Just a brief note today. A most unusual situation around Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and its CEO Elon Musk resulted in a sharp jump in the shares on Wall Street. Mr Musk tweeted that he intended to take the company private at $420 per share, significantly above the market price. Amidst much confusion and shares getting halted by Nasdaq, it later turned out the tweet was serious, but that Musk was yet to get the full approval from shareholders.
The jump in Tesla shares in combination with a move higher in the shares of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) pushed the S&P 500 towards record highs. In Europe, there is a more modest open afoot with corporate earnings from Novo Nordisk (CO:NOVOb), E.ON, Munich Re, ABN AMRO Group NV (AS:ABNd), Glencore (LON:GLEN) and Prudential (LON:PRU).
In forex markets, there is little in the way of movement given there are no market-moving economic releases. China’s trade balance fell in the month of July, with a 20.9% rise in imports and 6% fall in exports, a trend US President Donald Trump would likely want to see continue.