The daily business briefing: July 31, 2017

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1. Lawmakers pitch ObamaCare fixes as Trump renews call for repeal
2. Charter rebuffs Sprint pitch for acquisition deal
3. HSBC increases stock buybacks as it reports better-than-expected earnings
4. Tesla stock rises after first Model 3 deliveries
5. Markets rise, shrugging off North Korea concerns and Chinese data

published 31 July 2017

1. Lawmakers pitch ObamaCare fixes as Trump renews call for repeal

A coalition of 40 House Republicans and Democrats on Monday plan to unveil a list of ObamaCare fixes, hoping that lawmakers will embrace a bipartisan effort to improve the existing health-care law following the failure last week of Senate Republicans' effort to repeal and replace it. President Trump on Sunday called on Republicans to keep pushing for repeal, tweeting: "Don't give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace." Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price during Sunday TV interviews that the administration could take matters into its own hands and tweak ObamaCare regulations it believes are driving up health-care costs. "We're going to look at every single one of those rules and regulations, all 1,442 of them," Price said on ABC's This Week.

Charter Communications has "no interest" in Sprint's proposal for the cable giant to acquire it, a Charter spokesman told Reuters on Sunday. Japan's SoftBank, which controls Sprint, pitched the complex deal with Charter, which would have created a new company controlled by SoftBank, as an alternative to a stalled effort to strike a deal with T-Mobile. "We understand why a deal is attractive for Softbank, but Charter has no interest in acquiring Sprint," the Charter spokesman said in an email to Reuters. Now that the offer has been spurned, SoftBank's billionaire chairman, Masayoshi Son, reportedly plans to make an offer to buy Charter outright, according to a person with knowledge of his plans.

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HSBC on Monday reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and said it would increase its share buy-backs by up to $2 billion. The London-based bank has announced $5.5 billion in share repurchases since the second half of 2016 as its bottom line improved after it cut tens of thousands of jobs and sold underperforming businesses. "We have made an excellent start to 2017, reflecting the changes we have made since our investor update in 2015 and the strength of our competitive position," HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver said in a news release.

Tesla's stock rose by 1.6 percent in pre-market trading on Monday in the first trading day since the electric-car company delivered its first Model 3 mass-market sedans. Tesla is scheduled to report quarterly earnings after the market close on Aug. 2, and analysts expect another loss. Investors are paying closer attention, however, to the performance of the Model 3, which with a base price of $35,000 is far cheaper than Tesla's previous offerings and is the key to helping the company become a bigger automaker. The Model 3 has been getting some stellar reviews, boosting expectations and buoying the stock.

Asian stocks started the week with gains on Monday despite fears over North Korea's most recent missile test, and weaker-than-expected Purchasing Managers' Index data from China in July. The Chinese PMI figure was lower than expected, but still stayed above the mark separating growth from contraction. U.S. stock futures pointed to modest gains on Monday, the last day of trading in what is looking to be the second-best month yet in 2017 for the major U.S. indexes. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up by 0.2 percent, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures were up by about 0.1 percent.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.