The Traderszone Network

Coty would become the No. 1 perfume maker ahead of L’Oreal (OREP.PA) and No. 3 make-up provider behind its French rival and Estee Lauder (EL.N). The deal comes as Coty’s sales across categories have either been stagnating or declining for more than two years while P&G has been struggling to expand its beauty business. Coty shares fell 4.6 percent, while P&G slipped 0.4 percent as investors questioned the benefits of the mega-merger.

A former associate of Bernard Madoff avoided prison on Thursday for his role in perpetuating the fraudster’s massive Ponzi scheme because of his extensive cooperation with prosecutors. Paul Konigsberg, 79, a lawyer and accounting firm executive, pleaded guilty in June 2014 to charges of conspiracy and falsifying books and records. At the time, his cooperation deal was seen as a signal that prosecutors were still pursuing a criminal case against Madoff’s son, Andrew, who died of cancer three months later.

The New York Stock Exchange said its nearly four-hour trading halt on Wednesday resulted from a technical problem that stemmed from new software rolled out the previous evening. The unit of Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N) said on Thursday that the glitch caused communication problems between one of its trading units and NYSE customers as they began connecting to the exchange at 7 a.m. EDT on Wednesday morning. NYSE said it attempted to fix the problem before the market opened, but customers were still reporting “unusual system behavior” midmorning, and it decided to halt trading.

The New York Stock Exchange said a botched technology upgrade, not a hacking attack as some feared, caused Wednesday’s outage that froze one of the world’s biggest equity markets.

The executive director of Alibaba Pictures has been detained by Chinese authorities as part of a graft investigation.

Not only has the Chinese regulator specifically asked all listed companies to submit reports, within the next two days, on the measures they will take to prop up their shares, according to the 21st Centruy Business Herald; but, as we warned yesterday, Chinese police have begun a “nationwide action plan” to work with stock regulator CSRC to crack down on now ‘illegal’ stock and futures trading.

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Asia shares and U.S. stock-index futures climbed on Friday as China’s markets stabilized and Greece issued a reform plan.