US MARKETS:

S&P 500 futures down 0.2% to 2,932.00

Brent futures little changed at $58.36/bbl

Gold spot up 0.3% to $1,498.34

US Dollar Index down 0.1% to 98.90

 

GLOBAL NEWS:

SCAF must take off. Airbus and Dassault Aviation, in a joint statement, urged Paris and Berlin to accelerate their projects on the combat jet of the future, or rather the air combat system of the future, known as "SCAF". If the political green light is given, a demonstrator could be created in 2026. France, Germany and Spain signed a preliminary agreement last June at the Paris Air Show to pool their forces.

The ghost of Ghosn. Finally, it is the boss of Nissan's Chinese subsidiary, Makoto Uchida, who will take over the general management of the manufacturer from Hiroto Saikawa. Ashwani Gupta will assist him.  The decisions were taken unanimously, reports Reuters.

Altitude 9000. Airbus' 2019 results are still poor, as the group received only 127 net orders over nine months (303 gross). As for deliveries, everything is going well with 571 aircraft delivered to their customers over nine months. In September, the manufacturer delivered 71 aircraft and received 41 orders. During the month, Airbus reached the symbolic milestone of 9,000 A320 family single-aisle aircraft delivered.

No deal. Not surprisingly, the Hong Kong stock exchange operator is officially abandoning its plan to buy the London Stock Exchange, which had pushed the project back to £32 billion. This epilogue is not a surprise because there were many obstacles to such an operation. The LSE has never paved the way for dialogue.

Samsung is reassuring. Samsung's quarterly results will exceed consensus expectations for the third quarter, both in terms of earnings and revenue. The Korean anticipates a sharp decline in results, but analysts expected it. IHS Markit estimates that Samsung remains the number one smartphone with 23% of the global market.

Wirecard flexes its muscles. Wirecard raised its medium-term projections ahead of an investor day held today in New York. The German fintech company now expects to generate revenues of more than €12 billion in 2025 compared to €10 billion previously, and to generate more than €3.5 billion in EBITDA (vs. €3.3 billion). It estimates that it will be able to generate €810 billion in transactions in 2025.

Black list. The United States has placed 28 Chinese entities on its blacklist of organizations prohibited to trade for their involvement in the repression of Uighurs, including the specialization of Hangzhou Hikvision cameras. "These entities are involved in human rights violations and abuses (...), massive arbitrary detentions and high-tech surveillance against Uighurs, Kazahks and other members of Muslim minorities," the American authorities said.

A MAX of complaints. Southwest Airlines pilots have filed a complaint against Boeing for endangering them with deception on the 737 MAX. "We need to be able to trust Boeing to provide honest disclosure of the information necessary to operate our aircraft safely," said the president of the carrier's pilots' association.

In other news. Celanese would consider a split as part of its strategic review, Bloomberg learned. Aareal has launched a strategic review of its activities after pressure from an activist shareholder who wants to sell the software subsidiary Aareon. Roche receives Swissmedic's approval at Tecentriq in SCLC. Novartis receives FDA approval for Beovu, Bang & Olufsen changes CEO. Shiseido acquires Drunk Elephant for $845 million. Fortum will take over Uniper. EasyJet sees results at the top of its forecasts. Cellnex will acquire divisions of Arqiva Telecoms for £2 billion.