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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (Reuters) – Italian premium sports car maker Ferrari NV (RACE.MI) will expand sales of easier-driving grand touring cars, but will not try to chase rival Porsche’s annual sales volume, Ferrari Chairman John Elkann told an audience of classic car enthusiasts gathered at this storied golf resort on the Pacific coast.

Elkann also reiterated that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV(FCHA.MI), of which he is chairman, remains open to opportunities to combine with other automakers, but is positioned to remain independent. Fiat Chrysler in May proposed a merger with French automaker Renault SA, but the deal fell apart after the French government intervened and Elkann withdrew the proposed merger.

Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Mike Manley sent the same message to Renault and other would-be partners earlier this month.

Elkann visited Pebble Beach during the annual Concours d’Elegance, during which wealthy collectors bring some of the world’s rarest vintage automobiles to be admired — and sold — and premium manufacturers showcase exotic new models.

Ferrari is best known for flashy, high performance sports cars. Among fans of vintage Ferraris, more understated GT, or grand touring, cars from the 1960s, some with seating for four people, are among the most popular models on auction blocks and at enthusiast events. GT cars were designed to be comfortable on longer road trips.

Elkann hinted Ferrari will unveil a new GT type car in November. Ferrari has said previously that about 40{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} of its total sales could come from GT cars by 2022, up from 32{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} now.

Ferrari has outlined plans to expand revenue to 5 billion euros ($5.54 billion) by 2022 from 3.4 billion euros in 2017. The company has said it plans to add a model called the Purosangue to compete with a growing stable of sport utility vehicles wearing premium sports car brands, such as the Lamborghini Urus.

Rival Porsche AG[PSCH.UL], a unit of Volkswagen AG(VOWG_p.DE), has expanded its sales to more than 250,000 sports cars and sport utility vehicles annually. Elkann said Ferrari is not aiming for Porsche’s level of sales.

($1 = 0.9018 euros)

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday allowed PG&E Corp to retain the sole rights to propose a plan to exit bankruptcy, as he rejected efforts by investors to put forward competing plans, according to court documents.

Judge Dennis Montali of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco turned down requests from two groups of creditors wanting to propose a Chapter 11 exit plan for PG&E, which is facing huge liabilities from California wildfires.

Montali said he believed allowing PG&E to retain the right to lead the process would be a speedier resolution for victims of fires that were caused by equipment belonging to the California utility, according to the court documents.

PG&E earlier this week said that it would file its plan by Sept. 9.

The company sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year after severe wildfires in 2017 and 2018 resulted in more than $30 billion in liabilities.

In May, state fire investigators determined that PG&E transmission lines caused the deadliest and most destructive wildfire on record in California, a blaze that killed 85 people last year.

Hedge funds Knighthead Capital Management and Abrams Capital Management, which are shareholders in PG&E, made a public proposal earlier this month to raise $15 billion in equity to fund a planned reorganization and pledged to purchase a portion of the offered equity if shares are left unsold.

PG&E bondholders have proposed plans to inject money to help the company emerge from Chapter 11, saying it has been too slow to file its own plan.

PG&E was not immediately available for a comment.

(Reuters) – Facebook (FB.O) users suing the world’s largest social media network over a 2018 data breach say it failed to warn them about risks tied to its single sign-on tool, even though it protected its employees, a court filing on Thursday showed.

Single sign-on connects users to third-party social apps and services using their Facebook credentials.

The lawsuit, which combined several legal actions, stems from Facebook Inc’s worst-ever security breach in September, when hackers stole login codes – or “access tokens” – that allowed them to access nearly 29 million accounts.

“Facebook knew about the access token vulnerability and failed to fix it for years, despite that knowledge,” the plaintiffs said in a heavily redacted section of the filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco.

“Even more egregiously, Facebook took steps to protect its own employees from the security risk, but not the vast majority of its users.”

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Judge William Alsup told Facebook in January he was willing to allow “bone-crushing discovery” in the case to uncover how much user data was stolen.

Facebook has revealed few details since initially disclosing the attack, saying only that it affected a “broad” spectrum of users without breaking down the numbers by country.

The attackers took profile details such as birth dates, employers, education history, religious preference, types of devices used, pages followed and recent searches and location check-ins from 14 million users.

For the other 15 million users, the breach was restricted to name and contact details. In addition, attackers could see the posts and lists of friends and groups of about 400,000 users.

They did not steal personal messages or financial data and did not access users’ accounts on other websites, Facebook said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China made no trade concessions after U.S. President Donald Trump postponed 10{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} tariffs on over $150 billion worth of Chinese imports, senior U.S. officials said on Wednesday, adding that talks aimed at resolving the trade fight would continue and markets should be patient.

“This was not a quid pro quo,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC television in an interview, using a Latin phrase meaning a favor exchanged for a favor.

Trump on Tuesday backed off his Sept. 1 deadline for imposing the tariffs on thousands of Chinese imports, including technology products, clothing and footwear, pushing it to Dec. 15 for certain items. U.S. and Chinese officials also announced renewed trade discussions.

Both developments drew cautious relief from retailers and technology groups as the world’s two largest economies enter the second year of their trade dispute.

Trump’s tariff delay coincided with recession fears in U.S. markets sending stocks to their biggest one-day loss since October. The U.S. Treasury yield curve inverted for the first time since 2007 – a possible recession signal – after China’s industrial output growth hit a 17-year low in July and Germany reported a second-quarter contraction in gross domestic product output.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI and Nasdaq Composite .IXIC both lost 3 percent, while the broader Standard and Poor’s 500 .SPX lost 2.9 percent.

‘MORE PAIN ON THEM’

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, in a separate interview on Fox Business Network, said the decision to delay the additional tariffs was made to limit the pain on U.S. businesses, which already had contracts to buy Chinese goods for the holiday selling season and had no way to avoid passing costs on to consumers.

Trump on Tuesday said he delayed the tariffs to shield Christmas sales from the tariffs.

Chad Bown, a trade economist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said in a blog post that there was no good news in the tariff announcements.

“The only minor consolation comes in their timing,” Bown wrote. “By putting off the next two rounds until the import surges have already arrived to stock this year’s back-to-school and winter holiday shopping seasons, President Trump may be coming around, albeit belatedly, to the economic evidence on the costs of his trade war.”

Looking for concessions from China in exchange for the delayed tariffs is the “totally wrong way to look at it,” Navarro said.

“The whole premise of what we’re trying to do is pain on them, not pain on us,” Navarro said. “If we simply put the tariffs on Sept. 1 that would be more pain on us, rather than pain on them. That’s just silly.”

Navarro declined to say what U.S. negotiators would seek to achieve in the talks with Chinese officials before the tariffs take effect. Another phone call is scheduled between the two sides later this month.

“These negotiations will happen behind closed doors,” Navarro said. “People just need to be patient.”

Ross said on CNBC that it was too early to assess where U.S.-China trade talks stand. A date has not been set for another round of face-to-face discussions, Ross said.

BIBLES, SHIPPING CONTAINERS EXEMPTED

The tariff delay applies to about $156 billion worth of 2018 imports from China, according to a Reuters analysis of the revised tariff lists. The largest categories include cell phones, laptop and tablet computers and toys.

In addition, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said it is granting a permanent reprieve from tariffs for about 25 import categories from China, including Bibles and religious texts, child safety seats, shipping containers and cranes used in ports and construction along with some types of fish products.

The editor of China’s state run Global Times newspaper said China would require removal of all additional U.S. tariffs in order to reach a deal, not simply delaying them.

Hu Xijin also cast doubt in a Twitter message that China would follow up with significant purchases of U.S. agricultural goods as requested by Trump.

“As far as I know, the Chinese side requests that both sides respect the consensus reached at Osaka summit, which is removing all additional tariffs, not delaying some. I doubt Chinese side will resume large-scale purchase of US farm products under current circumstances,” Hu tweeted.

(Reuters) – CBS Corp (CBS.N) and Viacom Inc (VIAB.O) have reached a deal to reunite media mogul Sumner Redstone’s U.S. entertainment empire, betting that a larger company will be able to compete and partner better in a media industry dominated by giants.

The new company will be named ViacomCBS Inc, although CBS shareholders will own 61{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} and Viacom shareholders will own 39{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}.

The merger will combine the CBS television network, CBS News, Showtime cable networks with MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and the Paramount movie studios. Together, they will own more than 140,000 TV episodes and 3,600 film titles. Annually, it is estimated to generate about $28 billion in revenue.

It creates a company with roughly a $30 billion market value, which is still small compared with rivals including Netflix Inc (NFLX.O), at $136 billion, ABC network owner Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), at $245 billion, and NBC owner Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) at $193 billion.

The merging companies are controlled by National Amusements Inc, the holding company owned by billionaire Sumner Redstone and his daughter, Shari.

“My father once said ‘content is king,’ and never has that been more true than today,” Shari Redstone said in a statement.

The third attempt at a merger since 2016 is a decisive win for Shari Redstone, whose father built the companies through a series of mergers and then broke them apart 13 years ago.

Previous merger talks had failed because of clashes between executives over divvying up top jobs and the companies’ relative valuation.

The recombination comes amid an increasingly competitive media landscape dominated by Disney and Netflix, prompting Redstone to pursue a merger.

Viacom Chief Executive Bob Bakish will be the president and CEO of the combined company. Joe Ianniello, interim CEO of CBS, will be named chairman and CEO of CBS, which will exclude the Showtime cable network and book publisher Simon & Schuster.

Ianniello will report to Bakish. Bakish cannot fire Ianniello unless the ViacomCBS board approves.

Bakish in an interview said that he will compete with Netflix, Disney and AT&T for subscribers and also create and sell TV shows and movies to other companies, an operation that will grow thanks to the new deal.

“This is not a put-your-eggs-in-one-basket story,” Bakish said. “They all work together.”

ViacomCBS can lure customers with free offerings from a service like PlutoTV, which it bought in January, then convince them to pay for a subscription service in another part of the empire like CBS All Access, Bakish said.

SLIGHT PREMIUM

Viacom shareholders will receive 0.59625 CBS shares for each share they own, representing a slight premium to Viacom’s closing price on Monday.

The companies said they expected about $500 million in annual cost savings.

The new board of directors will consist of 13 members. Six will come from independent members from CBS, four independent members from Viacom, Bakish, and two National Amusements members. Shari Redstone will be appointed the chairman.

Shares of Viacom rose 2.4{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} to $29.21 and shares of CBS rose 1.4{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} to $48.70 after the merger was announced.

Centerview Partners LLC and Lazard Frères & Co served as financial advisers to the CBS board’s special committee. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP served as the special committee’s legal counsel.

LionTree Advisors LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co served as financial advisers and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP as legal counsel to the special committee to the Viacom board.

Viacom was advised by Shearman & Sterling LLP. National Amusements was advised by Evercore as its financial adviser and by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP as its legal counsel.

(Reuters) – A U.S. federal court on Monday issued a permanent injunction against American Airlines Group Inc’s (AAL.O) mechanics union, which the airline had accused of illegal slowdowns it said had devastated its operations during the peak summer travel season.

The judgment, issued in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, made permanent an earlier order against the TWU-IAM Association demanding the workers stop interfering in American’s operations.

American filed a lawsuit in May against the union group after stalled contract negotiations that were being overseen by a federal mediator.

At the time, American said alleged disruption by the mechanics had caused hundreds of flight cancellations and even more maintenance delays.

The union group denied the accusations in court.

Monday’s order prohibits employees from “calling, permitting, instigating, authorizing, encouraging, participating in, approving, or continuing any form of disruption to or interference with American’s airline operations,” including a refusal to accept overtime or complete any maintenance repairs in the normal course of work.

(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc said on Sunday that fears of the U.S.-China trade war leading to a recession are increasing and that Goldman no longer expects a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies before the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“We expect tariffs targeting the remaining $300bn of US imports from China to go into effect,” the bank said in a note sent to clients.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Aug. 1 that he would impose a 10{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} tariff on a final $300 billion worth of Chinese imports on Sept. 1, prompting China to halt purchases of U.S. agricultural products.

The United States also declared China a currency manipulator. China denies that it has manipulated the yuan for competitive gain.

The year-long trade dispute has revolved around issues such as tariffs, subsidies, technology, intellectual property and cyber security, among others.

Goldman Sachs said it lowered its fourth-quarter U.S. growth forecast by 20 basis points to 1.8{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} on a larger than expected impact from the developments in the trade tensions.

“Overall, we have increased our estimate of the growth impact of the trade war,” the bank said in the note authored by three of its economists, Jan Hatzius, Alec Phillips and David Mericle.

Rising input costs from the supply chain disruption could lead U.S. companies to reduce their domestic activity, the note said. Such “policy uncertainty” may also make companies lower their capex spending, the economists added.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis has approved new statutes for the Vatican Bank, making an external audit obligatory and introducing other changes to bolster reforms that have turned around the once scandal-ridden institution.

The statutes, approved in a papal document released by the Vatican on Saturday, cap more than six years of changes at the bank since Francis was elected in 2013, since when he has made reform of the bank one of his priorities.

The bank had been caught in previous years in cases of corruption, tax evasion, embezzlement, money laundering and real estate fraud, some involving top officials and prelates, damaging the Vatican’s ethical credentials.

Andrea Tornielli, the Vatican’s editorial director, called the new rules “an important step in the process of adhering to the best international standards.”

Soon after his election, Francis considered closing the bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), but decided to continue reforms launched by his predecessor Pope Benedict.

The new statutes make an external audit mandatory. While this has taken place in the past few years, the previous statutes, issued in 1990 by Pope John Paul, called for internal audits.

The new rules ban bank employees, nearly all of whom are non-clerics, from holding consultancies or other roles with outside institutions.

FINANCIAL SCANDALS

The number of members of the lay board of supervisors, which is made up of internationally known outside financial experts, is increased to seven from five.

This will effectively strengthen the role of the lay board and weaken that of a supervisory commission of cardinals, whose number remains five.

For decades before reforms were implemented, the IOR was embroiled in numerous financial scandals as people with no right to have accounts opened them and used them for illicit purposes with the complicity of corrupt insiders.

In the past six years, hundreds of accounts have been closed at the IOR, whose stated purpose is to manage funds for the Church, Vatican employees, religious institutes, or Catholic charities.

Last year, the Vatican’s controller, the Financial Information Authority (AIF), carried out an on-site inspection of the IOR to ensure it was complying with anti-money laundering legislation and the outcome was “substantially positive”, the AIF said in its report for that year.

In 2017, Italy put the Vatican on its “white list” of states with cooperative financial institutions, ending years of mistrust. The same year, Moneyval, a monitoring body of the Council of Europe, gave Vatican reforms a mostly positive evaluation, particularly those carried out at the bank.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Friday following renewed jitters over the U.S.-China trade war, capping a week of trading that saw big swings and high volume.

President Donald Trump said the United States and China were pursuing trade talks but he was not ready to make a deal, fanning fears over the impact of the trade war on the global economy.

Trump also said the United States would continue to refrain from doing business with Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies.

The week was marked by wild swings, but indexes finished nearly flat on the week. This week’s volume on U.S. exchanges was also the biggest weekly total of the year, exceeding 41 billion shares.

On Friday, all three indexes were down more than 1{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} in early trading and rebounded later in the session, with the Dow briefly turning positive at one point. This left a 315-point swing between the blue-chip index’s high and low of the day.

The frequent comments on trade are “leaving investors whipsawed,” said Rick Meckler, partner, Cherry Lane Investments, a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey.

“As volatility has picked up, you’ve gotten more interest on the part of traders, and that in turn has led to even higher volume,” he said. “When you get moves like this and reversals, it brings a lot of high-frequency traders in and short-term traders.”

Shares of chipmakers and other tariff-sensitive technology companies .SPLRCT fell, with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index .SOX down 1.8{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 90.75 points, or 0.34{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}, to 26,287.44, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 19.44 points, or 0.66{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}, to 2,918.65 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 80.02 points, or 1{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}, to 7,959.14.

Shares of Amgen (AMGN.O) jumped 5.9{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} after news that a U.S. judge said patents relating to the Amgen’s blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel were valid, denying a challenge by Novartis AG (NOVN.S).

Uber Technologies Inc (UBER.N) shed 6.8{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} after the ride-hailing company reported a record $5.2 billion quarterly loss and revenue that fell short of Wall Street targets.

Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR.O) shares also plunged, a day after the drug developer flagged manufacturing issues with its experimental cancer drug bempeg.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.99-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.07-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 46 new 52-week highs and nine new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 56 new highs and 129 new lows.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks jumped on Thursday, led by a more than 2{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} gain in technology shares, while better-than-expected economic data in the United States and China helped to offset worries about the trade war.

The S&P 500 technology sector, which was at the heart of the recent selloff, provided the biggest boost to the benchmark S&P 500 index, which was on course for its third day of gains.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc gained 14.7{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} after the chipmaker launched its second generation of processor chip and said that it had landed Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter Inc as customers.

Symantec Corp jumped 11.6{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} after sources said chipmaker Broadcom Inc was in advanced talks to buy the cybersecurity company’s enterprise business.

“The overnight action was positive. That, along with the bounceback yesterday, gave us a nice tailwind coming into the market today, both for high-frequency traders who were buying the trend and also for bargain hunters who had seen stocks that were on the watchlist come down to a level that looked attractive,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

“So we’ve seen a lot of the tech names pop after they got hammered. There’s money coming back into those because investors have decided it created an opportunity.”

U.S. data pointed to a robust labor market as the number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, allaying some worries about a recession and helping U.S. Treasury yields rise.

That followed better-than-expected export numbers out of China and some improvement for the country’s yuan currency, whose slide over the weekend spurred Wall Street’s worst day so far this year on Monday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 285.32 points, or 1.1{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}, to 26,292.39, the S&P 500 gained 45.67 points, or 1.58{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}, to 2,929.65 and the Nasdaq Composite added 154.78 points, or 1.97{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}, to 8,017.61.

On the down side, Kraft Heinz sank after it pulled its full-year forecast and wrote down the value of several business units by over $1 billion, capping a rough few months for the company.

Lyft Inc advanced 4.1{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} after the ride-hailing service raised its annual outlook and hinted at the end of its price war with Uber Technologies Inc. Uber, due to report after the bell and a high-profile loser since its market launch this year, rose 7.5{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 4.32-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.52-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 38 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 77 new highs and 84 new lows.