Morning Brief: Top Financial Stories Dominating on Monday, April 18

CNBC

Shanghai city said that three people have died as of Sunday, attributing the deaths to preexisting health conditions. The official announcement noted that all three people were elderly and were not vaccinated against COVID-19.
Beijing is trying to increase vaccination rates among the country’s older population. According to the National Health Commission, as of April 11, about 224.8 million people over the age of 60 had been vaccinated.

This summer, American Airlines Group Inc’s AAL CEO, Robert Isom, is aiming for one thing: reliability. Last year, the airline grew faster than its larger competitors, and passengers occasionally experienced extensive disruptions as a result of routine challenges such as weather and understaffing, writes CNBC.
Robert Isom, who took over as CEO of America’s largest airline on March 31, said his top priority is ensuring that passengers can rely on American this summer and beyond.

Reuters

Volkswagen Resumes Production In Changchun City In China

Volkswagen AG VWAGY factories in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun have resumed production.
The move comes after the city relaxed the COVID-19 restrictions.
The auto major runs its Changchun facilities through a joint venture with China’s FAW Group.

WSJ

In the latest phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, federal and local officials are leaving it up to people to assess if they need booster shots, whether to wear a mask and how long to isolate after a positive test.
People 50 years and older can get the additional booster at least four months after their first, but health authorities aren’t pushing those eligible to get the shots.
Officials are still watching the virus closely. States and local governments are tracking wastewater data and counting hospitalizations and cases.

China Eastern Airlines Corp CEA resumed passenger flights of its Boeing Co BA 737-800 model aircraft after grounding the planes for nearly a month, following a crash of one of the planes.
While the airline’s Boeing 737-800 planes have resumed operations, China Eastern said on Monday that it is still investigating and conducting assessments on a batch of 737-800 planes manufactured around the same time as the plane that crashed.

Bloomberg

Leading agricultural trader Cargill Inc stopped buying palm oil products from Sime Darby Plantation Bhd SDPNF following indication of forced labor, Bloomberg reports.
Sime Darby acknowledged that Cargill had suspended all new sourcing of palm oil and derivative products since February 25 for reasons undisclosed. The companies were in talks.
Sime is a leading oil palm planter by acreage.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection looked to seize Sime’s palm oil and related goods as Sime used convicts and forced or indentured labor to manufacture products.

China’s regulatory crackdown on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA shattered its ambitions of becoming Amazon.com Inc AMZN of China, Bloomberg reports.
Alibaba’s core e-commerce operation is under siege by regulators. The regulators also forced its finance arm to pull back from some of its most lucrative initiatives.

Financial Times

PwC’s analysis of the first 50 FTSE 100 companies saw that CEOs’ 2021 median total remuneration jumped 34% year on year to pre-pandemic levels.
A significant hike in annual bonuses drove the growth as some sectors like banks, broader financial services, and the construction industry saw a post-Covid boom.
The analysis coincided with the AGM season, as investors scrutinize executive remuneration to ensure that companies taking furlough money or cutting dividends do not pay bonuses.

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG BMWYY will not resort to job cuts during the company’s transition from combustion engines to electric models.
“We will not have job losses due to the transformation,” the report quoted CEO Oliver Zipse. “At the end of the day, possibly already in this decade at our Munich plant, there will be fully electric production without anyone losing their job.”

Benzinga

Amid Twitter, Inc. TWTR board’s reluctance to accept Tesla, Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk’s offer to take the social media platform private, the world’s richest person may be plotting his next move. Wedbush analyst and prominent Tesla bull Daniel Ives said in a recent note it has now become a “game of high-stakes poker” between the two parties.
As the stakeholders look ahead to how the Musk-Twitter saga will evolve, the Tesla CEO sent everyone into a guessing game with a pithy cryptic tweet. On Saturday, Musk tweeted “Love Me Tender,” enclosing the tweet between musical notes emojis. At face value, it seems to be a reference to Elvis Presley’s 1956 hit song with the same title.

Apple Inc AAPL is testing its next generation of silicon chips against third-party applications, according to Bloomberg tech journalist Mark Gurman.
Gurman said in a weekly newsletter that Apple has both a series of new M2 chips and Macs in development.
The Tim Cook-led company is testing the chips against third-party applications to ensure compatibility, according to Gurman.

Dogecoin DOGE/USD traded 5.8% lower over 24 hours at $0.135 at press time early on Monday, declining with other major coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum as the global cryptocurrency market cap fell 3.9% to $1.8 trillion.
This came even as Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk shared a photo on Twitter that featured Dogecoin-themed easter eggs and, supposedly, his own pet Shiba Inu dog Floki.

More than $100 million worth of longs were liquidated over a one-hour time frame as Bitcoin BTC/USD lost support at $39,000.
According to data from Benzinga Pro, Bitcoin saw a sharp selloff during Asian hours on Monday. The leading digital asset lost 4% of its value and fell to an intra-day low of $38,905.
Ethereum ETH/USD, Solana SOL/USD, Cardano ADA/USD, and other leading altcoins also saw a sudden drop in prices.

Bitcoin and Ethereum traded below key psychological levels on Sunday evening as the global cryptocurrency market cap decreased 2.1% to $1.85 trillion at press time.
Why It Matters: Risk assets such as cryptocurrencies slid, while stock futures dropped ahead of a week filled with earnings activity. Some of the companies set to report this week include Netflix Inc NFLX and Tesla Inc TSLA.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons