"What’s drawing investors to gold now is not faith in gold itself, it's much more a lack of faith in other things." 

As the price of gold reaches historic highs – despite the general economic situation globally – Jim Luke of Schroders brokerage told the Financial Times why the precious metal remains a beacon for investors. 

Unfortunately we must move from boom to bust, as business continues to suffer. Today, Virgin Atlantic filed for bankruptcy protection in a New York court and its former sister airline Virgin Australia announced it was cutting back its international flight services. 

The problems are caused by the lack of passengers amid the pandemic. But the instructions to stay at home have not crippled all sectors. New figures show – in the UK at least – streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+ have had a good pandemic, with the average 16 to 34-year-old watching more than two hours a day on the platforms. Scroll to the bottom for a chart comparing viewing figures with those for 2019. 

Finally, today’s interview section is a little different. I was going to attempt to explain the Fitbit case brought by the European Commission, then I saw our Brussels correspondent had sent a much better one. So in a question-and-answer format, you can find Toni Waterman’s report in today’s briefing. 

Happy reading, 
Patrick Atack

Digital business correspondent 

P.S. Did you know we send this briefing by email, too? Sign up here

Airline Virgin Atlantic could be in serious trouble if creditors don’t approve a $1.5 billion bailout. Despite being "fundamentally sound," according to its lawyers, Richard Branson’s company has applied for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. 

Meanwhile the now-unconnected airline Virgin Australia, which will be taken over by Bain Capital if at least 50 percent of creditors agree, said it will likely focus on domestic and short-haul flights. CEO Paul Scurrah said jobs would likely be cut alongside the change of focus for the business. 

It's been a historic day on the precious metals markets, as Gold topped $2,000 an ounce for the first time. The precious metal's price has increased 30 percent in 2020, as investors fear a depression following the pandemic and move to more reliable places to store their assets, especially as low interest rates show no signs of rising. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused further tumult for "gig economy" workers in the U.S., as drivers for ride-hailing apps Uber and Lyft are being suspended as court closures across the country mean their annual security checks cannot be completed. 

The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change – a group managing at least $16 trillion – has launched the first action plan for pension funds and others to align their investments with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. It includes investing in low-carbon indexes and ensuring companies that receive investment link pay to climate targets. 

July marked the first month this year that car sales in the UK rose. The 11.3 percent annual rise follows gradual improvements since the historic crash through March and April when the country went into lockdown.

The People’s Bank of China's policy manager, Ma Jun, said the central bank did not need to inject further cash into the country’s economy, as the recovery from the pandemic is going well. "If we boost stimulus, there could be some negative consequences, such as real estate and stock market bubbles," he said. 

Foreign direct investment to Dubai dropped by 74 percent in the first half of 2020, according to the city’s government. The first six months drew $3 billion – compared with $12 billion in 2019. 

German car maker BMW said it lost $787 million in the second quarter, despite an uptick in deliveries of several of the firm’s brands in China. Despite the losses, it said it still expects to produce an operating profit for the full year. 

Meanwhile, Japanese car manufacturer Honda said it expects to suffer a 68 percent drop in profits in 2020. It said it expects to earn $1.8 billion for the year to March 2021, which would mark its worst performance for 10 years.

Coca-Cola’s European division said its profits fell 35 percent to $246 million in the first six months of the year, mainly due to the widespread closure of restaurants, bars and cinemas in the 28 nations to which it supplies soft drinks. After an initial fall in out-of-home purchases of between 70 and 90 percent, the situation has improved in June and July. 

WATCH: TikTok is poised to announce the location of its new global headquarters, with reports suggesting the company may choose London.

It is believed UK government ministers and TikTok's owner ByteDance will reveal the plans within days.
 

Toni Waterman, CGTN Europe’s correspondent in Brussels, explains the Fitbit investigation by the European Commission. 

What is Fitbit?

Fitbit is a U.S. company that makes fitness trackers and smartwatches. Its devices track data such as the number of steps walked, heart rates, sleep patterns, calories burned and more. The company has about 30 million users worldwide. 

Fitbit once dominated the wearables market, but it has steadily been losing ground to its domestic and Chinese rivals.

In November, Google announced plans to buy Fitbit for $2.1 billion, sparking a wave of antitrust and privacy concerns. 

How important is the wearables market?

The wearables sector is exploding, with growth easily in the double digits every year. Allied Market Research expects the global smartwatch industry to hit $93.31 billion by 2027.

For Google, which doesn’t currently make a smartwatch, it’s a way to build connected consumer profiles. Knowing where a person runs, swims or bikes could be sold to advertising companies or help with something as simple as city planning. 

But the wearables market is very crowded and Google argues that the merger will "increase competition in the sector, benefiting consumers and making the next generation of devices better and more affordable."

It seems the European Commission disagrees.  

Why is the EU concerned about the deal?

Google's parent company Alphabet is already a behemoth. It owns the world’s largest search engine (Google), one of the largest email providers (Gmail), the most viewed video-streaming platform (YouTube) and the biggest mobile operating system (Android). About 4 billion people globally use at least one of these products and the company makes a lot of money through advertising on these platforms using curated user data. 

EU antitrust regulators are concerned this deal will distort competition by giving Google access to even more data. The tech giant has reportedly pledged not to use Fitbit users' health information for targeted ads, but that hasn't appeased regulators. 

According to the Financial Times, EU regulators also want Google to grant third parties equal access to the data.