REUTERS/Remo Casilli
A man carries a painting depicting Pope Francis during the Wednesday general audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican August 12, 2015.
The People's bank of China cut the yuan's reference rate again. On Thursday, the People's Bank of China fixed the yuan against the US dollar at 6.4010. That level was 0.22% weaker than yesterday's USD/CNY closing level of 6.387 and 1.11% weaker than Wednesday's fixing of 6.3306.
The PBoC tried to reassure markets that there wouldn't be further major devaluation. "After a period of adaptation the intra-day exchange rate movements and resulting central parity fluctuations will converge to a reasonably stable zone," the bank said.
German inflation stayed flat in July. According to the harmonised index of consumer prices, German inflation rose 0.2% year-on-year last month, and according to the consumer price index, it rose 0.1%, both way below the European Central Bank's 2% target.
US bank stocks got hit by Chinese worries. US bank stocks fell 1.9% on Wednesday as investors bet that a weaker yuan will delay the Federal Reserve rate hikes that are expected to boost bank profits. The KBW Bank stock index's decline exceeded the 1 percent drop in the broader market, and represented a shift for bank stock investors.
Cisco says its acquisitions spree may not be over yet. "We're very acquisitive and we'll continue to be acquisitive as we go forward, as we continue to build out our portfolio, especially in areas like software and security," said Cisco CFO Kelly Kramer during its fourth quarter earnings call on Wednesday.
French and Italian inflation are coming. At 8 and 9 a.m. London time (3 and 4 a.m. ET) respectively, analysts expect French inflation to stay flat with consumer prices up 0.3% year-on-year, and Spanish inflation to cool to nothing, falling from 0.1% year-on-year to 0% in July.
Alibaba's sales growth cooled in the second quarter. Chinese online giant Alibaba saw shares take a sharp hit Wednesday as a disappointing quarterly report showed sales growth cooling. Profit in the quarter ended June 30 doubled to $4.97 billion (30.8 billion yuan, £3.18 billion), mainly due to one-time gains of $3.9 billion (£2.5 billion) from the sale of its stake in film unit Alibaba Pictures.
A huge blast killed dozens and injured hundreds in Tianjin. Two massive explosions rocked the Chinese city of Tianjin at 11:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday, People's Daily China reported, at least 40 people have been killed and hundreds of people are injured.
We just saw Google's first post-Alphabet spin-off. Niantic Labs, a startup within Google that has launched an augmented reality game called Ingress as well as a location discovery app called Field Trip, is becoming an independent company, it announced on Google Plus. "We'll be taking our unique blend of exploration and fun to even bigger audiences with some amazing new partners joining Google as collaborators and backers," its post reads.
Asian markets are mixed. Japan's Nikkei is leading the way, up 1.03%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng is following, up 0.32%, and the Shanghai Composite is down 0.29%.