Bitcoin futures started trading yesterday for the first time prompting concerns about the volatility of the cryptocurrency that prompted several exchange outages due to 10%+ swings in its price as well as heavy website traffic – WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
More mega-health-care dealing in the works, as hospital giants Ascension and Providence St. Joseph are discussing a merger that “would create the largest U.S. owner of hospitals” with 191 hospitals in 27 states and annual revenue of $44.8 billion – WSJ
Apple is acquiring the music-identifying app Shazam a decade after it debuted in the App Store. The terms of the deal are unknown, but the price is reportedly “far less than the $1 billion that Shazam was valued at in its most recent fund-raising round in 2015” – NYTimes and TechCrunch
Wells Fargo apparently can’t count on any intervention from Pennsylvania Avenue (or the Mulvaney-helmed CFPB, for that matter) to reduce the fines associated with its sham-account scandal – NYTimes
A closer look at last Friday’s solid US jobs numbers – WSJ
Elliott Management’s new project is taking the form of Alexion, a pharmaceutical company that’s “remade its executive ranks over the past year” in an effort to change its fortunes but hasn’t brought about enough change to keep the activists at bay – NYTimes
What’s that you say? A little 13th century “golden ratio” math to help us figure out where GE’s stock slide may end? Why, of course – MarketWatch
The DOJ is arguing that it needn’t demonstrate that ex-Deutsche Bank traders meant to deceive the Libor-setting BBA in order to convict them on Libor-rigging charges. Rather, it’s all about whether the traders “sought to dupe counterparties in trades of Libor-dependent derivatives” – Law360
As Brexit negotiations plod forward, Paris is looking to shake its reputation as business unfriendly in an effort to welcome its share of the hundreds of financial companies that “may need to relocate thousands of London-based workers before Britain leaves the European Union by the end of March 2019” – NYTimes
Just in case, for some reason, it’s not on your intergalactic radar, The Last Jedi (aka, Episode VIII) officially drops this weekend. The Times helpfully catalogues the creatures of Star Wars for us to help get in the mood – NYTimes
