China accuses Nvidia of violating antitrust law
Newsflash: China has accused chip giant Nvidia of breaking the country’s anti-trust laws.
Beijing’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has declared that, following a preliminary investigation, Nvidia was found to have “violated the anti-monopoly law of the People’s Republic of China”.
The ruling relates to Nvidia’s acquisition of networking technology company Mellanox.
The probe began last December.
SAMR added that it has decided to conduct further investigation into Nvidia, whose high-end chips are in hot demand for artificial intelligence systems.
SAMR’s statement comes as trade talks between Chinese and US officials take place in Madrid.
Nvidia has been in the firing line of the US-China trade war. In April, its H20 and MI308 chips were banned from sale to China; then in August, Nvidia and AMD agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenue from advanced chips sold to China in return for export licences to the key market.
Key events
Bessent: Agreement in principle on TikTok deal
Lisa O’Carroll
The US has said it has reached an agreement in principle on the sale of Chinese social media platform TikTok.
Following the talks in Madrid which Donald Trump cited a few minutes ago, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said:
“We’re not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal. It’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon.”
He said the details would be ironed out when Trump speaks to China’s Xi on Friday, adding:
“We had very good discussions. We preferred to keep the discussions on TikTok, we will be holding trade negotiations in about a month again at a different location.”
Trump hints TikTok deal has finally been reached with China
Donald Trump has dropped a firm hint that the US and China have reached a deal about the future of TikTok.
Posting on Truth Social a few minutes ago, Trump declares that the meeting taking place between officials from the US and China about trade in Madrid had gone “VERY WELL”
Trump wrote:
The big Trade Meeting in Europe between The United States of America, and China, has gone VERY WELL! It will be concluding shortly. A deal was also reached on a “certain” company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save.
They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday. The relationship remains a very strong one!!! President DJT
TikTok’s owner, Beijing-headquartered ByteDance, has faced a Wednesday deadline to find a buyer for the short video site’s US operations, or be banned in the country.
Trump has already extended that deadline several times, giving ByteDance more time to agree a deal with an American-backed owner that satisfies both the US and China.
Back in July, Trump claimed that the US “pretty much” had a deal on the sale of TikTok.
Risk assets have shown “remarkable resilience” in the last few months, defying the trade conflict and policy uncertainties, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) has pointed out today.
In its latest quarterly review, BIS (known as the central bankers’ central bank) says markets have shrugged off trade concerns, and maintained “a risk-on tone”.
BIS says:
Despite short-lived bouts of volatility triggered by incoming data and political developments, market sentiment remained upbeat, defying mounting challenges, including unease over the longer-run fiscal outlook in several key jurisdictions.
BIS also cautions, though, that markets could be too relaxed.
Hyun Song Shin, head of the BIS’s monetary and economic department, told reporters that markets are “vulnerable to repricing from bad news,” Bloomberg reports.
He warned
“This very sanguine assessment seems to be disregarding some of the very real challenges in the real economy.”
Trump: Quarterly reporting should end
Donald Trump has proposed that US companies should be relieved from the burden of reporting financial results each quarter.
Posting on Truth Social, Trump says:
Subject to SEC Approval, Companies and Corporations should no longer be forced to “Report” on a quarterly basis (Quarterly Reporting!), but rather to Report on a “Six (6) Month Basis.” This will save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies.
Did you ever hear the statement that, “China has a 50 to 100 year view on management of a company, whereas we run our companies on a quarterly basis??? Not good!!!
However, thousands of China’s listed companies do release financial results each quarter, according to news service Xinhua.
Quarterly reporting does also give investors an up-to-date view of a company’s performance (and gives live-bloggers more to write about, which I’d say is “good!!!”).
Elon Musk spends $1bn buying more Tesla shares
Elon Musk has taken a break from stirring up the far-right, to add to his stake in Tesla.
Musk bought 2.57m shares in Tesla last Friday, a new SEC filing shows – news that has sent the electric carmaker’s shares spiking in pre-market trading.
Musk paid between $371.90 and $396.36 for each share, in a series of purchases, which means he spend roughly $1bn on them.
Musk already owned 410m shares, or 12.7% of Tesla, making him its largest shareholder before these latest share purchases.
Tesla’s shares are up 8% in pre-market trading, as investors see the move as a vote of confidence in the company by CEO Musk.
The purchases were made a week after Tesla proposed handing Musk a performance-related pay deal that could make him a trillionaire. That package was singled out for criticism by Pope Leo XIV last weekend, as he warnned against chief executives receiving salaries that dwarf their employees pay.
Last weekend, Musk has called for a “dissolution of parliament” and a “change of government” in the UK while addressing a crowd attending a “unite the kingdom” rally in London.
Musk (whose political leanings appears to have hurt Tesla’s sales this year) told the crowd that “violence is coming” and that “you either fight back or you die”, claiming:
“I really think that there’s got to be a change of government in Britain. You can’t – we don’t have another four years, or whenever the next election is, it’s too long.
“Something’s got to be done. There’s got to be a dissolution of parliament and a new vote held.”
Business Secretary Peter Kyle said Musk’s comments were “slightly incomprehensible” and “totally inappropriate”.
Analyst: Beijing looking to strike back against US with Nvida ruling
Today has brought “another bump in the road” for Nvidia, one of the more influential stocks across global markets, says Victoria Scholar, head of investment at interactive investor.
Scholar explains:
China’s markets regulator decided that Nvidia broke an antitrust law over its acquisition of Mellanox Technologies in 2020 with shares in Nvidia poised to open lower at the US market open later today.
It looks like Beijing is looking for ways to strike back after Washington’s ongoing threats of tariffs and export controls amid wider trade tensions and an AI arms race between the world’s two leading economies.
No doubt Nvidia – which has powered much of the US stock market’s recent gains – will be a talking point and a bargaining chip during trade talks between the US and China in Madrid as the two sides come together for day two. TikTok’s divestment deadline is another sticking point that will be top of the agenda.
Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital shares hit record low after sales forecast cut again
Shares in Martin Sorrell’s advertising group S4 Capital have hit a record low this morning after it cut its annual revenue forecast again.
S4, which had been Sorrell’s comeback vehicle after he left advertising giant WPP in 2018, told shareholders this morning that it continues to be hurt by volatile global macroeconomic conditions and tariff uncertainty due to Donald Trump’s trade wars.
S4 now expects annual like-for-like net revenue to fall by mid-single digits this year, worse than the low-single-digit decline predicted in June.
The company had planned to challenge the traditional advertising market with a focus on digital marketing expertise.
It went public with the reverse takeover of a shell company, Derriston Capital. Initially, the market reaction was favourable – S4’s shares rose from 170p in September 2018 to over £8 three years later, before turning south since.
Today they’ve dropped below 20p, to a record low.
The wider advertising industry is also in troubled times, as technology companies muscle into their space with new AI technology that creates images and video clips.
Blackstone ‘to commit £100bn for UK assets’
Kalyeena Makortoff
Back in Britain, Blackstone is reportedly due to pledge a £100bn investment in the UK over 10 years during Donald Trump’s state visit this week.
The alternative asset manager, which is known for its private equity investments and manages around $1.2tn (£880bn) worth of assets, is expected to confirm that it has earmarked around £100bn of the $500bn it is due to invest in Europe, for the UK.
Sky News, which broke the story on Monday morning, said the funds would involve private equity buyouts as well as other forms of investment.
Blackstone’s chief executive Steve Schwarzman, who will among the CEOs accompanying Trump on his state visit to the UK this week, revealed the $500bn investment in wider European assets in June, telling Bloomberg at the time:
“They are starting to change their approach here, which we think will result in higher growth rates. So this has worked out amazingly well for us.”
The investment firm is marking 25 years in London this year, having launched operations in the City in 2000. It currently employs 650 people, and has around $100bn already invested in the UK. That includes real estate investments, including a data centre in the north of England.
Schwarzman told Bloomberg in June that “the UK government has been really helpful, really focused to make that happen.”
The Guardian has approached both HM Treasury and Blackstone for comment.
Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets, predicts that the ruling against Nvidia could strain those US-China trade talks in Madrid:
Attention in the US remains fixed on trade and monetary policy, with US-China negotiations in Madrid likely to be strained by the Chinese ruling that Nvidia had violated anti-monopoly laws.
The Chinese market regulator’s ruling has dragged the tech giant 2.2% lower in pre-market trade, putting downward pressure on the wider markets
Lisa O’Carroll
The news that Nvidia has “violated” China’s anti-monopoly law came as a high level Chinese delegation enter a second day of talks in Madrid with the US over tariffs.
The US and China are close to reaching an agreement on the sale of TikTok, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent, as talks resume in Madrid.
Even if a deal over Chinese divestment from TikTok is not reached it would not affect relations, Bessent added.
The two sides met for six hours on Sunday in Palacio de Santa Cruz, home to Spain’s foreign ministry, ahead of the US imposed 17 September deadline to divest TikTok.
Bessent added:
“Our Chinese counterparts have come with a very aggressive ask … we are not willing to sacrifice national security for a social media app.”
Although a deal is not expected today, one option is that the US could extend the deadline for divestment, an issue that is now intertwined with wider talks.
“From the Chinese perspective, they view as part and parcel of the potential TikTok deal a variety of matters, whether it’s tariffs or other measures that have been taken over years,” trade representative Jamieson Greer, who is also in Madrid, said.
The US and the UK are expected to resume talks about their trade deal on Tuesday when Bessent is due to meet UK finance minister Rachel Reeves ahead of Trump’s state visit on Wednesday.
Nvidia shares drop
Shares in Nvidia have dropped by 2.5% in premarket trading, after China’s markets regulator declared it has violated the country’s antitrust rules.
China accuses Nvidia of violating antitrust law
Newsflash: China has accused chip giant Nvidia of breaking the country’s anti-trust laws.
Beijing’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has declared that, following a preliminary investigation, Nvidia was found to have “violated the anti-monopoly law of the People’s Republic of China”.
The ruling relates to Nvidia’s acquisition of networking technology company Mellanox.
The probe began last December.
SAMR added that it has decided to conduct further investigation into Nvidia, whose high-end chips are in hot demand for artificial intelligence systems.
SAMR’s statement comes as trade talks between Chinese and US officials take place in Madrid.
Nvidia has been in the firing line of the US-China trade war. In April, its H20 and MI308 chips were banned from sale to China; then in August, Nvidia and AMD agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenue from advanced chips sold to China in return for export licences to the key market.
Mittal increases influence at BT with board seats
Sunil Bharti Mittal and Gopal Vittal have taken seats on the BT board, increasing the billionaire’s influence over the telecomes operator.
The Indian billionaire, purchased a 24.5% stake through his Bharti Enterprises from Patrick Drahi last year, is to join the board as a non-executive director.
Gopal Vittal, vice chair and managing director managing director of Mittal’s Indian telecoms operator Bharti Airtel will also take a non-executive position on the board.
The move expands Mittal’s influence over BT, in which he has said he is open to potentially increasing his stake, although he shas said he does not have plans to buy the business.
A condition of the agreement – known as a “standstill restriction” – is that he cannot purchase more shares, or launch a takeover bid without BT’s consent.
Following the announcement shares in BT fell by 3.5%, as any future prospect of a takeover has been effectively taken off the table.
AstraZeneca shares drop after Cambridge investment pause
Pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca is among the top fallers on the FTSE 100 index this morning, after pausing its planned £200m investment in its Cambridge research site.
After the market closed on Friday night, AstraZeneca revealed that the planned £200m expansion of its Cambridge research site was now on ice.
An AstraZeneca spokesperson said on Friday:
“We constantly reassess the investment needs of our company and can confirm our expansion in Cambridge is paused. We have no further comment to make.”
The move rounded off a poor week for the UK pharmaceutical industry, with drugmaker Merck scrapping a £1bn London research centre
AstraZeneca are the most valuable company listed in London. Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, says the Cambridge decision could increase the risk that the company shifts to another stock market (which it has reportedly considered).
AstraZeneca drifted lower after announcing a pause in its planned £200m expansion at its Cambridge site, hot on the heels of other pharmaceutical strategic withdrawals given the perceived lack of interest from the government.
Despite the dip, the shares are up by 21% so far this year, but from a UK perspective such moves add to the possibility that Astra could seek to reflect its US exposure by switching its primary listing, which would be a major reputational blow.”