending-home sales will cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 2.87%.

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• Turkish lira slumps once again after Moody's downgrades 20 financial institutions.
• The currency had stabilized after its huge slump earlier in August, but is falling once again.
• By Tuesday morning, it was trading at 6.3 against the dollar.
• You can follow the lira's movements at Markets Insider.

After a week out of the spotlight, the Turkish lira is once again slumping Wednesday as fears over the state of the country's fragile financial system intensify.

Although still significantly stronger than a few weeks ago, the lira has slumped to 6.3 against the dollar by 9.30 a.m. BST (4.30 a.m. ET) on Wednesday, a low not seen in around two weeks.

The main catalyst for the move lower appears to be the decision of ratings agency Moody's on Tuesday to downgrade the credit rating of 20 Turkish financial institutions. In downgrading the banks, analysts from Moody's cited what they called a "substantial increase in the risk of a downside scenario," for Turkey's lenders.

"There is a heightened risk of a downside funding scenario, where a deterioration in investor sentiment limits access to market funding," Moody's said, noting that "Turkish banks are highly reliant on foreign currency funding."

The note, authored by vice president/senior analyst Carlo Gori and MD/financial institutions Sean Marion, suggests that the Turkish banking sector faces a potential funding crisis:

"In the next 12 months around USD77 billion of foreign currency wholesale bonds and syndicated loans, or 41% of the total market funding, needs to be refinanced. The Turkish banks hold around USD48 billion of liquid assets in foreign currency and have USD57 billion compulsory reserves with the Central Bank of Turkey, which would not be entirely available."

"In a downside scenario, where investor sentiment shifts, the risk of a prolonged closure of the wholesale market would lead most banks to materially deleverage, or to require external funding support from the government, or the Central Bank."

• SEE ALSO: Turkey's economic crisis has gone off the radar — but there's a huge chance it could get a whole lot worse

Issues in Turkey started in early August when the Trump administration placed a series of sanctions against Turkey in retaliation for its refusal to release Andrew Brunson. Brunson is an American pastor detained by Turkish authorities for his alleged support for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party and the Gulenist movement, both of which are accused of being involved in 2016's failed coup against President Erdogan.

Those sanctions include the announcement of a doubling of tariffs on metal imports into the US from Turkey, which was the initial catalyst for the great turmoil in financial markets over the past few weeks.

At one point during the worst of the crisis, the lira was down more than 40%.

The lira's collapse has plunged the entirety of the emerging market space into chaos, with contagion causing the likes of the South African rand, the Argentine peso, and the Indonesian rupiah, to slump in response.

SEE ALSO: Turkey's economic crisis has gone off the radar — but there's a huge chance it could get a whole lot worse

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• Aston Martin plans to launch IPO in London later this year, and is expected to be valued at £5 billion. 
• The luxury British car maker saw half-year profits reach record levels after seven consecutive profitable quarters. The public listing of over 25% shares could see it enter the FTSE 100.
• The company plans to pivot towards the Asian market, aiming to increase the proportion of Asian sales from 16% to over a quarter of total sales annually.
• "This is a monumental moment," chief executive Andy Palmer said.

Aston Martin has announced plans to go public and float on the London Stock Exchange later this year, following half-year results that saw profits and sales reach record levels for the high-end British car maker.

The firm is expected to be valued at around £5 billion ($6.44 billion) at the IPO. The decision to publicly list comes after seven consecutive profitable quarters and represents a turnaround for the car maker which has been bankrupt seven times.

"This is a monumental moment," chief executive Andy Palmer told the Financial Times.

"When I started in 1979 there were lots of British car companies. Over the course of my career those have disappeared. Car making in the UK is in a healthy state, but companies are foreign owned. Now we will have an independent British car company again."

The company reported a 14% climb in revenues in the opening half of the year, hitting £449.9 million ($580 million), and a rise of pre-tax profits from £20.1 million to £20.8 million ($25.9 million to $26.8 million), helped by growing demand in Asia and the launch of three new sports car lines.

The firm reported a 24% pre-tax profit margin, once the costs of preference shares and other measures were removed from consideration.

The plans for listing,  due to happen later this year, will see at least 25% of the shares float on the stock market. It is possible that the firm could end up in the blue chip FTSE 100 index, although that will depend on the stock's early performance.

Company backers, Italian group Invest Industrial and the Kuwaiti investment fund Investment Dar will sell some shares, and Daimler which owns a 4.9% stake will remain a shareholder.

Aston Martin expects to sell 6,200 to 6,400 cars this year, rising to 7,100 to 7,300 next, climbing to 9,800 in 2020 once a new production plant is completed. The company plans to make 14,000 cars per year in the long run through both the original Aston Martin badge and the relaunch of its Lagonda brand as a luxury electric car maker.

The firm plans to adjust its global sales balance, reducing its focus on the UK market which represents 30% of its current sales and putting more emphasis on Asia where it believes sales will rise from 16% to over over a quarter, with the help of a new sports utility vehicle that will be ready in 2020.

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A Korean organization announced yesterday that researchers discovered that North Korea tried to mine cryptocurrency last year. A research unit of South Korea’s state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) disclosed their report publicly with these findings. The research unit said North Korea launched an effort to mine bitcoin between May and July last year, especially as a

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The post (+) Two Blockchain Pioneers on Navigating Bitcoin’s Recovery appeared first on CCN

Slovenian bitcoin mining marketplace NiceHash has announced that it has successfully reimbursed 60 percent of all funds stolen in last December’s hack, which saw 4,700 BTC worth approximately $65 million stolen from the firm. Seventh Reimbursement The news was announced in a post on its Twitter account, where it was revealed that the seventh reimbursement

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