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☆ Premarket stocks: What markets are watching after digesting the US jobs data
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

While inflation has come down and other economic data point to a cooling economy, the labor market has remained remarkably resilient. The labor market is cooling but not rapidly or significantly, and further rate hikes can’t be ruled out. More trouble for commercial real estateA few weeks ago, Before the Bell wrote about big problems brewing in the $20 trillion commercial real estate industry. In a worst-case scenario, anxiety about bank lending to commercial real estate could spiral, prompting customers to yank their deposits. The proportion of commercial office mortgages where borrowers are behind with payments is rising, according to Trepp, which provides data on commercial real estate.

Multiple experts identified the presence of malware on the Pinduoduo app that exploited vulnerabilities in Android operating systems. Evidence of sophisticated malware in the Pinduoduo app comes amid intense scrutiny of Chinese-developed apps like TikTok over concerns about data security. Pinduoduo has previously rejected “the speculation and accusation that Pinduoduo app is malicious.”CNN has contacted PDD multiple times over email and phone for comment, but has not received a response. Google Play is not available in China, and Android users in the country download their apps from local stores. Engineers also found their access to big data, data sheets and the log system revoked, the source said.

☆ The TikTok hearing is mostly lawmakers berating the CEO and loudly asking 'Yes or no?' to detailed questions
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Dan Whateley | Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

TikTok CEO Shou Chew appeared before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday. Chew's remarks were often cut short as Congress members pressed him for "yes" or "no" responses. "Welcome to the most bipartisan committee in Congress," Republican Rep. Earl LeRoy "Buddy" Carter said, addressing Chew as "Mr. Chew's responses to questions were often cut short as members of Congress asked for shorter "yes" or "no" responses. In the days leading up to the committee hearing, TikTok helped arrange a press conference with Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman that it described as a push "in support of free expression."

☆ AI stocks surge as investors bet on growth prospects
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

C3.a1 forecast better-than-expected revenue and profit for both the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023, after its third-quarter results topped Wall Street estimates. Shares of the AI software provider were up 16% at $24.80, and were one of the top five trending stocks on StockTwits. Microsoft's investment in OpenAI's ChatGPT boosted AI firms' popularity further. Other major AI stocks also surged on Friday with BigBear.ai (BBAI.N), conversation intelligence firm SoundHound AI (SOUN.O), and Thailand's security firm Guardforce AI (GFAI.O) jumping between 5% and 20%. "AI could become the new gold rush on Wall Street," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive officer of 50 Park Investments in Florida.

☆ Why AI stocks could return outsized performance in the next 18 months, and 7 leading names with direct exposure, according to an ETFs analyst
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Laila Maidan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

There are mature, large-cap companies that investors could stick to for exposure to the sector. A sudden interest in artificial intelligence has brought the more than decade-old technology to the forefront of investors' minds. It has additional ETFs focused on sectors that will be heavily impacted by AI including the Cloud Computing ETF (CLOU) and Cybersecurity ETF (BUG). They are broken down into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and finally, the laggards. Mature companies like Microsoft that are developing AI use cases could move AI into a mature stage rapidly.

☆ Elon Musk is currently working for Tesla for free. That could be about to change
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —For the moment at least, Elon Musk is working at Tesla for free. And last month the company disclosed Musk received the last remaining block of options granted under an even more lucrative 2018 pay package. Tesla stock closed Friday at $208.31. Still, some believe that the Tesla board could soon announce a new pay package for Musk. Some Tesla shareholders challenged the 2018 deal in a Delaware court, even though it was overwhelmingly approved by shareholders at that time.

☆ Lyft posts worst trading day ever after grim earnings report shows the company falling behind Uber
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Lyft plunged 36% on Friday after the company posted a disappointing Q1 revenue forecast. The ride-hailing brand expects $975 million in revenue during the period, missing estimates of $1.09 billion. Elsewhere, Uber reported its strongest quarter ever with revenue up 49% year-over-year. The company said it expects to generate around $975 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2023, missing analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Lyft exceeded Wall Street's expectations for fourth-quarter revenue at $1.18 billion, compared to estimates at $1.16 billion, according to Refinitiv.

☆ Microsoft packs Bing search engine, Edge browser with AI in big challenge to Google
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft is staking its future on AI through billions of dollars of investment as it directly challenges Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google. “This technology is going to reshape pretty much every software category," Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella told reporters in a briefing at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. On Monday it unveiled a chatbot of its own called Bard, while it is planning to release AI for its search engine that can synthesize material when no simple answer exists online. PRACTICAL USESAt the event, Mehdi demonstrated how the AI-enhanced search engine will make shopping and creating emails much easier. For the quarter ending Dec. 31, Alphabet reported $42.6 billion in Google Search and other revenue, while Microsoft posted $3.2 billion from search and news advertising.

☆ Microsoft to infuse software with more AI as Google rivalry heats up
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Microsoft is staking its future on AI through billions of dollars of investment. Working with the startup OpenAI, the company is aiming to rival Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google and potentially claim vast returns from tools that speed up all manner of content creation, automating tasks if not jobs themselves. “This technology is going to reshape pretty much every software category," said Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, in a briefing for reporters at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. "Microsoft is looking to win this AI battle," he said in a research note on Monday. Last week Microsoft announced the startup's AI will generate meeting notes in Teams, its collaboration software, as well as suggest email replies to vendors using its Viva Sales subscription.

☆ Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, announces ChatGPT-style AI bot
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Michelle Toh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Hong Kong CNN —Chinese search engine giant Baidu says it will be launching its own ChatGPT-style service. It will launch a new artificial intelligence chatbot called “Wenxin Yiyan” in Chinese, or “Ernie Bot” in English, a spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday. Baidu (BIDU) is currently testing the project internally and will likely roll out the service to users in March, the person said. The company did not provide further details, such as how the tool would look or whether it would appear as a feature within its popular search engine. Baidu’s AI investments can be seen as “both an offensive and defensive strategic move in China,” Daniel Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities, told CNN.

☆ Meta's layoffs were expensive — it may have spent more than $88,000 per employee to cut 11,000 from the ranks
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg cut 13% of the company's workforce in November. Facebook/MetaIn November 2022, Meta laid off more than 11,000 employees, or 13% of its workforce. It's possible the company spent around $88,000 a person in cutting those employees. The number comes from dividing the $975 million that the company paid in "Severance and Other Personnel" costs by 11,000, approximately the number of employees the company cut in November. In the company's fourth-quarter earnings release posted Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned that Meta's management theme for 2023 was 'Year of Efficiency.'

☆ Analysis: Tesla's price cuts promise more pain for money-losing U.S. EV startups
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Akash Sriram | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Tesla's move will "strengthen their ... competitive advantage over other automakers," CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson said. 'GAME OF THRONES' FOR EV STARTUPSBoth Rivian and Lucid have yet to turn a profit. Reuters GraphicsStill, Rivian had $13.8 billion in cash at the end of the third quarter - the most among the U.S. EV startups. "It's a 'Game of Thrones' battle for EV startups and they face some dire options over the next 12 to 18 months if they do not succeed in their financial targets," said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives. Rivian sells its R1T pickup truck at a starting price of $73,000 while its R1S SUV starts at $78,000.

☆ Tom Zhu: Elon Musk’s right-hand man at Tesla
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Laura He | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Hong Kong CNN —Tesla’s China chief has reportedly been given a big promotion. Tom Zhu, Tesla's executive in charge of China, speaks as a new Tesla experience store opens near West Lake on August 18, 2015 in Hangzhou, China. Zhu joined Tesla in 2014 and has been described as “pragmatic,” “industrious” and “a workaholic” by the Chinese media. Aerial view of Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory at Lingang New Area on July 11, 2021 in Shanghai, China. Tesla’s China successZhu’s reported promotion came after an impressive performance by Tesla’s China operations.

Hong Kong CNN —Production at the world’s biggest iPhone factory, disrupted since October by China’s Covid-19 restrictions and worker protests, is now running at nearly full capacity, according to a Chinese state media report. The sprawling campus in central China, owned by Apple (AAPL) supplier Foxconn, was running at 90% of planned production capacity at the end of December, the Henan Daily newspaper reported Tuesday. It cited an interview with Wang Xue, deputy general manager of the facility, which is also known as iPhone city. Gou’s office told CNN that it “denies the report and its contents.”Wang was quoted by the Henan Daily as saying iPhone City currently had about 200,000 workers on site. Analysts said the production woes at iPhone City would speed up the pace of Apple’s supply chain diversification away from China.

☆ Premarket stocks: The last time the US faced a debt fight this bad it lost its AAA rating
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

In a note on Monday, Goldman Sachs analysts warned that the upcoming debt limit battle in Washington could spark the most uncertainty since the disruptive 2011 debates that cost America its perfect AAA credit score and caused chaos on Wall Street. “To raise the debt limit next year, bipartisan support will be necessary but hard to achieve,” Goldman Sachs economists wrote in the report. Goldman Sachs analysts wrote that the political environment has “echoes of 1995 and 2011” — two very tense standoffs over the debt limit that hurt Main Street and Wall Street. Pain ahead: “It seems likely that uncertainty over the debt limit in 2023 could lead to substantial volatility in financial markets,” wrote Goldman analysts. “A failure to make timely payments would likely hit consumer confidence hard,” Goldman Sachs wrote.

☆ Foxconn restoring production at world's largest iPhone factory
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Juliana Liu | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

The “epidemic situation” at the facility, known as iPhone City and normally home to hundreds of thousands of workers, has been brought under control, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer said in a statement on Monday. Its executives were quoted as telling Reuters that full production would resume between late December and early January. Analysts said the production woes at iPhone City would speed up the pace of Apple’s supply chain diversification away from China. In recent weeks, according to The Wall Street Journal, Apple (AAPL) has accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China. If Apple moves aggressively, more than 50% of iPhone production could come from India and Vietnam by the 2025/2026 fiscal year, versus the single-digit percentage currently, he added.

☆ Apple is accelerating plans to move production out of China as protests and riots intensify in response to zero-Covid policies, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( Bethany Biron | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Apple is increasing its efforts to shift production outside of China, according to the Wall Street Journal. Production at factories like Foxconn has taken a massive hit amid riots over zero-Covid policies. Shifting production will likely be difficult in the current global economic climate, sources told WSJ. In November, the area known as "iPhone City" erupted into violent protests among employees over withheld pay and strict zero-Covid policies that prompted a lockdown in Zhengzhou. The protests, which coincided with the start of the holiday shopping season in the US, have led to significant supply chain issues and shortages of Apple iPhone products.

☆ China’s Zhengzhou, home to world’s largest iPhone factory, ends Covid lockdown
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Juliana Liu | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Hong Kong CNN Business —The central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, home to the world’s largest iPhone factory, has lifted a five-day Covid lockdown, in a move that analysts have called a much-needed relief for Apple and its main supplier Foxconn. Zhengzhou is the site of “iPhone City,” a sprawling manufacturing campus owned by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn that normally houses about 200,000 workers churning out products for Apple (AAPL), including the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max. The troubles started in October when workers left the campus in Zhengzhou, the capital of the central province of Henan, due to Covid-related fears. Total iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max shipments in the current quarter would be 15 million to 20 million units less than previously anticipated, according to Kuo. Due to the high price of the iPhone 14 Pro series, Apple’s overall iPhone revenue in the current holiday quarter could be 20% to 30% lower than investors’ expectations, he added.

☆ Asia shares take comfort in China property rally
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Wayne Cole | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Shares of Chinese property companies surged after the country's securities regulator lifted a ban on equity refinancing for listed property firms. read moreThat helped Chinese blue chips (.CSI300) bounce 1.1%, while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) added 0.7%. Markets were still nervous that the widening web of restrictions in China would lead to more public unrest and further undermine growth. read more"The zero China COVID policy has been an absolute gut punch to Apple's supply chain," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush. The dollar index rallied to 106.57 , having been as low as 105.31 overnight.

☆ Apple has a huge problem at Foxconn's iPhone factory in China
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Juliana Liu | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

“Every week of this shutdown and unrest we estimate is costing Apple roughly $1 billion a week in lost iPhone sales. Now roughly 5% of iPhone 14 sales are likely off the table due to these brutal shutdowns in China,” he said. Security forces clash with workers during a protest outside Apple supplier Foxconn's factory in Zhengzhou, China, on November 23. Covid outbreakEarlier this month, Apple said shipments of its latest lineup of iPhones would be “temporarily impacted” by Covid restrictions in China. Even before this week’s demonstrations, Apple had started making the iPhone 14 in India, as it sought to diversify its supply chain away from China.

☆ Apple supplier Foxconn apologises for hiring blunder at COVID-hit China plant
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Workers said on videos circulated on social media that they had been informed that Foxconn intended to delay bonus payments. The person said the company had reached "initial agreements" with employees to resolve the dispute and production at the plant continued on Thursday. The Zhengzhou plant employs more than 200,000 people to make Apple Inc (AAPL.O) devices including the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. Apple said it had staff at the factory and was "working closely with Foxconn to ensure their employees' concerns are addressed”. Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives expects the shutdowns to cost Apple about $1 billion a week in lost iPhone sales.

A source familiar with the situation in Zhengzhou said production at the plant was unaffected by the worker unrest and output remained "normal". It makes most of the phones at the Zhengzhou plant, though it has other smaller production sites in India and southern China. Shares of Foxconn have slipped 2% since the unrest emerged in late October. Before the unrest, the Zhengzhou plant employed some 200,000 people. To retain staff and lure more workers Foxconn has had to offer bonuses and higher salaries.

"He's probably going to spend more time on Twitter than any Tesla investor feels comfortable about." Sales of Musk's own Tesla shares - totaling $20 billion since he disclosed his Twitter stake - have added to the pressure. "I think he's finally reached a point where he's really challenging himself. 'MINIMAL TIME'The Tesla board has expressed concerns about Musk's commitment to SpaceX and several smaller companies. So I think Tesla would continue to do very well even if I was kidnapped by aliens or went back to my home planet maybe."

☆ Taiwan’s virtual beauty brand struggles on Wall Street debut
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Michelle Toh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Hong Kong CNN Business —Taiwan’s latest entrant to Wall Street has had a rough ride since it went public a week ago. Perfect Corp. lends its technology to beauty and fashion brands. Perfect Corp. founder and CEO Alice Chang said she spoke to CNN Business while wearing the company's "digital makeup" on a conference call. The question was: “How can I link the virtual beauty with the real world beauty?” Chang recalled. Perfect Corp. is one of a handful of Taiwanese companies to list in the United States in recent years, according to Dealogic data.

Oct 25 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) posted its slowest quarterly revenue growth in five years on Tuesday as the tough macroeconomic conditions hit PC sales and slowed cloud growth, which had supercharged the earnings for years. "The PC market was worse than we expected in Q1," Brett Iversen, head of Microsoft's investor relations, told Reuters. Windows OEM business, which includes the operating software Microsoft sells to PC makers, dropped 15% year-on-year. Microsoft's broader Intelligent Cloud division posted a 20% rise in revenue to $20.33 billion, almost in line with estimates of $20.37 billion, according to Refinitiv. Net income fell to $17.56 billion, or $2.35 per share, during the quarter ended Sept. 30, from $20.51 billion, or $2.71 per share, a year earlier.

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