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The Morning Ledger: German Slowdown, Brexit Uncertainty Trigger Concerns in Europe |
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Employees of German car manufacturer Porsche work on a sports car at the auto maker’s factory in Stuttgart, Germany. PHOTO: RALPH ORLOWSKI/REUTERS
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Good day. A sharp slowdown in Germany’s economic growth, trade tensions and a potentially disruptive British exit from the European exit have soured the outlook for Europe. Germany, Europe’s largest economy posted its slowest growth in five years at 1.5% in 2018, compared with 2.2% the prior year.
Troubling links: Economists worry that Germany, which is one of the few Western countries to have cracked China as an export market, could become a conduit for the Chinese slowdown to infect other economies.
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Knock-on effect: Continental AG, a German auto-parts maker, said Monday that orders from car manufacturers had nose-dived in recent months in part because of weaker sales in China, causing the company to lower its earnings and sales outlook for the year. “When the auto manufacturers make fewer cars we have less business,” Wolfgang Schäfer, Continental’s finance chief, said.
Policy moves: The rising headwinds to eurozone growth were also marked by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who warned that the region’s economy has weakened unexpectedly. “There is no room for complacency,” he said, adding that monetary-policy stimulus was required to support economic momentum in the currency bloc. A full-blown global trade war and rising political tensions could add to the challenge, the World Economic Forum warned Wednesday
ahead of its annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.
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U.S. retail sales data for December are due out at 8:30 a.m. ET, but the release could be delayed by the government shutdown. Economists surveyed by the WSJ expect store sales ticked up 0.1% in December, compared with a 0.2% increase in November.
U.S. business inventories data are expected at 10 a.m. ET. Economists predict business stockpiles rose 0.3% in November, compared with a 0.6% increase in October.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Charles Schwab Corp., CSX Corp. and Alcoa Corp. are among the companies scheduled to report earnings today.
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Snap Finance Chief Joins Executive Exodus |
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Mr. Stone plans to pursue other opportunities but will stay on as finance chief to assist with the search for his successor and the transition, the company said in a securities filing on Tuesday. His last day hasn’t been determined.
Mr. Stone is leaving behind a hefty share of his $20 million sign-on bonus. The bonus included $19 million in restricted stock units that would vest in equal monthly installments over 48 months from the vest start date, according to Snap’s filings. He would also receive a $1 million, new-hire restricted stock-unit grant that would vest six months after the vest start date.
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A Sears store in Chicago, Ill., part of a previous round of closures, on Aug. 24. PHOTO: SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
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Billionaire Edward Lampert won a bankruptcy auction for Sears Holdings Corp., keeping the struggling department store chain from shutting all its remaining stores, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Private-equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC is nearing a deal to buy aluminum products maker Arconic Inc. for more than $10 billion, a deal that would be one of the largest leveraged buyouts in recent years.
CVS Health Corp. said Walmart Inc. pharmacies are expected to leave drugstore networks offered by its pharmacy-benefit management unit, in a dispute over pricing.
Netflix Inc. raised prices for all of its subscription plans, a move that will give the streaming-video giant more flexibility to continue its aggressive spending on content in the face of stepped-up competition from rivals.
Delta Air Lines Inc. forecast sluggish revenue growth early this year in part because of lost business during the federal government shutdown.
Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co. will jointly produce midsize pickup trucks and vans, and will collaborate on electric vehicles as part of a broad global alliance, the companies said Tuesday.
Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC’s Chief Executive Rakesh Kapoor will step down at the end of 2019 after eight years at the helm of the Durex and Lysol owner.
French car maker Renault SA is moving to replace its boss, Carlos Ghosn, who is in detention on charges of financial misconduct, the BBC reports.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission building in Washington, U.S. PHOTO: ZACH GIBSON/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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U.S. authorities charged overseas traders with breaking into a government computer system that stores market-moving corporate data, moving on a breach that raised questions about the government’s ability to protect sensitive data in a relentless era of computer hacking.
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A German court dismissed a patent lawsuit from Qualcomm Inc. against Apple Inc., the first setback in the country for the chip maker in a dispute that last month resulted in the ban of some iPhone sales in China and Germany.
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Andrea Orcel, one of Europe’s highest-profile investment bankers, found himself out of a job Tuesday, when Spain’s Banco Santander SA said it would be unacceptable to pay him the amount of money it would have cost to make him chief executive.
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Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday before lawmakers voted on the government's Brexit deal. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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The British Parliament overwhelmingly rejected a proposed Brexit deal Tuesday, prompting a no-confidence vote against U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May and further stoking extreme uncertainty around Britain’s exit from the European Union in just over two months. Chancellor Philip Hammond reassured business leaders after the vote that a no-deal Brexit could be avoided, hinting towards a potential delay to Britain's exit from the European Union, the BBC reports.
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Federal government contractors are starting to feel the pinch as the ongoing shutdown means that companies are running out of cash.
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The U.S. producer-price index, a measure of the prices businesses receive for their goods and services, fell a seasonally adjusted 0.2% in December from a month earlier, the Labor Department said Tuesday.
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Aramark, the Philadelphia-based food, facilities and uniforms services provider, said its Chief Accounting Officer and Controller, Brian Pressler, resigned, effective Feb. 8.
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Chief Financial Officer Stephen Bramlage will take on principal accounting officer duties at Aramark, effective Feb. 8. Mr. Pressler has served as CAO since June 2016, and was previously vice president of finance at Aramark Education, a role he held since 2014.
Seadrill Ltd., a Hamilton, Bermuda-based rig operator, said that Chief Financial Officer Mark Morris will step down from his position at the end of June following the completion of the company's financial restructuring.
Seadrill filed for bankruptcy protection in 2017 after it downscaled exploration plans amid lower oil prices and a mounting pile of debt. It has commenced the search for a new successor.
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