| Want the lowdown on what's moving European markets in your inbox every morning? Sign up here. Good morning. The U.S.-China dispute is accelerating on the tech front, there are new theories about the virus's early spread, and there's a stimulus stand-off. Here's what's moving markets. WeChat Ban U.S. President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders prohibiting residents from doing business with the Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat apps beginning 45 days from now, citing the risk of leaving Americans' personal data exposed. Shares of WeChat's owner, Tencent Holdings Ltd., fell as much as 10% and the offshore yuan weakened. The move coincides with Trump's push for the sale of popular video app TikTok to an American company. Transactions subject to punishment could include purchases of ads on the apps and agreements to make TikTok or WeChat available in app stores, according to a person familiar with the matter. Meanwhile, a high-powered group of U.S. regulators said stock exchanges should set new rules that could trigger the delisting of Chinese companies, following mounting concerns that investors are being exposed to frauds. Early Spread A large proportion of U.K. health-care workers may have been infected with coronavirus early in the pandemic, according to a survey. About two-thirds of the National Health Service workers surveyed reported diminished ability to taste or smell -- one of the prominent, early symptoms of Covid-19 -- just weeks after the virus arrived in the U.K., according to the Lancet. Global cases reached 19 million overnight, and a hospital in Moscow is offering staff inoculation with a vaccine developed by Gamaleya Institute and set for registration next week. Finally, Finland's government is considering whether to allow free travel with neighboring Sweden, saying the Covid-19 situation there has recently improved. Impasse Negotiations on a virus relief package for the U.S. ended Thursday night with the White House and Democrats making no headway on resolving their biggest difference, bringing the talks to the brink of collapse. It was unclear whether the two sides will resume negotiations on Friday. "There are a lot of issues we are close to a compromise position on," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said after meeting for more than three hours with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. But they remain "very, very far apart on some significant issues." Pay Up Distilling giant Diageo Plc has started arbitration proceedings against LVMH, saying the French luxury giant failed to pay it 181 million euros ($215 million) in dividends for 2019. Diageo has owned a minority stake in LVMH's Moet Hennessy drinks business since the 1990s. Coming Up… Stocks in Asia dropped on the U.S.-China tensions, and European stock futures are pointing slightly lower. Today's London-heavy earnings agenda includes real estate platform Rightmove Plc, broker TP ICAP Plc, and investment managers Standard Life Aberdeen Plc and Hargreaves Lansdown Plc. On the economic front, get ready for trade data from Germany and Italy after China reported a 10% rise in July exports from a year earlier. U.S. non-farm payrolls are due in the afternoon. What We've Been Reading This is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours. And finally, here's what Cormac Mullen is interested in this morning If headlines that global shares have erased their losses for the year don't match with what you're seeing in your portfolio, then you probably don't have much exposure to U.S. technology stocks. The top five companies in the MSCI World Index -- which make up more than 14% of the benchmark -- are high-flying American tech behemoths including Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The MSCI World gauge excluding U.S. shares and the equal-weighted global benchmark both remain down about 8% for the year, while of the 93 primary indexes tracked by Bloomberg, just 13 are in positive territory. Of course down 8% in the midst of the biggest pandemic in more than 100 years is in itself worthy of note. The relative robustness serves to remind us once again of the uneasy disconnect between bullish signals from the stock market and bearish signs in other asset classes like bonds and gold that are more in tune with what is happening in the global economy.  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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