We like to stay on top of the news. Here are some of the investing and stock market news articles we read this week. If you read something interesting too, share it! Email me at ariel@ibillionaire.com
MARKET NEWS
- Trump Threatens 25% Tariffs Instead of 10% Tariffs on China Imports: President Trump escalated his trade war with China on Wednesday, ordering his administration to consider more than doubling proposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25% from 10%.
- Trump Again Threatens to Shut Down Government: President insists Congress must provide money for border wall and enact new curbs on immigration
- Prepare for the biggest stock-market selloff in months, Morgan Stanley Warns: The U.S. stock market has been partying all throughout July, and a hangover is coming.
- Trump touts economy: ‘These numbers are very, very sustainable’: President Donald Trump on Friday seized on a strong GDP growth rate for the second quarter of the year to tout the economic gains made during his presidency and argued the US is experiencing an economic boom.
STOCK NEWS
- Elon Musk offers billionaire David Einhorn a ‘box of short shorts’ to comfort him after his Tesla short bet put a big dent in his fund (TSLA): His $5.5 billion Greenlight Capital lost 18.3% in the first half of 2018, he told investors in a letter Tuesday. The losses were exacerbated by Tesla’s 29% gains last quarter — decimating Einhorn’s short position in the stock — making it his “second biggest loser” for the six-month period.
- Facebook says WhatsApp will start making money next year. The $19 billion purchase from 2014 had not materially made money for Facebook until Wednesday. The company is now charging about 100 large companies to send messages to users. And it will do what the WhatsApp co-founders (who have both left the company as of this year) had long resisted: sell targeted ads to WhatsApp users via its Status feature.
- Google is reportedly building a censored search engine to re-enter China where it’s currently blocked.
- Twitter plunges as monthly users unexpectedly fall (TWTR): Twitter reported an unexpected drop in third-quarter monthly active users and warned of further weakness. The company beat on both adjusted earnings and revenue.
- Apple is now a $1 trillion company: Apple has become the first US company with a market value of over $1 trillion. This follows a jump in its stock after reporting strong Q3 earnings that saw the iPhone maker surpass both its own projections and analysts’ estimates, while also making a strong forecast for its upcoming Q4 earnings.
- Fidelity one-ups Vanguard, Schwab, and iShares, becoming the first company to offer no-fee index fund: On Wednesday, Fidelity announced the Fidelity Zero Total Market Index Fund and the Fidelity Zero International Index Fund will be available to investors on Friday. “Investors will pay a 0.00 percent fee, regardless of how much they invest in either fund, while gaining exposure to nearly the entire global stock market,” Fidelity said in a release.
- Bezos is going on a hiring spree at Blue Origin, the new rocket company to compete with SpaceX: The Amazon founder is racing to move the company into production mode amid signals that his firm’s heavy rocket set for lift-off in 2020 may fall behind schedule, according to people familiar with the project.
