Stock market news: Opening bell, August 31, 2018

A
Cappuccino stands on a table at a branch of Costa coffee in
Manchester, Britain.
Reuters/Phil
Noble

Here is what you need to know. 

Trump reportedly wants a massive escalation in the trade war with
China. President Donald Trump wants to move
forward with tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese
goods —after the public-comment period ends on September 6 —
Bloomberg reports.  

2 of the most successful stock pickers of 2018 say a trait shared
by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos holds the key to their
success. 
“And the founder/CEOs? We prefer
them because they have an appetite to think longer-term and
they’re willing to take risk that a rent-an-MBA executive or a
successor manager may not be willing to,”  Anthony Zackery,
a portfolio manager at the Zevenbergen Genea Fund, told Business
Insider.

Coca-Cola just became a giant threat to Starbucks after buying
one of Europe’s biggest coffee chains. The
beverage giant has agreed to pay Whitbread 3.9 billion pounds
($5.1 billion) for its British coffee-shop chain Costa
Coffee. 

Apple sends out invitations for the new iPhone event on September
12. The tech giant is expected to reveal three
new iPhone models and could also unveil other products such
as an updated iPad Pro and the next version of its AirPods.

Cboe is telling market makers that it’s getting close to
launching ether futures. The exchange is
waiting on additional clarity from the Commodity Futures Trade
Commission and could launch by the end of 2018, a person with
knowledge of the situation told Business Insider.

Lyft takes a step towards an IPO. The
ride-services firm is in talks with an adviser for an initial
public offering in March or April of 2019, Bloomberg says. 

A notorious short-seller has come out swinging against a popular
marijuana stock. Shares of marijuana company Cronos
plunged more than 28% on Thursday after Citron Research wrote it
“appears to have been deceiving the investing public by purposely
not disclosing the size of its distribution agreements with
provinces – unlike every other major cannabis player.”

Stock markets
around the world are lower. Hong Kong’s Hang
Seng (-0.98%) led the losses in Asia and Germany’s DAX (-0.95%)
trails in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open down 0.14% near
2,897.

Earnings reporting is light. Big Lots reports
ahead of the opening bell.

US
economic data keeps coming. Chicago PMI and
University of Michigan consumer confidence will cross the wires
at 9:45 a.m. ET and 10 a.m. ET, respectively. The US 10-year
yield is down 1 basis point at 2.85%.