Good morning! Here's what you need to know in markets on Monday.
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10 things you need to know in markets today
What you need to know.
Prime Minister Theresa May
1. One of Silicon Valley's top investment firms is in talks to buy a stake in TransferWise, the digital payments app, cementing its status as one of Britain's most promising technology start-ups, Sky News reports. The report says IVP, whose roll-call of deals includes Snapchat parent Snap, Twitter and Netflix, is close to a deal to invest tens of millions of pounds in TransferWise.
2. Japan's Nikkei share average fell to a fresh 3-and-a-half-month low on Monday as global investors remained cautious amid worries over whether the Trump administration will be able to implement growth boosting measures, Reuters reports. The Nikkei fell 0.37% to 19,398.50 points at 7:41 a.m. BST (2.41 a.m. ET) after opening slightly higher.
3. A fintech business that helps fund international students studying abroad has raised $240 million (£186 million) in debt and equity funding. Prodigy Finance has raised $40 million in equity funding from leading London venture capital funds Index Ventures and Balderton Capital, as well as African fintech accelerator AlphaCode.
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4. An online sports listing startup has raised £1 million from a raft to tech, banking, and sporting figures to build the "Airbnb of endurance events" like triathlon and marathon.Let's Do This, founded 13 months ago, secured the seed funding in June but it has not yet been publically disclosed.
5. Exiting the European Single Market, could lead to both large falls in innovation and productivity in the country, according paper by economist Carlos Daniel Santos. Santos looked into the potential impacts of leaving a trading area — in this case the EU — on the moulds industry in Portugal, something the country is famous for, in the August issue of the Economic Journal.
6. There is "not a chance" that the British economy will start to rebalance away from the services sector and towards manufacturing after Brexit, according to the chief UK economist at Germany's second largest lender, Commerzbank.Speaking to Business Insider this week, Peter Dixon said that the UK is "starting from too far behind" to fundamentally readjust back towards manufacturing having "made a decision 30 years ago" to make the UK a services economy.
7. London zinc rose to its highest price in a decade on Monday night and nickel also rallied as investors ploughed into metals used by China's steel sector, seeing robust demand even as capacity is constrained by Beijing's drive to reform bloated industries, reports Reuters. London Metal Exchange (LME) zinc hit the highest since Octover 2007 at $3,163.50 a tonne (£2,458), up around 1%.
8. Sir Paul Jenkins, who was the government's most senior-ranking lawyer until 2014, says Theresa May's Brexit strategy is "foolish" and will be difficult to implement.May intends to pull Britain out of the EU single market and customs union, as well as the European Court of Justice, when it leaves the EU. Jenkins served as the Treasury Solicitor, the country's principal legal official, from 2006 until 2014. Speaking to the Observer, he ridiculed the idea that May could break free of EU laws and institutions while maintaining the benefits of the single market.
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9. Plans to hit rail commuters with the biggest fare rises in five years will force many key workers, including nurses and teaching assistants, to quit their jobs, the biggest public-sector union Unison warned on Saturday in a Guardian report. Anger at the 3.6% increase to regulated fares, including commuter fares and season tickets, spilled over last week after it was revealed that the rises would come into effect in January.
10. The Financial Times reported a small profit for its first year under Japanese ownership, following its debt-fuelled £844 million takeover by the publisher Nikkei, reports the Telegraph. Accounts for The Financial Times Limited, the main operating company, which excludes some overseas businesses, reveal a pre-tax profit of £6.2 million for 2016 on revenue of £310.7 million.
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