Stock markets today: brinkmanship Brexit, Nikola and the SEC, Chinese vaccine

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Hello. The Brexit withdrawal deal rests on shaky ground, the SEC is reviewing Nikola, and China is hoping for a vaccine by November. Here’s what moves the markets.

Brinkmanship

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to reverse part of the Brexit divorce deal passed his first hurdle in parliament on Monday evening after a heated debate in which high-level members of his own party denounced the move. The House of Commons passed the Home Market Bill in its first main vote by a comfortable 77-vote vote, allowing it to move on to the next stage of the parliamentary process on Tuesday. The Prime Minister said the proposed legislation, which will rewrite part of the Withdrawal Agreement, is “essential” to maintaining the economic and political integrity of the UK. Since Johnson’s decision to review the deal, the European Union has threatened legal action and asked him to withdraw the bill by the end of the month.

Short circuit

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission reviews Nikola Corp. to assess the merits of claims by short seller Hindenburg that the electric truck maker misled investors about its business prospects, according to people familiar with the matter. Earlier Monday, Nikola thoroughly denied last week’s Hindenburg report, saying the company was trying to profit from a “fabricated drop” in the company’s stock price. Volatile stock declined after post-market trading after Bloomberg reported the SEC involvement.

Chip Woes

Sony Corp. reduced his estimate PlayStation 5’s production for this fiscal year was 4 million units, or about 11 million, following production issues with its custom-designed system-on-a-chip for the new console, according to people familiar with the matter. Close rival Microsoft Corp. Last week revealed aggressive pricing for its two next-gen consoles, the $ 299 Xbox Series S and $ 499 Xbox Series X, putting additional pressure on Sony. Over the summer, the Tokyo-based electronics giant had increased orders for console components, anticipating increased demand amid the pandemic.

Vaccine race

A day after the chief executive of Pfizer Inc. said a vaccine would likely be available to the American public before the end of the year, the Chinese state-run Global Times tweeted that the country could launch an injection to the “ ordinary Chinese ” as in November. Meanwhile, British researchers are studying whether two vaccines from the University of Oxford and Imperial College London can be inhaled, in the hope of triggering a more effective immune response.

To come up…

European equity futures indicate a open negative. Coming up, grocery delivery platform Ocado Group Plc and fast fashion giant Hennes & Mauritz AB are both set to release quarterly sales updates, with the former’s stock being a superstar of the lockdown and the network of stores of the second hit by the virus. Later this morning, the global insurance industry will be closely monitoring a London court ruling on whether businesses should be covered for certain losses resulting from Covid-19. French bank Rothschild & Co. and Italian luxury group Salvatore Ferragamo SpA are expected to release their first half results after the European close. Still later, Apple Inc. is expected to hold its first big 2020 product launch event, unveiling a new Apple Watch and an updated iPad Air.

What we read

This is what caught our attention over the past 24 hours.

And finally, here’s what interests Cormac Mullen this morning

There was nothing healthy about the recent tech fix. Hopes that the more than 10% slide in the Nasdaq 100 will remove some of the “foam” from the market must be put to rest. Not only has bullish activity Accelerating again in the options market, leveraged betting is skyrocketing in the exchange-traded fund space. As my colleague Claire Ballentine reported, a triple leveraged ETF tracking the Nasdaq just scored its best streak of entries on record – throughout the selloff. The $ 7.8 billion ProShares UltraPro QQQ fund has attracted more than $ 1.5 billion in eight days to Friday, the most for such a period since it started trading in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg . It has become a popular vehicle for day traders, who pushed volume to an all-time high earlier this month, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report. After stabilizing on Monday, the Nasdaq is down nearly 7% this month (TQQQ funds a whopping 21%). But the euphoria remains. To remove the foam, the next patch will have to cut deeper, and it’s unlikely to be healthy.

Cormac Mullen is a reporter and editor for Bloomberg News in Tokyo.

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