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WASHINGTON (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. President Donald Trump has urged residents in the critical political battleground of North Carolina to try to vote twice in the Nov. 3 election, once by mail and once in person, causing a furor for appearing to urge a potential act of voter fraud.



“Let them send it in and let them go vote,” Trump said in an interview on Wednesday with WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina. “And if the system is as good as they say it is then obviously they won’t be able to vote” in person.



Trump has repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that mail-in voting &#8211; expanded by some states because of the coronavirus pandemic &#8211; would increase fraud and disrupt the November election, although experts say voter fraud of any kind is extremely rare in the United States.



Voting more than once in an election is illegal and in some states, including North Carolina, it is a felony not only to vote more than once but also to induce another to do so.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">RELATED COVERAGE</h4>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-ballots/trump-after-comments-on-voting-twice-says-voters-should-check-mail-in-ballots-at-the-polls-idUSKBN25U2B2">Trump, after comments on voting twice, says voters should check mail-in ballots at the polls</a></li><li><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-northcarolina/white-house-says-trump-not-encouraging-illegal-voting-with-north-carolina-remarks-idUSKBN25U23Q">White House says Trump not encouraging illegal voting with North Carolina remarks</a></li></ul>



Ballots are due to be mailed in North Carolina on Friday.



The state’s Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter that Trump, a Republican, had “outrageously encouraged” North Carolinians “to break the law in order to help him sow chaos in our election.”



Stein wrote: “Make sure you vote, but do NOT vote twice! I will do everything in my power to make sure the will of the people is upheld in November.”



Trump’s campaign and the White House later denied that he meant to tell people to vote twice.



“The president is not suggesting anyone do anything unlawful,” White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told Fox News Channel on Thursday. “What he said very clearly there is make sure your vote is tabulated and if it is not, then vote.”



In a series of tweets on Thursday morning, Trump again urged his supporters to vote early by mail and then follow up by attempting to vote in person, however.



“On Election Day, or Early Voting go to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted),” Trump wrote. “If it has you will not be able to Vote &amp; the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">VOTING TWICE ‘A FELONY’</h3>



The Democratic National Committee accused Trump of encouraging voter fraud and said the president was undermining confidence in the fairness of the election.



“Let’s be clear: Voting by mail is a safe and secure way for Americans to participate in our democracy — and Trump should be working to make it easier to vote, not harder,” Reyna Walters-Morgan, the DNC’s director of voter protection, said in a statement.



Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for North Carolina’s state Board of Elections, said a person would not be able to cast two ballots, regardless of if they voted by mail or in-person first. The first vote that is received and processed is the one that counts, he said.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-352573" width="705" height="521" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-1.jpg 594w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-1-300x221.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-1-80x60.jpg 80w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-1-570x420.jpg 570w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 705px) 100vw, 705px" /><figcaption>WASHINGTON, DC &#8211; FEBRUARY 16: U.S. President Donald Trump stands during a news conference announcing Alexander Acosta as the new Labor Secretary nominee in the East Room at the White House on February 16, 2017 in Washington, DC. The announcement comes a day after Andrew Puzder withdrew his nomination. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>



“Voting twice in an election is a felony,” Gannon said. “If you put a ballot in the mail, and it hasn’t arrived yet, and then you vote in-person before your absentee ballot has arrived, your in-person vote will count.”



He said if an absentee ballot showed up after a person had voted in-person, it would not be counted.



Many Americans vote by mail because they cannot make it to the polls in person. Nearly one in four voters cast presidential ballots by mail in 2016.



The coronavirus pandemic is expected to result in a record number of mail-in ballots this year as voters seek to avoid the risk of infection. Experts have cautioned the expected surge means a winner may not be clear on election night given the time it will take to count and verify all the ballots.



Trump campaigned on Wednesday in North Carolina, known as a battleground state because its population can swing either to Republicans or Democrats and play a decisive role in presidential elections.



National opinion polls show Trump, 74, trailing his Democratic rival Joe Biden, 77, the vice president under then-President Barack Obama. Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to suppress the vote to help their side.

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Trump encourages supporters to try to vote twice, sparking uproar

(Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Inc shares fell for a third straight day on Thursday, as investors who have been betting on the electric-car maker’s growth prospects cashed in on the meteoric rally in the stock price this year.



Market analysts and traders called it a near-term profit-taking, triggered by the company’s plan to raise $5 billion from the market and the stake sale by the second largest shareholder Baillie Gifford, in a stock that has surged fivefold in 2020.



They expect it to be short-lived. “It’s just a poster child for the growth trade and there’s a bit of general rotation,” a London-based trader told Reuters.



Meanwhile, Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford told Herald Scotland the investment firm remains a “strong supporter” of Tesla, but had to sell its passive stake due to norms that limit the weight of a stock in clients’ portfolios.



Gifford cut its stake to 4.25% compared to 7.67% as of Dec. 31, making it now the fourth largest stakeholder, according to Refinitiv data.



“I know Baillie Gifford were a kind of forced seller to stay within the mandates, but (an) evidence of core investor profit-taking as the company start a sell off of $5 billion stock,” the trader said.



Ever since Tesla surprised Wall Street by delivering on Chief Executive Elon Musk’s promise of a profit in its third quarter in October last year, its shares have risen nearly nine-fold.



The world’s most valuable carmaker has gone on to register three more profitable quarters, clearing a hurdle that could lead to its inclusion in the benchmark S&amp;P 500 index.



The index rebalances every quarter, but a stock can be added to the index at any point once a company becomes eligible for consideration.



Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&amp;P Dow Jones Indices, declined to comment on potential index membership changes.



The surge in shares during the COVID-19 pandemic have also led Tesla and Apple Inc to split their richly priced stock.



The iPhone maker’s shares, which have jumped more than 35% since it announced its split, fell for the second session, down 5.2%, while Tesla shares were down 6.5% in early trading on Thursday.

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LONDON (Reuters) &#8211; Amazon (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/AMZN.O">AMZN.O</a>) brought a little cheer to Britain’s troubled labour market on Thursday, saying it will create a further 7,000 permanent jobs in 2020, taking total new hires this year to 10,000.FILE PHOTO: The logo of Amazon is pictured inside the company&#8217;s office in Bengaluru, India, April 20, 2018. REUTERS/Abhishek N. Chinnappa/File Photo



Last month the number of people in work in Britain suffered the biggest drop since 2009 and the coronavirus is expected to take a much heavier toll on unemployment when the government winds down its huge job-protection scheme.



The one bright spot however has come from online retail and logistics as orders surged during lockdown. Amazon’s latest recruitment will take its total UK workforce to over 40,000 by the end of the year.



The U.S. internet giant said the 7,000 new roles will be for warehouse workers, as well as engineers, HR and IT professionals and health and safety and finance specialists.



The jobs will be in over 50 sites, including two new distribution centres in the north east and central England and at corporate offices.



It said it needed more staff to meet growing customer demand for its services and to enable small and medium sized enterprises selling on Amazon to scale their businesses.



Amazon has also started recruiting for more than 20,000 seasonal positions across the UK for the festive period.



Last month the Confederation of British Industry said British retailers had cut the most jobs since the depths of the financial crisis and expected the pace of losses to accelerate.



Well-known British retailers Marks &amp; Spencer (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/MKS.L">MKS.L</a>), John Lewis, Debenhams DEB.L, WH Smith (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/SMWH.L">SMWH.L</a>) and Dixons Carphone (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/DC.L">DC.L</a>) have all announced job cuts in recent weeks, reflecting the rapid shift in demand to online sales.



Tesco (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSCO.L">TSCO.L</a>), Britain’s biggest supermarket, said it would create 16,000 permanent roles to meet the surge in home deliveries.

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(Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) on Tuesday unveiled its biggest program of new share sales as a public company, seeking to cash in on soaring Wall Street interest in the electric carmaker to raise up to $5 billion that will ease future debt pressures.FILE PHOTO: A Tesla SuperCharger station is seen in Los Angeles, California, U.S., July 9, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson



The move comes a day after a 5-for-1 stock split took effect, Tesla’s first since its initial public offering in June 2010, and follows a nearly six-fold increase in the value of its shares this year.



Tuesday’s share sale comes as Tesla seeks to massively expand production of its existing vehicles and build new factories near Berlin, Germany and Austin, Texas. The company also plans to launch new lines of vehicles, including a semi-truck called the Tesla Semi and its futuristic Cybertruck.



Tesla said it plans to use proceeds from the offering to strengthen its balance sheet and for general corporate purposes.



Craig Irwin, a Roth Capital Partners analyst who has the equivalent of a ‘hold’ rating on the stock, on Tuesday said the capital raise did not come as a surprise.



“They will need cash for all the facilities they are building, and new growth initiatives,” Irwin said.



Ten major banks, including Goldman Sachs (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/GS.N">GS.N</a>), Bank of America Securities (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/BAC.N">BAC.N</a>), Citigroup Global Markets (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/C.N">C.N</a>) and Morgan Stanley (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/MS.N">MS.N</a>), will conduct the sale, the electric carmaker said in a filing, giving no deadline for its completion. (<a href="https://bit.ly/3gNy91t">bit.ly/3gNy91t</a>)



David Whiston, an analyst at Morningstar Research, said it remained to be seen how much money Tesla will ultimately raise. The company had $8.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of June.



“I can understand them taking advantage of the stock’s incredible run, but they don’t need the money right now,” Whiston said.



Tesla in February had announced plans to raise $2 billion in a stock offering.



Tesla shares, which rose about 8% in early premarket trading, retreated to trade about 1% higher on the day after the news.



The company’s high-flying stock has risen another 70% since the split was announced on Aug. 11, and was trading at over $2,000 before the division on Friday.



With a market capitalization now around $465 billion, it became the world’s biggest car company by value in July and has propelled Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s personal fortune past $100 billion.



Musk has repeatedly assured investors over the past year that Tesla would not need to raise more money for costly expansion initiatives or to pay down debt.

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CHICAGO (Reuters) &#8211; United Airlines (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/UAL.O">UAL.O</a>) said on Sunday it is permanently eliminating change fees on tickets for U.S. travel effective immediately, the latest effort by a U.S. airline to try to stimulate bookings hit by the coronavirus pandemic.



Chicago-based United is among the major U.S. airlines that began implementing temporary waivers of change fees this year to give passengers more flexibility with their travel plans given the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic.



Now it is making the policy permanent for all standard Economy and Premium cabin tickets and also applying it to any ticket already booked through the end of the year. The standard change fee &#8211; charged to passengers who change their tickets &#8211; for domestic flights was $200.



In a video message to customers, Chief Executive Scott Kirby said getting rid of fees is often a top request from passengers.



The move matches Southwest Airlines’ (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/LUV.N">LUV.N</a>) long-standing policy of not charging fees for ticket changes.



Rivals American Airlines (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/AAL.O">AAL.O</a>) and Delta Air Lines (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/DAL.N">DAL.N</a>) traditionally do charge for changes. Along with United, they were booking record revenues before the pandemic crushed demand, thanks largely to fees for things like checking luggage or choosing a seat.



In another change, beginning Jan. 1 United will allow customers to list for stand-by for free on a different flight on the same day of travel with the same departure and arrival cities if a seat is available.



Kirby called the moves a departure from decisions airlines had made in the past to survive difficult times, sometimes at the expense of customer service, saying United “won’t be following that same playbook as we come out of this crisis.”



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NEW YORK (Reuters) &#8211; Shares of Apple Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/AAPL.O">AAPL.O</a>) and Tesla Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) will be less costly on Monday as pre-announced stock splits take effect, in theory making them more accessible to retail investors, but as more brokers offer fractional shares, some in the market question the need.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hqdefault-25.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-361704" width="693" height="521" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hqdefault-25.jpg 480w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hqdefault-25-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hqdefault-25-80x60.jpg 80w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hqdefault-25-265x198.jpg 265w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 693px) 100vw, 693px" /><figcaption>Which Automakers Can Seriously Challenge Tesla?</figcaption></figure>



Investors cheered the Apple and Tesla announcements, helping extend a rally in the companies’ shares, which along with many other technology firms, have soared in value as the market emerged from its pandemic-induced depths in March.



That made owning a piece of these companies seem out of reach of many Main Street investors. Apple closed at over $500 a share on Thursday, while Tesla continued its meteoric rise on Thursday to above $2,200 a share.



Both Apple and Tesla said their actions, a 4-1 and 5-1 split respectively, would let more investors access their shares.



But in the past year, online brokerages like Robinhood, Charles Schwab Corp (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/SCHW.N">SCHW.N</a>), and Fidelity, along with several smaller shops, have begun offering slices of individual shares.



“Fractional share ownership, all else equal, really does render the price of a stock irrelevant,” said Julian Emanuel, chief equity and derivatives strategist at BTIG.



That, combined with commission-free trading at most brokerages, has made it easier for anyone with a mobile device to own a piece of a company.



“People my age grew up with technology and we like to invest in technology-related companies, like Tesla and Amazon (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/AMZN.O">AMZN.O</a>) and Google (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/GOOGL.O">GOOGL.O</a>), and if it weren’t for fractional shares we wouldn’t really be able to take advantage of that,” said Jaidan Craig, a support technician.



Craig, 23, said he has been investing for two or three years, first on Robinhood, which lets people invest as little as $1 in any listed company, and then moved to a broker called M1, which emphasizes diversifying your investments. He said that without fractional investing, he could not have built as well-rounded a portfolio.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">FIRST INNING</h3>



While fractional shares have been used for years by mutual funds, they have not as been widely available for stocks until recently, and not every brokerage offers them, helping maintain the appeal of stock splits on some platforms.



TD Ameritrade, a online trading pioneer that is being bought by rival Schwab for $26 billion, does not offer fractional shares, but said it is looking at them.



It noted that in past years, when companies, such as Apple, Google, Mastercard Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/MA.N">MA.N</a>) and Visa Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/V.N">V.N</a>), split their shares, retail trading volumes tripled.



“We have historically seen that our retail investors use stock splits as trading opportunities, accessing popular names that may have gotten too expensive pre-split,” said JJ Kinnahan, TD Ameritrade’s chief market analyst.



Robinhood, which was founded in 2013 and is now valued at $11.2 billion, said that while from a psychological perspective, a stock trading in the thousands appears much more prohibitive than a stock trading in the low hundreds, perceptions are shifting.



“As fractional shares trading becomes more popular at retail brokerages, the importance and need for stock splits diminish,” said Rebecca Moretti, a writer at Robinhood Snacks.



Just three S&amp;P 500&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX">.SPX</a>&nbsp;members have announced splits in 2020, compared with an average of 10 a year over the past decade, according to S&amp;P Dow Jones Indices.



Those companies that have split their shares in the past year have, in fact, underperformed the broader S&amp;P 500, said BTIG’s Emanuel, who likened the current state of fractional investing to the beginning of a baseball game.



“The fact that we’re in the first inning of it, and yet you have seen a relative underperformance of split shares versus the S&amp;P 500 in 2020, really points to the powerful nature of it,” he said.

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