The race for the German chancellery heats up after the CSU chairman and Bavarian minister-president Markus Söder throws his hat in the ring against the CDU’s Armin Laschet. Party leaders are set to decide on their preferred candidates today. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has said that the U.S. economy is at an ‘inflection point’ despite pockets of recovery risk remaining. The Dow and the S&P 500 both hit new record highs on Friday ahead of the start of earnings season this week. In China, Alibaba shares surge despite the online retail group being slapped with a $2.75bn fine by Beijing regulators for violating the country’s anti-monopoly laws. And in tech news, Microsoft is to snap up speech-recognition technology firm Nuance for $16bn.

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