1.South Korea is also turning the screws on Volkswagen:
South Korea on Thursday said its own testing showed that Volkswagen intentionally manipulated a diesel emissions device in vehicles with an older engine, and ordered the recall of 125,522 cars.
2.Asian markets are quiet as the US shuts down for Thanksgiving on Thursday:
Japan’s Nikkei is up 0.49% at time of writing (6.25 a.m. GMT/5.25 a.m. ET), Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is 0.16% higher, and China’s Shanghai Composite is down 0.30%.
3.Lloyds will today announce plans to eliminate 1,000 jobs across operations, including staff at its branch network, as part of broader cost cuts announced last year, a person with knowledge of the matter said:
The cuts are part of a plan to cut about 9,000 jobs, close branches, and save £1 billion ($1.5 billion) by 2017, according to Bloomberg.
4.South Africa Faces Food-Price Shock as Rand Adds to Drought Woes:
South Africa is sitting on a food-price time bomb.The effect of the worst drought in more than two decades is being compounded by the rand’s 18 percent plunge against the dollar this year to a record, boosting the cost of imports of corn, a staple food in the country that’s also used in animal feed.
5.Eskom Seeks Lower Debt Costs by Skirting Bonds After Cut to Junk:
Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. will attempt to lower its borrowing costs by exploring funding options other than the international bond market after South Africa’s state-owned electricity supplier was downgraded to junk by the two biggest credit-ratings companies.
6.Adele Says Hello to Pandora:
Investors are giving Pandora Media Inc.P +4.54% a hearty hello on Wednesday, sending shares up as much as 5.8% after the company confirmed that Adele is bringing her latest album, “25,” to its streaming music service, leaving competitors including Apple Music and Spotify in the dust.
7.Year-to-date return pegs at -18.83%:
The Equities market index pared consistently, on all trading days of the week ended, to record Week-on-Week (WoW) and Year-to-date (YtD) losses of 2.46% and 18.83% respectively. The volume and value of transactions for the week significantly declined by 61.56% and 69.43% correspondingly, indicating reduced activities and weak investor’s sentiments.
8.Japan’s Nikkei Flirts With 20000, but Falls Short:
The Nikkei Stock Average closed shy of the 20000 mark on Thursday, extending a two-month rally spurred by a weakening Japanese yen.The Nikkei Stock Average finished up 0.5% at 19944.41, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.3% and South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.1%.
9.In Land of 3,500% Stock Gains, Crashes Are Quickly Forgotten:
Fang Zhengdao set up shop on a rainy day in mid-November, a yellow umbrella in his hand and a handwritten sign by his side. Two months had passed since the great Chinese stock-market crash of 2015, and Fang figured it was time to start peddling equities again.
10.The FBI has linked the theft of 1.2 billion stolen web credentials to a Russian email address:
The hacker who once advertised having access to user account information for websites like Facebook and Twitter has been linked through a Russian email address to the theft of a record number of internet credentials, the FBI said in court documents.
