The daily business briefing: August 22, 2023

1. SoftBank's Arm files for big IPO

SoftBank Group's Arm Holdings Ltd. on Monday filed for a Nasdaq stock listing, revealing details of what would be the biggest U.S. initial public offering of the year. Arm said in a long-awaited regulatory filing that Barclays, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Mizuho Financial Group are leading the offering. A successful IPO by Arm, a once-obscure designer of phone chips, would result in a big payday for SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son after his Vision Fund lost a record $30 billion in 2022. Arm plans to start pushing its debut in early September and price the shares a week later, according to Bloomberg. The sale is expected to raise $60 billion to $70 billion.

Bloomberg CNBC

2. India imposes onion export tax to fight domestic inflation

India over the weekend imposed a 40% tax on onion exports as part of an ongoing government effort to contain sharp increases in food prices. The levy will stay in place through the end of the year. Onions are a key ingredient in many Indian dishes, and traders said the new tax showed how desperate the government is to curb inflation ahead of important state elections later this year and a general election scheduled for 2024. "India is a country where the price of onions can knock down governments. It is a politically sensitive commodity," J. Holkar, an onion and potato trader in India's western Maharashtra state, told The Wall Street Journal. "It can make governments cry."

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The Wall Street Journal

3. House Freedom Caucus issues demands to avoid government shutdown

The far-right House Freedom Caucus on Monday unveiled its demands to avoid a government shutdown. The group of about three dozen Republicans said it would oppose any stop-gap spending measure before the government runs short of money on Sept. 30 unless it includes more money for border enforcement, cuts for the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a halt to "woke" Defense Department policies, according to Axios. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said earlier this month that a temporary spending measure would be needed to keep all federal agencies operating normally while lawmakers negotiate long-term spending bills.

Axios Politico

4. Stock futures rise after S&P 500, Nasdaq snap losing streaks

U.S. stock futures rose slightly early Tuesday after the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq snapped four-day losing streaks on Monday. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were up 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively, at 6:30 a.m. ET. Nasdaq futures were up 0.6%. The S&P 500 gained 0.7% on Monday while the tech-heavy Nasdaq surged by 1.6%, its biggest single-day gain of the month. The Dow fell 0.1% on Monday. The gains for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq came despite an increase in the 10-year Treasury yield to 4.34%, its highest level since November 2007. Rising yields tend to increase borrowing costs and drag down tech companies reliant on growth.

CNBC

5. S&P Global Ratings downgrades several US banks

S&P Global Ratings on Monday announced downgrades for the credit ratings of several U.S. banks. S&P knocked down the ratings of KeyCorp, Comerica Inc., Valley National Bancorp, UMB Financial Corp., and Associated Banc-Corp by one notch. It also lowered its outlook for River City Bank and S&T Bank to negative from stable, citing high real-estate exposure. S&P explained the changes by saying that many depositors had "shifted their funds into higher-interest-bearing accounts, increasing banks' funding costs." The moves came two weeks after Moody's Investors Service cut its ratings for multiple U.S. banks, shaking up markets.

Bloomberg Reuters