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Warren Buffett speaks onstage during Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit - Day 2 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on October 13, 2015 in Washington, DC.
The lira surges after Turkey places huge tariffs on American cars, alcohol, and tobacco. The Turkish lira climbed as much as 7.37% Wednesday after the country's government announced tariffs of up to 140% on American automobiles, alcohol, and tobacco. Currently, the currency is up 2.37% at 6.1990 per dollar.
UK inflation edges up. Consumer prices in the UK rose 2.5% year-over-year in July (+2.4% previous) as transportation and video games drove up costs, according to data released Wednesday by the Office for National Statistics.
Members of Tesla's board of directors are lawyering up as the crisis around Elon Musk deepens. Some members of Tesla's board are scarmbling to protect themselves amid the fallout from Tesla CEO Elon Musk's declarations about taking the company private, the New York Times says.
Eddie Lampert makes a $500 million offer for Sears assets. The billionaire hedge fund manager's ESL Investments said in a regulatory filing out Tuesday that it offered $400 million for Sears' Kenmore brand, and up to $80 million for its SHIP home improvement business, the Financial Times reports.
The owner of MoviePass has massively diluted its stock after announcing its 1-for-250 reverse split. MoviePass owner Helios & Matheson has increased its share count by 9,423% - from 6.7 million to 636.9 million - between July 31 and August 13, according to a quarterly report filed Tuesday.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway now has a $3 billion stake in Goldman Sachs. The Warren Buffett-led conglomerate raised its stake in the Wall Street bank by 21% to 13.2 million shares during the second quarter, according to a 13-F filing out Tuesday. At Tuesday's closing share price, that stake is worth more than $3 billion.
Over half the people who took the CFA exam failed. The results of the 2018 Chartered Financial Analyst exam were released on Tuesday, with just 43% of candidates passing Level I and 45% passing Level II. The Level III results are due out on August 28.
Stock markets around the world are lower. China's Shanghai Composite (-2.08%) led the losses in Asia and Britain's FTSE (-0.4%) trails in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open down 0.23% near 2,834.
Earnings reporting remains slow. Macy's reports ahead of the opening bell and Cisco Systems releases its quarterly results after markets close.
US economic data is heavy. Empire Manufacturing and retail sales will both be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before industrial production and capacity utilization cross the wires at 9:15 a.m. ET. Finally, the NAHB Housing Market Index is due out at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 2 basis points at 2.88%.