The daily business briefing: August 5, 2019

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1. Hobbs & Shaw dethrones The Lion King at the top of the box office
2. HSBC CEO John Flint stepping down after 18 months
3. China lets currency weaken below key level amid growing trade war with U.S.
4. Website security company Cloudflare drops 8chan following El Paso shooting
5. Stocks tumble as U.S.-China trade war intensifies

published 5 August 2019

1. Hobbs & Shaw dethrones The Lion King at the top of the box office

The Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham action flick Hobbs & Shaw was No. 1 at the box office this weekend, bringing in an estimated $60.8 million in North America. The Fast & Furious spin-off also had a strong opening abroad, with about $120 million in ticket sales. In its third weekend in theaters, the live action film The Lion King fell to the No. 2 spot, with an estimated $38.2 million; the movie has made almost $1.2 billion globally. Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood came in third place, earning an estimated $20 million, followed by Spider-Man: Far From Home with an estimated $7.8 million and Toy Story 4 with an estimated $7.2 million.

HSBC announced Sunday that CEO John Flint is out, just 18 months after he stepped into the role. HSBC is one of the largest banks in the world, and several people at the company told The Wall Street Journal the board didn't think Flint's low-key style was working. In a statement, Chairman Mark Tucker said the decision was made "by mutual agreement," and in an "increasingly complex and challenging global environment, the board feels a change is needed to make the most of the opportunities before us." Flint, 51, joined HSBC right after college. Noel Quinn, HSBC's global commercial banking head, will serve as interim CEO while a search is carried out.

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China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, allowed the yuan to breach the psychologically important rate of 7 to the U.S. dollar on Monday, pushing the Chinese currency to its weakest level in a decade. The People's Bank of China, which tightly controls the value of the yuan (or renminbi), cited "unilateralism and trade protectionism measures and the imposition of increased tariffs on China," but said currencies fluctuate and the renminbi is stable. President Trump rattled markets by announcing new tariffs on Friday, escalating an already hot trade war, and if China allows the yuan to depreciate further, that could prompt more punitive measures from Washington.

Website security company Cloudflare on Sunday said it will cut ties with 8chan, an online message board frequented by violent white nationalists. Authorities say a racist manifesto was left on 8chan just minutes before Saturday's deadly mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, by a person saying he was the gunman. Messages were also left on 8chan prior to the recent shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Poway, California. "We've seen a pattern where this lawless community has demonstrated its ability to create real harm and real damage," Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told The New York Times. "If we see a bad thing in the world and we can help get in front of it, we have some obligation to do that."

U.S. stock futures plunged Monday morning as the ongoing U.S.-China trade war rattled markets. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 300 points, or 1.2 percent. Futures for the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were down 1.7 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively. Last week, President Trump surprised Wall Street by announcing additional 10 percent tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods, set to take effect in September. Over the weekend, China's yuan sank to its lowest point in over a decade, "fueling concern Beijing might use its currency as a weapon in the tariff war," Fox Business reported.

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