US MARKETS:

S&P 500 futures up 0.3% to 2,874.25
Brent futures up 0.9% to $60.04/bbl
Gold spot down 0.2% to $1,539.84
US Dollar Index up 0.2% to 98.16

GLOBAL NEWS:

The opiate bill. Purdue Pharma expects to pay $10 to $12 billion to close more than 2,000 complaints against the laboratory in the US opiate crisis, NBC revealed. The laboratory, which manufactures the pain reliever OxyContin, is one of the companies embroidered for aggressively pushing opiates to the American population, creating a real health crisis. Other groups are involved across the country with tens of billions of dollars at stake. Yesterday, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $572 million in Oklahoma.

BP is leaving Alaska. BP Plc has signed the sale of all its assets, production capacities and pipelines in Alaska to Hilcorp for $5.6 billion, after 60 years of presence. The American will pay $4 billion for the acquisition and the balance later. The transaction is expected to close in 2020.

Second merger. 11 years after "divorcing", Altria and Philip Morris are looking at each other again on the basis of a "merger between equals", which will bring the American and international cigarette divisions closer together again. The owners of Marlboro are expected to recreate an entity worth some $200 billion in a difficult context for the sector. 

Musical chairs in Sweden? Ericsson's CEO, Börje Ekholm, is expected to announce his departure and could be replaced by Hakan Buskhe, Saab's current boss, reports Dagens Industri. He had been in charge since January 2017.

Capitalist links. Toyota and Mitsubishi would take minority cross shareholdings, according to NHK, as a sign of a desire to cooperate more closely in the future. The two manufacturers have already had operational agreements since 2017. 

Arm wrestling. The Italian courts will rule on Thursday, in summary proceedings, on the dispute between Vivendi and Mediaset concerning the voting rights of the Frenchman at the general meeting of September 4. Vivendi wants to be able to exercise the voting rights it holds directly (9.99% of the share capital), which Mediaset had prohibited it from doing at the previous Shareholders' Meeting. The relations between the two groups remain electric.

In other news. Fosun will inject £450 million into Thomas Cook and take at least 75% of the capital. The CCIA, an organization that defends the interests of American technology groups, including Google, Amazon.com and Facebook, has spoken out against the French digital tax agreement between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron. The United States is reported to have received more than 130 requests for exemptions to trade with Huawei, Reuters reported. The fitness specialist Peloton Interactive, a candidate for entry into the Nasdaq, TeamViewer, is looking at the German market. J.M. Smucker's results disappointed, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise raised its objectives. Tiffany's doing better than expected. Nyrstar's Chief Executive Officer will be leaving his position. Ryanair Spain pilots called to strike for 5 days. According to Nikkei, Google is about to transfer the production of its Pixel 3 smartphone to Vietnam.