Opening Bell: 8.24.18
Chill Remains Between China and United States in Latest Trade Talks [NYT]
A restart of trade talks between the United States and China ended on Thursday with little sign of progress as Washington moved ahead with additional tariffs and President Trump met with legislators to discuss a new law aimed at curbing Chinese investment.
The bilateral talks, while low level, were the first formal discussions between the two countries since the United States imposed tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods and China retaliated with its own levies on American products. Still, administration officials continually played down the potential for resolution out of these talks, which came during a week in which the United States placed tariffs on another $16 billion worth of imports and trade officials began six days of hearings on proposed tariffs affecting an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods.
Dollar dips, global stocks inch up ahead of Powell speech [Reuters]
The MSCI All-Country World index which tracks shares in 47 countries, was up by 0.1 percent. Shares in Europe rose, with the pan-European STOXX 600 index up 0.2 percent on the day.
Futures indicated Wall Street was set to open higher.
Against a basket of six major currencies, the dollar stood at 95.516 .DXY, down 0.3 percent on the day.
A Populist Wave Ousts Australia's Turnbull [Bloomberg]
A decade of easy money since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. fueled a borrowing binge that’s left Australian households among the world’s most indebted. Combined with flat wages, surging home prices and swelling immigration that’s clogged roads in major cities, many voters feel worse off even though the economy just completed its 27th recession-free year.
Those forces have spurred voter discontent with Australia’s major parties and prompted a leakage of support to fringes of the political spectrum. That helps explain how an insurgency, driven by a small group of conservative former ministers, was this week able to bring down political centrist and former Goldman Sachs banker Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister.
Treasury, IRS move to block blue state workarounds on tax caps [CNBC]
The $10,000 limit on the so-called SALT deduction was part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, an overhaul of the tax code, which was passed last year.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — among the states with the highest property taxes — had put legislation in place to help taxpayers bypass the limit on the deduction.
Those plans included permitting municipalities to set up charitable funds and allow taxpayers to contribute to them.
Little-known Chicago fund wins big in US IPO bonanza [FT]
Driehaus Capital has invested in more than half of the 20 best-performing IPOs so far this year, while avoiding all of the worst-performing offerings.
Most of the shares — among them medical devices and software companies — were held in the firm’s micro-cap and small-cap growth funds, which are up 33 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively, so far this year. That compares with 18 per cent for the average of its peers, according to Morningstar data.
This Security Guard Filmed All His Farts for Six Months and Went Viral [VICE]
His first name is Doug (he declined to give VICE his last name, or the name of the hospital), but the Kevin James-looking everyman is known on his 20,000 follower-strong Instagram account as Paul Flart, a stinky offshoot of mall cop Paul Blart. On Wednesday, a video compilation of his most memorable ass clappers earned over 374,000 views after shooting to the top of Reddit’s r/videos forum. Now he has followers from all over the world. “It transcends all languages. There’s no translation necessary, it’s just funny,” he told VICE over the phone.