Morning Brief: Huawei arrest could upend U.S.-China trade truce
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe
What to watch today
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meets in Vienna. Because of oil’s recent weakness, the meeting between OPEC and its main partner Russia will be closely watched. Oil prices slid 3% Thursday morning after Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said that a cut of 1 million barrels per day would be enough for OPEC.
Big Tech is heading to the White House. Leaders from the most influential tech companies such as Google (GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella, IBM (IBM) CEO Ginni Rometty, Oracle (ORCL) CEO Safra Katz and Qualcomm (QCOM) CEO Steve Mollenkopf are expected to meet with top White House officials to discuss emerging technologies such as AI and 5G.
Meanwhile, Grocery giant Kroger (KR) is set to report earnings before the market open. Chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO), Athleisure brand Lululemon (LULU) and cosmetics retailer Ulta (ULTA) are all reporting after the bell.
Top news
Huawei arrest threatens to upend Trump-Xi trade truce: The U.S. is seeking the extradition of Wanzhou Meng, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co., after convincing Canada to arrest her on Dec. 1. Canada confirmed she was in custody shortly after the Globe and Mail reported she had been arrested in connection with violating sanctions against Iran.China promptly reacted with outrage after the news broke. [Bloomberg]
‘We’ve never sold people’s data,’ says Facebook: Internal Facebook documents under seal in a pending U.S. court case were released by a British parliamentary committee Wednesday in a report that could raise questions over how the social network has profited from and protected user data. The 250-page report claims Facebook (FB) entered “whitelisting” agreements allowing select third-party companies to maintain full access to users’ friends data after it supposedly ended the practice in 2015. [Yahoo Finance]
Crucial Brexit ruling on eve of vote on May’s deal: The EU’s top judges will deliver their ruling on whether the UK can unilaterally revoke Article 50 on the eve of the ‘meaningful vote’ over the Brexit deal in the Commons, it has been revealed. [Yahoo Finance UK]
Buffett-backed electric vehicle maker plans battery unit IPO: BYD Co., the electric-car maker backed by Warren Buffett, plans to list its battery business by 2022 to raise funds to expand as the global auto industry transitions away from the traditional combustion engine. [Bloomberg]
Clues in Marriott hack implicate China: Hackers behind a massive breach at hotel group Marriott International Inc (MAR) left clues suggesting they were working for a Chinese government intelligence gathering operation, according to sources familiar with the matter. Marriott said last week that a hack that began four years ago had exposed the records of up to 500 million customers in its Starwood hotels reservation system. [Reuters]
More from Yahoo Finance
Here’s how stocks performed under each U.S. president
Why it’s not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy stocks
Outgoing Facebook exec: Zuckerberg is ‘more of an idealist than the real world permits’
Slack co-founder: Facebook and Tesla seem like horrible places to work
Map: The best and worst states for U.S. drivers
—
The Morning Brief provides a quick rundown on what to watch in the markets, top news stories, and the best of Yahoo Finance Originals.
