Good morning! Here is what you need to know on Tuesday.
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10 things you need to know in markets today
Asian shares struggle on trade war fears, Instagram's cofounders leave Facebook, Amazon made two approaches for Deliveroo, and more.
1. Asia stocks struggled as the latest round of US-China tariffs revived fears the trade dispute would knock global growth. Crude oil rose to near 4-year highs after Saudi Arabia and Russia ruled out immediate production increases. Meanwhile,a senior Chinese official said on Tuesday that the US while Washington is putting "a knife to China's neck", a day after both sides heaped fresh tariffs on each other's goods.
2. The cofounders of Facebook's Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, have resigned and plan to leave the photo-sharing app company in coming weeks, the New York Times reported late on Monday, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter.Systrom is chief executive officer and Krieger is the chief technical officer at Instagram. Here's 5 red flags in the Instagram founders' goodbye letter to Facebook that make it obvious there's bad blood.
3. Amazon made two preliminary approaches for British online food delivery company Deliveroo, the latest one about nine months ago, the Telegraph reported on Monday.The approaches were exploratory and have not progressed, the newspaper report said, citing an investor familiar with the matter. The first round took place two years ago.
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4. Sears CEO Eddie Lampert has proposed rescue deals to help the department store chain avoid bankruptcy as debt matures next month and it faces a cash crunch, according to a regulatory filing released on Monday. Billionaire Lampert, who also runs hedge fund ESL Investments, said the 125-year-old department store chain should take steps to reduce its debt load to $1.2 billion from $5.6 billion.
5. Walmart and its unit Sam's Club said on Monday leafy greens suppliers will be asked to implement real-time, farm-to-store tracking using blockchain technology by next September, as the retailer tackles food-safety incidents.Walmart is among several other retailers such as Nestle trying to tap blockchain, a shared record of data kept by a network of computers to track food supply chain and improve safety. Last year, Nestle, Unilever, Tyson Foods and other large food and retail companies joined IBM's blockchain technology project.
6. The US Air Force awarded Boeing a $376 million contract to build four helicopters in the first leg of a $2.38 billion deal to replace the fleet of 46-year-old fleet of UH-1N Huey helicopters.The Air Force said it will eventually order 84 helicopters to be delivered from 2020 through 2032.
7.Standard Chartered said on Tuesday it will stop financing new coal-fired powered stations, joining the growing ranks of lenders and financiers ending support for the dirtiest fossil fuel amid rising concerns about climate change. StanChart said in a statement on its website that "save where there is an existing commitment, it will cease providing financing for new coal-fired power plants anywhere in the world."
8. Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Tuesday the central bank has entered a phase where it must consider not just the merits but the side-effects of its massive stimulus program in a "balanced manner." Wages and prices are turning up but achievement of the BOJ's 2% target is taking more time than expected, Kuroda said.
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9. Britain's opposition Labour Party will keep open the option of a second Brexit referendum with a question wide enough to include the option of remaining in the European Union, the party's Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said on Tuesday.When asked about the idea of a possible rerun of the 2016 EU referendum, Starmer said the exact question could not been decided until the outcome of Brexit talks was known, but that it would be wide enough to include the option of remaining in the bloc.
10. Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte suffered the biggest ratings slump of his presidency in the third quarter, an independent pollster said on Tuesday, amid signs of public unease about rising inflation and the cost of staple food grain rice.Duterte's approval rating, a measure of his performance, dropped 13 points to 75% in a survey of 1,800 voting-age Filipinos conducted by Pulse Asia this month.
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