10 things you need to know in markets today
Pfizer is reportedly close to scooping up cancer drugmaker Medivation for $14 billion (£10.7 billion). The Financial Times and Bloomberg are reporting that the deal could close as soon as Monday, citing people close to the deal.
Oil is sliding. Brent oil is down 1.43% to $50.15 at the time of writing (6.25 a.m. BST/1.25 a.m. ET) and US crude is down 1.26% to $48.49. It comes after Morgan Stanley cast doubt on the sustainability of recent price rises.
Asian shares are mixed overnight. China's benchmark Shanghai Composite is down 0.37% at the time of writing (6.30 a.m. BST/1.30 a.m. ET), Japan's Nikkei is up 0.30%, and the Hong Kong Hang Seng is down 0.34%.
Dan Wagner, the CEO and founder of collapsed $2.7 billion payments company Powa Technologies, has spoken to BI exclusively about what happened. Wagner insists Powa's main product was strong, deals were lined up, and the management structure worked.
Premier League giants Liverpool are the target of an £800 million ($1 billion, €924 million) takeover bid backed by the Chinese government, according to the Sunday Times. China Everbright, a state-backed financial firm, are leading the bid, backed by the country's main sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation (CIC), the paper said.
Sports Direct is paying some of its takings from website customers outside the UK to a little-known delivery broker owned by the older brother of its billionaire founder Mike Ashley, the Financial Times has found. The FTSE 250-listed retailer, which is Britain's biggest sportswear chain and operates local-language websites serving 33 other countries, has not disclosed the arrangement in its published accounts.
The biggest US monetary policy conference of the year, the annual Jackson Hole Symposium, is set to take place at the end of this week. Our chief market commentator Myles Udland has a good round-up of everything to expect from the annual gathering.
Citi's head of global credit strategy, Matt King, outlined seven reasons markets are "deeply dysfunctional" in a note to clients last week. This seven-pronged dysfunction in markets really just comes down to monetary policy. Monetary policy, in King's view, has flattened markets.
Insurance and China dominate the 10 biggest fintech VC funding deals of the year so far. Consultancy KPMG and venture capital industry data tracker CB Insights last week published a big report on the state of fintech funding in the second quarter of the year, including data on the biggest deals of the year so far.
One of the most prominent figures in the City has taken the unprecedented step of permanently abolishing all staff bonuses at his firm. The Times reports that Neil Woodford, the star stock-picker and founder of Woodford Investment Management, has rejected the conventional wisdom that bonuses are essential to motivate and retain staff and has put everyone on a flat salary.