| Want the lowdown on what's moving European markets in your inbox every morning? Sign up here. Good morning. There's uncertainty over the next round of U.S. virus relief, new sanctions in Hong Kong and a twist in the battle for TikTok. Here's what's moving markets. Divisions Investors are grappling with an unclear timeline for a U.S. stimulus package, with neither Democrats nor Republicans giving a firm date after reaching an impasse last week. Divisions remain on overall spending and on key issues, including on aid to state and local governments and the amount of supplementary unemployment benefits. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he would listen to any proposal offered, while Trump announced four executive actions to work around the impasse on Saturday. The actions were criticized by Democrats and some Republicans. Lam Sanctioned U.S.-China tensions will again dominate the trading week, with the U.S. placing sanctions on some Chinese officials in Hong Kong, including Chief Executive Carrie Lam, over their roles in curtailing political freedoms in the former U.K. colony. Meanwhile, Hong Kong police arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai in the most high-profile case yet against democracy activists in the city under a national security law. Sunday also saw the arrival of the highest-ranking U.S. official to Taiwan in decades, risking Beijing's ire. Schools Debate Coronavirus infections among U.S. children grew 40% in the last half of July, according to a report that came amid heated debate over whether schools should reopen in the autumn. Still, the data did show that child infections make up a disproportionately small share of the overall outbreak. In this region, Italy and the U.K. reaffirmed plans to reopen their schools in September. Britain, meanwhile, may scrap daily fatality numbers, the Telegraph newspaper reported. Twit-Tok Twitter Inc. has held early talks about a potential combination with TikTok, Dow Jones reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The San Francisco-based social media company has reasoned it probably wouldn't face the same level of antitrust scrutiny as Microsoft Corp., which has been negotiating for weeks with TikTok's owner, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., the report added. Twitter would almost certainly need help from other investors if it does buy TikTok, Dow Jones said. Coming Up… European futures are higher, while Lebanon's stock market will open for the first time since the Beirut port explosion. The earnings schedule is light, though profits plunged at Saudi Arabia's state-controlled oil giant and investing legend Warren Buffett's firm detailed the impact of its exposure to the aviation industry. In data, China consumer inflation accelerated in July. Finally, U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has said he'll announce his choice for running mate this week. Here's how European markets could be impacted by a Biden win. What We've Been Reading This is what's caught our eye over the weekend. And finally, here's what Cormac Mullen is interested in this morning Much was made of Tesla -- and rightly so -- when its market cap eclipsed that of Toyota, making it the world's most valuable carmaker. Now its the turn of Apple, whose astonishing market cap is closing in on surpassing not just one company, but two thousand of them. The iPhone maker was worth $1.9 trillion Friday, about 86% of the market capitalization of the $2.2 trillion Russell 2000 Index -- a gauge of about 2,000 U.S. small-cap shares. As Sundial Capital Research founder Jason Goepfert wrote, in the past 40 years, no single stock has come close to dwarfing the value of so many other companies. But for those on the hunt for evidence that we are back in a turn-of-the-millenium-like tech stock bubble, its a little harder to call out Apple. Its shares are trading at 30 times forward earnings -- high but nowhere near the 122 times of Tesla. Apple has a cash balance of $194 billion, its 2020 free-cash flow is expected to rise above $65 billion and it has returned $476 billion to shareholders since 2012, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. And BI analysts noted the company showed `crushing' revenue strength across all products and services in its recent 3Q results, despite the pandemic -- and has the 5G iPhone cycle to look forward to. There's a case to be made about nosebleed tech stocks and what that signals about future market returns. But the prosecution is not going to win with just Apple.  Cormac Mullen is a Cross-Asset reporter and editor for Bloomberg News in Tokyo. Like Bloomberg's Five Things? Subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. | 
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