LVMH increases offer for Tiffany & Co  

The luxury company LVMH has gained access to Tiffany & Co's financial books after raising their bid to purchase the company to $16 billion on 20 November. Tiffany & Co had turned down an original offer of $120 per share offer by LVMH earlier this month. 

LVMH's latest offer would value the company at $130 per share. Tiffany & Co's shares rose $4.77 to $127.75 in the New York market on 20 November.

General Motors sues Fiat Chrysler

General Motors has filed a lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler for allegedly bribing auto unions. The suit claimed that General Motors was forced to pay billions of dollars in unnecessary wages after their rival bribed union leaders to gain a competitive advantage. 

GM accused Sergio Marchionne, the former chief executive of Fiat Chrysler who died last year, of organizing the bribes to UAW leaders. 

British Airways flights delayed  

A 'technical issue' has caused thousands of British airways passengers to be delayed. The airline claimed in a statement on Twitter that they have rebooked the affected customers and offered hotel rooms to some.

This is just the latest in several technical issues faced by British Airways. In August of this year, several thousand passengers were forced to reschedule their flights after the airline experienced IT problems. 

BMW orders $10 billion of battery cells 

BMW ordered more than $10 billion worth of battery cells to reach their goal of 25 new electrified models by 2023. The suppliers are Chinese battery cell maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co and Samsung. More than half of the new range pf cars will be fully electric. 

Many car companies in Europe have started plans to produce more environmentally friendly cars in order to comply with new clean air rules. This means that they will have to provide more electronic options to customers instead of cars with combustion engines. 

It isn't as if things had been going so well, but with more mixed messages round the US/China trade talks, financial markets have the jitters. Stocks have fallen off their highs, although don't forget that they are trading around record highs in the first place.

We've gone from a phase-one deal apparently being reached, to neither side agreeing on tariff rollbacks. Reuters reported overnight that an interim trade deal might not happen until the New Year - well past the mid-December date for the next round of U.S. tariffs.

While touring an Apple factory, President Trump has said that China was not meeting his demands. It will be interesting to see what happens next with the Hong Kong law which was passed in the House of Representatives yesterday. It now awaits presidential approval or veto.

"What will the Chinese make of it? And what potentially harmful effect it could have on trade negotiations has both the President and financial markets nervous" said Jeffrey Halley, Senior Market Analyst at OANDA.

The dollar has strengthened against major currencies on fears that trade talks were again stuck in a rut, but in general the G7 currency market seems to be in a bit of a lull that it probably won't shake out of unless there is some concrete decision making either way.

Meanwhile in the UK, market watchers are number crunching the long awaited election manifestos. Commerzbank says the economic backdrop to the election is wobbly, partly because of Brexit, but also because of more general global economic pressures.

"The big issue of the election campaign is the extent to which the main political parties plan to expand fiscal policy…. Labour's policy agenda is economically very radical, with a greater role for the state, but it won't 'bankrupt the economy' said Peter Dixon, Economist at Commerzbank.