Yahoo Finance Morning Brief: Trump to unveil $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan
Monday, February 12, 2018
What to watch today
Given the chaotic action seen this past week, expect more volatility ahead as whatever mispricings the market is currently working out are clearly not settled. Markets, in short, are interesting again. Expect this to continue.
In the week ahead, we’ll get a highly-anticipated reading on inflation in January on Wednesday morning. Economists are looking for “core” inflation — which strips out the more volatile costs of food and gas — to rise 1.7% over the prior year. This expectation is below the Fed’s 2% target, but with investors recently attributing higher wages as a sign of inflation to come — and with anxiety over more inflation at least in part contributing to the declines seen in stocks this past week — Wednesday’s reading will be closely watched.
Top news
Trump’s halfhearted infrastructure plan: President Donald Trump will unveil a long-awaited infrastructure plan on Monday with a lofty goal: to stimulate $1.5 trillion in new spending to modernize the nation’s transportation and public works systems. But the plan won’t identify any new revenue sources to finance those projects. Instead, it will call for killing other programs and shifting that money over to infrastructure. [Yahoo Finance]
Deal talks to sell Weinstein Co. collapse after lawsuit: A proposed deal to sell troubled Weinstein Co. fell apart Sunday after the New York attorney general filed a lawsuit against the independent movie studio and its co-founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein. A group led by businesswoman Maria Contreras-Sweet was close to a deal to buy Weinstein Co. for about $500 million, including the assumption of debt, when the attorney general filed the suit Sunday, said a person close to the transaction. Though the attorney general didn’t seek a restraining order halting the sale, the lawsuit introduced too much uncertainty for the deal to go ahead. [The Wall Street Journal]
Comcast mulling new bid for Fox assets: Comcast Corp. is considering a new offer for Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox assets, despite an agreement in December to sell them to Walt Disney Co. (DIS) for $52.4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Comcast’s deliberations indicate that it believes it still has a chance to clinch a deal with Fox, even though its previous bid last year for more than $60 billion was rejected over concerns that regulators worried about media consolidation could thwart it, the sources said. [Reuters]
Alibaba signs deal to offer Disney shows on video platforms: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s (BABA) entertainment arm has signed a licensing agreement with Walt Disney Co. (DIS) in a deal that will provide the Chinese group’s Youku video streaming platform with the largest Disney animation collection in China. [Reuters]
For more of the latest news, go to Yahoo Finance
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