China is not manipulating its currency, according to Monday’s comments by the nation’s foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang. Shuang emphasized that the exchange rate of the Chinese yuan is “market-determined” and that there are “ups and downs”, possibly trying to quash U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent views on the currency.Trump is apparently worried about the adverse effect a weakening yuan could have on U.S. competitiveness in the export market, especially amidst the Fed’s policy rate hikes this year. Late last week, the U.S. President claimed that, if he feels the need, he’s ready to slap tariffs on all of the $500 billion worth of Chinese goods that the U.S. imports –  suggesting that he’s prepared to up the ante on the ‘trade war’ with China.

Prominent crypto exchange and digital wallet provider Coinbase announced on July 16th that they had officially been greenlit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to list security tokens on their exchange.News outlets reported Coinbase was also working to secure licenses to provide broker-dealer, alternative trading system, and registered investment advising services, and that they may work to tokenize traditional financial assets in the future.​ That announcement was corrected one day later by a Coinbase spokeswoman.

Adidas is aiming for 2024 to use strictly recycled plastics for all of their products and applications.With such a major goal and dedication to recycled plastic, there is a chance that many other companies will come out and set high expectations for themselves also.

The internal documents of the bank reviewed by Yahoo Finance and interviews with former employees of wealth and investment management division show that the investment management control was transferred from human advisors to robo-advisors. In 2014 Wells Fargo’s investment “managers” started to be investment “strategists” and investment management was moved to service centres, according to a document analyzed by the website.Wells Fargo also made it clear that investment advisors in the unit keep quiet about the changes. “As a company, they emphasized sales to such a point that I felt just like the salesmen in ‘Glengarry Glen Ross,’” one employee tells Yahoo Finance, referencing to the David Mamet play and 1992 film about a salesman who was engaged in unethical and illegal acts under high-pressure to make more sales.

The alarming and rather surprising survey by Bank of the West of about 600 millennials found out that about 4 in 10 millennials are already homeowners.However, whooping 68% are feeling buyer’s remorse and regret their decision. There are many reasons for that, but the main ones are overspending on the down payment, underestimating the maintenance costs, and not being able to afford the home they really like – and therefore making a compromise on the house they buy. Sometimes the news are not what they seem to be.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced today that Deutsche Bank (DB) has agreed to pay $75 million in fines for its mishandling of pre-release American Depository Receipts (ADRs).Deutsche Bank did not agree with the SEC's findings nor did they explicitly admit guilt, but they did agree to pay the fine.  

The San Francisco and Oakland cases were thrown out some time ago, and now a U.S. district judge has dismissed New York's attempt to do the same. The lawsuits alleged that oil giants like BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell knew about the climate impact of oil production and drilling, but they ignored their own scientific findings and broadly accepted scientific findings.The judges reviewing the case more or less arrived at the same conclusion, which was that problems related to climate change should be dealt with by Congress and the executive branch, not oil companies.  

Though Comcast lost this battle, they did succeed in making Disney go $20 billion higher than they would have originally, which could constrain Disney's ability for future acquisitions.  And that's key.Fox already owns 39% of Sky, and in their bidding war with Comcast they are valuing Sky at $32.5 billion while Comcast has valuation pegged at $34 billion.    

A major driver was its cloud computing segment which registered a +53% year-over-year surge in sales in the last quarter. CEO Satya Nadella’s strategy of prioritizing the firm’s cloud services (over Windows) seems to be paying off.What’s more, Microsoft recently signed a five-year cloud services deal with Walmart – a partnership that rival-in-common Amazon might need to watch out for. With worldwide spending on public cloud services and infrastructure projected  to touch $160 billion in 2018 and burgeon to $277 billion by 2021(according to the International Data Corporation), Microsoft’s not so ‘cloudy’ ambitions could be its potential trump card.

GE Power’s profits plummeted -58% in Q2 2018 compared to the same period a year ago.A -26% decline in orders for its products and a -19% plunge in its revenues were some of the “big blows” to GE Power in Q2. The total profit of GE dropped – 30% year-over-year in Q2. The Power segment occupies the largest slice in the conglomerate's revenues. Nevertheless, GE's revenues managed to grow at +3%, on the back of solidly positive revenue growth in its Oil & Gas and Aviation segments. GE, which is in the process of shedding off some of its businesses and cutting costs, plans to lay off 12,000 workers at GE Power, as announced late last year.  

On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump expressed his disappointment with the Fed's policy  rate hikes and hinted at his worries about the impact on U.S. trade/economic growth. The Fed has raised rates twice so far in 2018 and is expected to make two more hikes by the end of the year.The U.S. President is worried that higher interest rates might heat up the U.S. dollar and therefore put the U.S. at a “disadvantage” - amidst low interest rates maintained by central banks in the Europe and Japan, coupled with China’s plunging currency. Following the interview’s airing, the White House released a statement asserting that “the President respects the independence of the Fed” and that his “well-known” opinions on interest rates are not intended to interfere with the Fed’s decisions.  

“I’m ready to go 500”, said U.S. President Donald Trump in CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ interview.Just a couple of days back, the Trump administration announced 10% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports. So far, $34 billion of Chinese goods have already met with Trump’s tariffs, to which China had responded with levies on $34 billion of U.S. goods imported into its nation. Trump seems to be in no mood to give up his one-upmanship in this apparent ‘tariff war’, as is suggested by his ‘threats’ and actions in recent days.

Canadian pot grower and seller Tilray (TLRY) went IPO today on Nasdaq and gained +31% to $22.39 per share.The offering was multiply oversubscribed to the large demand from investors in USA.  In that sense Tilray reminds of Canopy Growth (CGC) and Cronos Group (CRON) that are both Canadian marijuana companies that were first listed in Canada but than moved to Nasdaq and New York stock exchanges. After super successful IPO Tilray is planning to invest over $100,000,000 in expanding it’s growth operations to a close of whopping  1,000,000 square feet of growth space capable of delivering 1 million plants for harvesting every 3 months with an estimated retail value of $5,000 * 1mil = $5 Billion every quarter.

The fast pace growing industry of Cannabis is opening a lot of opportunity for women, and they are taking full advantage of it.According to a Marijuana Business Daily, women are holding 27% of the C-Suite jobs (Chief level positions).

Congressman Brad Sherman during the Wednesday hearing of a subcommittee for the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee suggested prohibiting US citizens from buying and mining cryptocurrencies. The California Democrat said that beyond cryptocurrencies being possibly used as a form of money soon, it can currently be utilized by tax evaders and countries trying to bypass U.S. sanctions.

But the patience of the Wall Street is running out. On the positive side, Tesla finally produced 5,000 Model 3 cars last week and is aiming at producing 6,000 in the nearest future.Will that be enough to pacify and excite Wall Street remains to be seen? Oh, yes – and the cars are stunning!

Stories have cited a toxic work culture and the use of a racial slur by founder and (now former) chairman John Schnatter.Mr. Schnatter has now been removed from the company amid other scandals potentially ranging from spying on employees to sexual harassment, though he still owns 29% of shares. But the news that moved shares on Wall Street had nothing to do with Papa John's current PR nightmare -- it had to do with a potential merger or acquisition of the Wendy's fast food chain. The deal, if it went through, would mean upgrading Papa John's technology and hoping to scale up the pizza chain.

The U.S. Justice Department has filed to appeal the decision that allowed the mega-merger between AT&T and Time Warner, even though U.S. District Judge Richard Leon made it fairly clear he believed the Justice Department’s case was weak.The Justice Department’s decision to appeal is somewhat unsurprising, but also somewhat odd – the deal already went through in June.

For the first time in history, a company is set to have a $1 trillion valuation, but the question is who will hit the milestone first -- Apple or Amazon? Apple remains the world's most valuable company, but Amazon is nipping at its heels as it reached a $900 billion valuation this week."  Amazon shares are up over 50% for the year and have soared over 100,000% since it debuted on the NASDAQ back in 1997.

Its rising ubiquity around the world means increased attention for the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem, placing digital currencies firmly in government regulatory crosshairs.Sweden recently announced their intention to create a state-backed digital currency, joining a growing list of governments to broach the subject. Countries like the UK, Ecuador, Estonia, Russia, Senegal, and more have begun exploring their own state-backed cryptocurrencies, but only one has officially launched as the declared primary currency of the state – the Venezuelan Petro.