The Tesla Coil is a transformer designed by Nikola Tesla in 1891 to produce high voltage, low current electricity. In high voltage news, Tesla has been subpoenaed by the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over one of Elon Musk’s recent tweets. The tweet outlined his potential plan to take Tesla private, so the SEC are now investigating for market manipulation as the tweet caused dramatic increases to Tesla’s share price. Musk has confirmed that he has funding from the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, but the share price has dropped again after the news of the SEC’s subpoena, which could lead to complications should he move forward with taking Tesla private.
The Turkish lira has been starting to recover since its recent low last week but has still lost over 35% against the dollar year to date. The US treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, has continued to advise that the pressure would be increased on Turkey with further sanctions applied if they do not release a detained US national.
Alongside the falling lira, global trade, and the strengthening dollar, emerging markets have taken a tumble last week and have fallen into bear territory. Emerging markets have decreased more than 20% since their high at the end of January, the definition of a bear market. Emerging markets are also a large consumer of commodities, which have also plummeted and is tied to the fall in emerging markets. Within commodities, metals have dropped almost 20% since their peak in April of this year, leading them also nearly into bear territory.
UK inflation increased in July, up to 2.5%, as a result of rising prices for computer games and transport fares. Somewhat ironically with increased transport fares is that rail prices will increase in January 2019 by July’s inflation figure plus 1%. This puts the increase to commuters at an eyewatering 3.5%. This is the first month since last November that inflation has increased. UK unemployment figures were also released last week, hitting the lowest figure of unemployment seen since 1975, at 4%.
