Yahoo Finance 
10 things you need to know today
(Reuters/David Gray)
Beachgoers swim and sit on Bondi beach during a hot spring day in Sydney, Australia.
Here is what you need to know.
There are rumors Glencore will be taken over. The commodities giant Glencore was up by as much as 70% in Hong Kong trade after rumors circulated that management would listen to takeover offers. The company's board disputed those claims in a press release, however, saying, "It is not aware of any reasons for these price and volume movements or of any information which must be announced to avoid a false market." Glencore is up 9% in London.
Potash backed out of its K+S takeover. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Canadian fertilizer company Potash has backed out of its $8.8 billion takeover attempt of its German rival K+S. According to Potash, it's dropping the bid because of market conditions and a lack of commitment from K+S management. Back in August, K+S said Potash's bid undervalued the company and would eliminate jobs, according to The Journal.
American Apparel filed for bankruptcy protection. The retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid its restructuring with secured lenders. According to the Reuters, American Apparel plans to keep stores open throughout the restructuring, which will cut its outstanding debt to $135 million from $300 million in exchange for equity. "By improving our financial footing, we will be able to refocus our business efforts on the execution of our turnaround strategy," CEO Paula Schneider said in a statement.
Nelson Peltz disclosed a huge stake in GE. Activist investor Nelson Peltz announced a massive $2.5 billion stake in General Electric. Peltz's Trian Fund Management says it owns 98.5 million shares of the industrial giant, amounting to its largest position. "Trian believes GE has significant long-term potential and that its implied target value per share, including dividends, could be $40 to $45 by the end of 2017 based on our view that GE can deliver EPS of at least $2.20 in 2018," Trian CIO Ed Garden said in a statement. Trian has not asked for a board seat, but it does want GE to increase cost-cutting efforts and potentially sell more finance assets, Reuters says.
Ben Bernanke says more people should've gone to jail for causing the financial crisis. In his soon-to-be-released memoir, "The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath," former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke says more people should be held accountable for the financial crisis. Bernanke said, "A financial firm, of course, is a legal fiction." He continued: "It's not a person. You can't put a financial firm in jail." Bernanke goes on to say, "It would've been my preference to have more investigation of individual actions because obviously everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm."
The British government will sell the rest of its stake in Lloyds Banking Group. The UK Treasury filed a regulatory statement saying it planned to sell its remaining stake in Lloyds Banking Group sometime in 2016. The Treasury says it will sell £2 billion ($3 billion) of its remaining 11.98% stake in the bank to retail investors in the spring. The Treasury injected £20.5 billion ($31.4 billion) into the bank during the financial crisis, amounting to a 43% stake in the lender. The sale will depend on market conditions.
Eurozone services PMIs mostly disappointed. Eurozone services PMI slowed to 53.7 in September, down from 54.0 in August. Economists were expecting the reading to remain at 54.0. As for the individual countries, Spain saw the biggest slowdown as its reading fell from 59.6 in August to 55.1. Germany and Italy also disappointed. France was the lone outperformer, as its reading rose to 51.9 in September from 50.6 in August. The euro is stronger by 0.2% at 1.1241.
UK services PMI slowed. The September reading of UK services PMI slid to 53.3 from 55.6 in August. The number missed the 56.0 that economists were forecasting, and it marked the lowest reading since May 2013. Despite the big drop, the reading remained well above the 50.0 line separating expansion from contraction. The British pound is unchanged at 1.5188.
Stock markets around the world are higher. France's CAC (+3.1%) leads the gains in Europe after Australia's ASX (+2%) paced the advance in Asia. China's Shanghai Composite remains closed for Golden Week. S&P 500 futures are higher by 11.00 points at 1,954.00.
US economic data and earnings reports are light. Services PMI will cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The Container Store will release its quarterly results after the closing bell.
NOW WATCH: How to make browsing on the iPhone 500% faster
More From Business Insider
