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☆ The cloud investing outlook after the stocks were cut in half last year — Top picks for '23
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Frank Holland | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Cloud computing, enterprise software and cybersecurity stocks underperformed the broader market in 2022, but one top analyst sees value in the space. The Wisdom Tree Cloud Computing ETF , which includes Salesforce, Adobe and Shopify, fell more than 51% last year. Top Picks Ives says his top pick for the sector is Microsoft . Some of that could go to the cloud space. For possible takeout candidates and more on the 2023 outlook for the cloud, see the video above exclusive for the PRO audience.

☆ KKR's top tech exec details the firm's 3-year migration to the public cloud, and how the PE giant is leveraging the tech to streamline how deals get done
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

KKR is moving its technology and infrastructure to the public cloud by year end. The finish line is in sight for Emilia Sherifova, KKR's top tech exec who is spearheading the firm's multi-year migration to the public cloud. KKR's cloud migration has been years in the making. Under Sherifova, KKR has more than doubled its number of cloud-focused engineers, she said, declining to specify numbers. No longer are regulatory and security concerns barring finance players from moving mission-critical systems, like exchanges' matching engines and banks' core banking platforms, to the public cloud.

☆ Inside the turmoil at Cheddar News, where an editorial 'identity crisis' and misfired social media strategy divided the newsroom and drove staffers to the exits
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Reed Alexander | Elaine Low | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +21 min

16 insiders described unrest and discord partly fueled by the site's revamped social media strategy. Malaspina's plan was for Cheddar to look and feel like a social media platform and to position its stars as influencers. Concerns inside Cheddar intensified when Malaspina, a newcomer to journalism, refocused its coverage on social media content. Multiple segments and even an entire show — "Trending" at 7 p.m. — centered on social media trends and TikTok challenges. It's very troubling to think that news professionals would inflate or distort their social media followings.

☆ Execs from top firms like Morgan Stanley and Vanguard share tips for how to cut costs when moving to the public cloud
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Carter Johnson | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

When Vanguard first made a push into the public cloud, Michael Carr, the firm's chief technology officer, knew realizing savings was a key part of the move. Collaboration is keyAs with most technology applications, there's a human behavior element to cloud cost savings. At Capital One, it took years to build a culture of collaboration between technology and finance teams within the bank's centralized cloud expense management division, Johnston said. Before, the finance team would send the tech team an aggregate bill at the end of each month and "that was kind of the end of the story," Johnston said. Speaking the same language has instilled a greater sense of empathy across different teams, like finance, technology, business, and others.

☆ Wells Fargo issues some top tactical investing ideas for the first quarter
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

As the first quarter of 2023 kicks off, Wells Fargo has its eye on what it calls stocks that offer tactical trading opportunities. Wells Fargo analyst Daniel Politzer upgraded Wynn to overweight from equal weight on Monday . Merck also made the Wells Fargo list, with the firm setting a price target of $125. And Wells Fargo has a $50 price target for Dynatrace , which implies 30% over Tuesday's close. Wells Fargo believes the software company has the "only enterprise-grade cloud platform capable of supporting modern workloads in a hybrid environment."

☆ Chinese state media seek to reassure public over COVID-19
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( Martin Quin Pollard | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WUHAN, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Thousands of Chinese took to the streets to mark the New Year as authorities and state media sought to reassure the public that the COVID-19 outbreak sweeping across the country was under control and nearing its peak. China reported one new COVID-19 death in the mainland for Dec. 31, the same as a day earlier, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday. State media in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China said on Sunday that daily cases peaked at around 60,000 recently, and now stand at around 19,000. On Sunday, Australia and Canada joined the United States and others in requiring travellers from China to provide negative COVID-19 tests when they arrive. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen offered on Sunday to provide China with "necessary assistance" to help it deal with the surge in COVID-19 cases.

☆ Top analysts say buy stocks like Papa John's and Alphabet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( Tipranks.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

In that context, we kickstart 2023 with five stocks picked by Wall Street's top analysts, according to TipRanks, a service that ranks analysts based on their past performance. Papa John'sQuick-service pizza chain Papa John's (PZZA) stock has depreciated significantly this year due to challenges in the U.K. and inflationary pressures, but its longer-term outlook remains resilient. Therefore, Papa John's value offerings like Papa Pairings are attracting new lower-income guests. (See Papa John's International Insider Trading Activity on TipRanks) Saleh reiterated a buy rating on the stock with a price target of $100. We see several near- and long-term levers to drive shareholder value that have started to unfold and will allow Papa John's to again outperform peers, leading to our Buy rating," said Saleh.

☆ Wall Street names these 20 Club stocks as top picks for 2023. Here's the list and our takes
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Paulina Likos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +16 min

Club take: We've pared back our position in AMD this year as the semicondcutor company worked through its inventory correction. The company has to do more in terms of managing its costs, but it will likely be a priority in 2023. Analysts described growth outlooks in these segments as "robust" and expect them to drive revenue growth and margin expansion. BofA calls the Club stock a "top tier operator" and expects the company to grow revenue in the coming year despite fears of an economic downturn. Analysts expect to see strong data center growth next year, a business they said could reach $20 billion by 2023.

☆ Here’s our third-quarter earnings report card for all the stocks in our portfolio
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Zev Fima | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +17 min

Third-quarter earnings season is finally behind us — and like the prior quarter, results were solid overall compared to analyst forecasts. Danaher (DHR) reported sales and earnings beats on the back of better-than-expected results in all three segments of the health technology company. While U.S. customer traffic was down in the quarter, management noted that it improved sequentially and improved throughout the quarter. Still the luxury hotel and casino company reported solid third-quarter results boosted by its U.S. properties. Amazon (AMZN) reported results that were disappointing, to say the least, and compounded by guidance that was even worse.

☆ How technology helps a research-intensive medical school secure grants and attract top scientists
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Sponsor Post | Created Ibm With Insider Studios | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Meeting researchers' demanding data storage requirementsEinstein partners with IBM to help meet the NIH standards and manage these huge data sets. "A leading-edge infrastructure helps us attract top research talent," said Shailesh Shenov, assistant dean for Einstein Information Technology. IBM Spectrum Scale software features an auto-tiering feature that moves less frequently used data to IBM Tape, which only powers up when it is accessed. Furthermore, the tiering contributes to our sustainability initiatives because tape storage only consumes power during reads or writes." Because it deals with highly regulated healthcare data, Einstein added IBM Data Guardium Protection to automate compliance auditing and reporting and monitor user activity.

☆ Wall Street's shift to the public cloud hasn't come cheap. From dashboards to automation, here's how firms like Morgan Stanley and Vanguard are keeping costs down while using the tech.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Carter Johnson | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

But the pay-as-you-go subscription model associated with the cloud can also lead to higher expenses when usage goes unchecked. Collaboration is keyAs with most technology applications, there's a human behavior element to cloud cost savings. At Capital One, it took years to build a culture of collaboration between technology and finance teams within the bank's centralized cloud expense management division, Johnston said. Before, the finance team would send the tech team an aggregate bill at the end of each month and "that was kind of the end of the story," Johnston said. Speaking the same language has instilled a greater sense of empathy across different teams, like finance, technology, business, and others.

☆ A brutally honest internal study about Amazon's 'Earth's Best Employer' project slammed the company for creating 'stress, burnout, churn, and a cut-throat atmosphere'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Amazon has made becoming "Earth's best employer" one of the company's top priorities. The study identified six focus areas for Amazon to work on to become Earth's best employer. To fix those issues, the company identified six improvement areas, according to a copy of the "Earth's Best Employer Discussion" study seen by Insider. And 7.5% of Amazon tech employees said ideas related to social impact were the one thing Amazon could do better to be EBE. "We want to lead with an innovative and inspiring approach to being Earth's Best Employer," the document said.

☆ Canceled lectures, no grades: University of California students face chaotic finals as academic workers strike
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms | Alicia Victoria Lozano | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

LOS ANGELES — Hundreds of thousands of undergraduate students at the University of California face a chaotic finish to their fall term as a strike by academic workers grinds through its fourth week. It’s definitely a weird situation.”University of California academic workers walk the picket line at the University of California, Los Angeles, on Nov. 28. Some campuses, including UCLA, have pushed back deadlines for submitting grades because faculty members rely so heavily on teaching assistants to assess student performance. Alicia Victoria Lozano / NBC NewsHernandez, a freshman, said teaching assistants help him with assignments and show him how to better tackle complicated subjects. Teaching assistants are integral to UCLA's "cluster" program that gives first-year students an opportunity to immerse themselves in smaller learning groups led by faculty and teaching assistants, he said.

☆ Google, Oracle, Amazon, and Microsoft awarded $9 billion Pentagon cloud deals
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The Pentagon said Wednesday that Amazon , Google , Microsoft and Oracle each received a cloud-computing contract that can reach as high as $9 billion each through 2028. Originally, the Pentagon had awarded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, to Microsoft in 2019. A legal battle ensued as Amazon, the top player in the cloud infrastructure market, challenged the Pentagon's decision. Last year the Pentagon changed its approach, asking for bids from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle to address cloud needs. Oracle generated $900 million in cloud infrastructure revenue in the quarter that ended Aug. 31, a small fraction of the $20.5 billion total for Amazon's cloud subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, in the third quarter.

☆ AWS CEO pitches cloud as a cost-saver despite rising customer concerns about runaway cloud bills
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Ellen Thomas | Sage Lazzaro | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

AWS CEO Adam Selipsky is pitching cloud as a cost-saver, while customers increasingly feel the burden of runaway cloud costs. But for customers, cloud bills are top of mind and putting pressure on their balance sheets, especially during the economic downturn. Ternary's client base is mostly big companies that need to manage their cloud costs generally because of their size, he said. It's easy for cloud costs to get out of control for big companies that have a lot of data and workloads in the cloud. But more and more, Ternary is getting interest from smaller companies looking to lower their cloud bills, he said.

☆ How IT leaders can fast-track application modernization solutions
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Sponsor Post | Created Ibm With Insider Studios | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The journey to application modernizationApplication modernization refers to updating outdated business systems and applications. That said, each organization's application modernization journey looks different. The recently released IBM Application Modernization Field Guide can help by offering IT leaders a customizable roadmap for updating an existing business framework with more modern and agile solutions that are scalable, highly available, and secure. Refactor into microservices: Restructure workloads into smaller, deployable components based on maturity, modernization objectives, and requirements, then sunset monolithic applications. Find out how you can unlock more business value with the help of IBM's application modernization services.

☆ Amazon's cloud unit faces cost-sensitive customers as economic fears mount
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Peter Kern, CEO of online travel company Expedia Group , sees the cloud as an area where his company can reduce its fixed costs. Amazon leads the market in cloud computing, with an estimated 39% share. Selipsky said that moving IT jobs to the cloud could help budget-strapped organizations save money, citing customers Agco and Carrier Global . It offers Graviton computing instances based on energy-efficient Arm-based chips, a less expensive alternative to instances using standard AMD and Intel processors. He said AT&T 's DirecTV unit was able to eliminate 20% of computing costs by adopting current-generation Graviton chips.

[1/2] A logo for Amazon Web Services (AWS) is seen at the Collision conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada June 23, 2022. REUTERS/Chris HelgrenNov 30 (Reuters) - French IT consulting firm Atos (ATOS.PA) is making Amazon.com's (AMZN.O) cloud services division its preferred partner for migrating its clients' workloads to the cloud, it said on Wednesday. The enhanced partnership will allow Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's number one cloud computing services provider, access to more than 800 of Atos' infrastructures services customers globally and lead to the training of 20,000 employees on AWS' technology at Atos. The AWS-Atos partnership will allow Atos' customers with large infrastructure outsourcing contracts to quicken their workload migrations to the cloud, Atos said in its statement. Atos said it would consult with over 800 customers to offer a new hybrid cloud service with the option to move selected workloads to AWS.

☆ I was fired from Shopify after the big layoff. I felt disposable and overworked, and I'm much happier now that I'm gone.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Jenna Gyimesi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Osuji says he now works in construction because he couldn't find other support work. When you're working an entry-level position as I did, you feel disposable. [Editor's note: A Shopify representative told Insider in a statement that the company's turnover in Shopify Support is "lower than typical contact centers," though they did not disclose the rate.] I work in construction nowSince Shopify, I've been working in construction doing physical labor because I couldn't get other support work. But even though construction work is physically dangerous, my mental health is better: It's way less stressful than working at Shopify.

They’re offering more policy briefings to longtime supporters, Zoom calls with top administration officials and White House tours, too. "The $500,000 people like me, we’re not going to be players in 2024," said Dick Harpootlian, a longtime Democratic donor and South Carolina state senator. For the White House, the shift is an acceleration of a courtship campaign that began more modestly before the midterm elections. Amid concerns about the omicron variant last year, the White House was forced to abandon plans for a more full set of holiday parties. Some of those same people were invited to the White House next month for an in-person policy briefing.

☆ Zara workers in Spain start protests to demand higher pay
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Corina Pons | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MADRID, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Dozens of Zara shop assistants protested in Madrid on Thursday outside the global fashion giant's largest store to demand higher pay, and some workers in its home town in northwest Spain went on strike on the eve of its Black Friday sales campaign. In the town of A Coruna, where the first Zara store opened in 1975, Inditex now has 44 stores. Two of those, a Zara store and a Massimo Dutti shop were closed on Thursday, and some 1,000 shopworkers were preparing to go on a one-day strike the following day on Black Friday. Shop assistants' monthly wages at Inditex stores in Madrid and A Coruna are below 1,400 euros, according to the unions. "If we don't get better wages we will call for more protests in December and January," she said.

☆ I left my 10-year engineering career behind to become a full-time blogger. I may never match my $112,000 salary again, but I'm at peace with my choice.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Robin Madell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

All my friends were also into science and math, and we all applied to engineering school and became engineers together. I started my career working in traffic modeling, which in part consists of collecting traffic-count data at critical intersections and projecting existing traffic volumes to the future. Throughout my career, I'd worked with engineers from different firms and engineering disciplines who would often complain they were overworked and needed more people ASAP. It's also thanks to my engineering career — I was making $112,000 by the time I left — that I was able to afford and purchase a property, which I refinanced to access its equity so I can support myself and my new blogging career. Ultimately, I feel at peace with my choice, as I listened to my mind and body and have stayed true to myself.

Twitter did not immediately respond to request for comment on potential legal concerns. But they also cautioned that with many details still unknown, the full scope of legal consequences are as yet unclear. “We’re being flooded with inquiries from Twitter employees and are in the process of pursuing a variety of legal claims,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, a labor attorney who sued Twitter for violations of the WARN Act, told NBC News. “We are doing everything we can just to keep up with the new legal issues that he’s raising hour by hour,” Liss-Riordan said of Musk’s swift changes at Twitter. Twitter employees who do pursue legal action in California could benefit from "employee friendly protections" in that state, Nendel‑Flores said.

☆ Wall Street titan Apollo has a new class of dealmakers. Here's how 3 rose to partner while in their 30s.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Casey Sullivan | Hayley Cuccinello | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +23 min

He persevered through the brutal all-nighters, the perplexing spreadsheets, and the temperamental bosses who walked the halls of the midtown Manhattan investment firm. At Apollo, executives tend to grow up quickly. Some of their former colleagues have tried to make more money elsewhere, such as the hedge funds run by billionaire personalities that Apollo's executives quietly root against. Associates sometimes dealt with burnout from heavy workloads and demanding bosses by escaping for a walk through Central Park to let off steam, according to the former firm associates. We're Rayman Apollo!'"

☆ Nvidia's quarter fails to excite but offers enough hope that October's bottom can hold
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Zev Fima | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

That said, encouragingly, the team expects Gaming inventory levels to approach normal levels as we enter calendar year 2023. Fourth quarter guidance was underwhelming, but it was encouraging to hear management say they expect to see sequential growth in Data Center, Gaming, and Automotive. Segment Q3 sales Data Center revenue grew 31% to $3.83 billion, a tad short versus the $3.84 billion consensus. Gaming revenue fell 51% to $1.57 billion, but it was better than expectations of $1.33 billion. Capital Allocation In its fiscal third quarter, Nvidia returned a total of $3.75 billion to shareholders via dividends and buybacks.

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