1. Saudi Aramco prices its record IPO
Saudi Aramco on Thursday priced its initial public offering of stock at the high end of its expected range. At $8.53 per share, the state-owned Saudi oil giant's IPO will be the largest in history. The pricing will let the company raise $25.6 billion, beating out the previous record of $25 billion set by Alibaba in 2014. The IPO will give the company a valuation of $1.7 trillion, easily surpassing Apple as the world's most valuable company but falling short of the $2 trillion valuation that had been targeted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
2. GM, LG Chem to build electric-car battery plant near closed Lordstown factory
General Motors and LG Chem on Thursday announced plans to build a $2.3 billion electric-car battery factory in Ohio, near GM's shuttered Lordstown plant. The facility will be one of the world's biggest battery facilities, with 1,100 workers. Construction is scheduled to start in mid-2020. GM said during talks to end the recent United Auto Workers strike that the plant would employ union workers, but GM CEO Mary Barra said Thursday the decision on unionization would be up to the workers. Barra declined to say how much the workers would make, although GM and LG had a Michigan plant that built batteries for the now-retired Volt, and they were paid $15 to $17 an hour. "You have to be competitive," Barra said. "But I think these will be good paying jobs."
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3. Uber received 3,045 reports of sexual assault in U.S. last year
Uber reported Thursday that it received reports of 3,045 sexual assaults during U.S. rides in 2018. In an 84-page report, the ride-hailing service said there were 235 reports of rape, 280 reports of attempted rape, 1,560 reports of groping, and 970 reports of unwanted kissing. The company received 5,981 allegations over 2017 and 2018 combined. "Each of these incidents represents an individual who has undergone a horrific trauma," Tony West, Uber's chief legal officer, told NBC News. Uber said victims included drivers and riders, with passengers accused of sexual assault in 45 percent of cases. "We do 4 million rides a day," West said. "And when you're operating at that kind of scale, thankfully, 99.9 percent of those rides end with absolutely no safety incident whatsoever."
4. OPEC, Russia agree to deeper oil production cuts
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia agreed on Thursday to deepen oil production cuts to boost prices, although OPEC made no formal announcement confirming the deal, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported. Cartel members and Russia agreed at a meeting in Vienna to reduce production by another 500,000 barrels per day, or roughly half of one percent of global output, through March. Previous production cuts have failed to push prices to target levels because they have been offset by rising production from outside OPEC, including from the U.S., which has doubled its output to 12 million barrels a day since 2012. Oil prices remained little changed after the new agreement, partly because of uncertainty over how many producers would comply with the agreement.
The New York Times The Wall Street Journal
5. Jobs report expected to show pick-up in November
Economists expect the Labor Department's November jobs report to show that hiring picked up compared to the previous month. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones estimated that the economy added 187,000 nonfarm jobs in November, up from the 128,000 initially reported for October. The unemployment rate of 3.6 percent was not expected to change. Wage growth was forecast to be 0.3 percent. Even better-than-expected job growth likely would show that the pace of job growth has slowed, with the average around 167,000 jobs per month, down from 233,000 per month in 2018. U.S. stock index futures gained slightly ahead of the report, scheduled for release at 8:30 a.m. ET.
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