Friday (9/11/2015)
China Car Sales Driven Lower by Slowing Economy
China’s new-car sales fell for the third straight month in August amid sluggish demand fed by economic slowdown andslumping stock prices.
Passenger car sales slipped 3.4% to 1.42 million vehicles last month, following a 6.6% decline in July and a 3.4% fall in June. Combined sales of passenger and commercial vehicles fell 3% in August to about 1.66 million vehicles, the government-backed China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Thursday.
Apple Suppliers Hope to Tap Into New iPhones’ ‘3-D Touch’
If Apple Inc.’s new iPhones that feature a new touch technology are a hit with consumers, a handful of component suppliers across Asia and the U.S. stand to be significant beneficiaries.
The Cupertino, Calif., company on Wednesday unveiled a pair of new iPhones with “3-D Touch” technology, which can distinguish between a light tap and a heavier press, allowing users to control a device differently depending on how hard they push on a surface. Apple is the first company to feature the technology, in its smartwatches and MacBook computers.
Boeing, Lockheed Differ on Whether to Sell Rocket Joint Venture
A $2 billion bid for the Pentagon’s primary rocket maker is running into complications, partly because Boeing Co. and Lockheed MartinCorp. differ on whether to sell their equal stakes in the joint venture, according to people familiar with the details.
Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc.’s bid for United Launch Alliance LLC, the joint venture, faces a situation in which Lockheed Martin’s executive suite seems more eager to negotiate a sale as part of a broader, companywide portfolio restructuring, these people said. On the other hand, Boeing’s leadership is more inclined to hang on to its stake, the people said.
Emerging-Market Currencies: Things Look to Get Worse
Investor bets that Brazil and South Africa will default on their debt hit their highest level since the financial crisis, underscoring the stress mounting on emerging-market economies heading into the most anticipated Federal Reserve meeting in years.
The cost to buy credit-default swaps—insurance-like contracts that compensate users for debt defaults—is far from the only sign that investor anxiety is building ahead of the Fed’s two-day meeting concluding Sept. 17. Currencies in Turkey, South Africa and Malaysia have plunged to the weakest levels in many years against the dollar. The average 10-year government debt yield in emerging countries has increased significantly, even as U.S. yields have slipped this summer. Bond yields move inversely to prices.
OPEC Sees Weak Oil Prices Through 2015
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has become more pessimistic about the future of oil prices this year amid plentiful supplies and softening demand from China, the group’s members said this week.
Persian Gulf OPEC members, the leaders behind group’s new strategy of letting market forces determine prices while pumping more to maintain customers, now believe prices won’t go much higher than they are now, if at all this year. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading between $47 and $48 a barrel in London on Thursday afternoon.

Japan Post Targets $11.6 Billion with IPO
State-owned Japan Post Holdings received approval Thursday for an initial public offering that could raise ¥1.4 trillion ($11.6 billion), which would make it the country’s biggest IPO in nearly two decades.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange said Japan Post Holdings and units Japan Post Bank Co. and Japan Post Insurance Co. are all scheduled to list Nov. 4. Japan Post Holdings aims to raise about ¥1.4 trillion from the simultaneous listings, based on the indicative prices.
That would be the biggest IPO since telecommunications providerNTT Docomo Inc. went public in 1998, raising ¥2.1 trillion, and the largest sale of a government-owned company since Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. raised ¥2.4 billion in 1987.

Strong Dollar Imports Trouble for Fed
Falling import prices have pushed the Federal Reserve’s goal of 2% inflation far into the future. If it raises interest rates next week, that could help push import prices even lower, and make its inflation goal even more distant.
The combined effects of a strong dollar, falling commodity prices and economic weakness overseas have cast a chill on the cost of imports. The Labor Department on Thursday reported that overall import prices fell 1.8% in August from July, putting them 11.4% below their year-earlier level. Much of that owed to the plunge in crude oil prices, but prices for other items fell, too.
Nonautomotive consumer-goods prices, for example, were down 1.2% on the year, marking the largest decline the broad measure of retailers’ import costs has seen in 13 years. That drop will take some time to work its way into the prices consumers actually pay—it takes a while for imports to get trucked to store shelves, and stores aren’t exactly anxious to pass lower costs on to shoppers. Saturday (9/12/2015)
Big Banks Agree to Settle Swaps Lawsuit
Wall Street’s biggest banks have agreed to a tentative settlement over allegations that they conspired to rig the market for credit derivatives.
Twelve banks and two industry groups reached the preliminary agreement with plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit to pay $1.87 billion to settle the accusations, a milestone stemming from long-running probes into that corner of the financial system. Investigations by U.S. and European authorities into the credit-derivatives market are continuing.
Apple’s First Foray Into Luxury With Hermès Watch Breaks Tradition Apple Inc. is embracing a luxury name for its new $1,500 smartwatch with French fashion house Hermès. But Apple design chief Jonathan Ive resists the notion that Apple is becoming exclusive, a defining characteristic of luxury goods.
“We don’t think in those terms,” Mr. Ive said in an interview Wednesday, after the Apple Watch Hermès was unveiled. “I’m not comfortable with words like exclusive.”
For Apple’s first tie-up with a luxury-goods brand, Mr. Ive went for the crème de la crème. Hermès International SCA, whose customers wait months to buy five-figure Kelly bags, is the most elite of the major luxury-goods houses.
Yahoo Loses Marketing Chief Kathy Savitt
A top deputy of Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Marissa Mayer has left at a time of rising impatience with the CEO’s turnaround efforts.
Kathy Savitt, Yahoo’s media and marketing chief, is taking an executive position at Hollywood studio STX Entertainment, the companies said Friday.
Ms. Savitt, who was among Ms. Mayer’s first hires in 2012, oversaw marketing during a period in which Yahoo has failed to gain meaningful traction with advertisers and reverse its losses in market share to Google Inc. and Facebook Inc.
Microsoft Promotes General Counsel Brad Smith to President
Microsoft Corp. General Counsel Brad Smith was appointed the company’s president and chief legal officer, positions that will have him taking a broader role at the company.
Microsoft appoints regional sales presidents, but Mr. Smith is the first company-wide president since Richard “Rick” Belluzzo resigned in 2002. However, Mr. Beluzzo had a more operationally focused role.
U.S. Government Bonds Rise Before Fed Meeting
U.S. government bonds strengthened on Friday but still posted a weekly price decline before a pivotal interest-rate policy meeting of the Federal Reserve.
Bond prices were boosted by a report showing U.S. consumer sentiment fell to the lowest level in a year. The report suggests recent market turmoil has jolted Americans’ confidence in the economic outlook, which may complicate the Fed’s plan to raise short-term interest rates for the first time since 2006. Monday (9/14/2015)