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☆ Tech shares were the hot play this week but investors should beware the Fed
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Patti Domm | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Big cap tech drew in investors in droves this past week, as the market struggled against volatile interest rates and fears of banking sector contagion. The futures market Thursday was pricing in strong odds of a quarter-point rate hike from the Federal Reserve next week. The big cap tech names are benefiting from a flight-to-quality within the sector, since those stocks have strong cash flow and reliable earnings. The 2-year Treasury yield , for instance, rose above 5% last week but this past week it was well below 4%. Tech and growth names have reacted poorly when rates rise, since investors tend to pay a premium for the promise of future earnings growth.

☆ Google execs tell employees in testy all-hands meeting that Bard A.I. isn't just about search
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

In the lead up to the Bard announcement, Google executives repeatedly said the technology it was developing internally would integrate with search. “We’re working to bring these latest AI advancements into our products, starting with Search,” the company said in a blog post. That same week, at an event in Paris, Google search boss Prabhakar Raghavan unveiled some fresh examples of using Bard within search. "You see the stories of ChatGPT coincides with an event that we’re having that was actually focused on search," Krawczyk said. Specifically, the question asked why Google lost so many key people who were listed on a paper about much of the AI technology behind Bard.

☆ Premarket stocks: Why traders are so infatuated with inflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

What’s happening: Investors will get some market direction clarity on Tuesday morning with the release of key inflation data. It’s not all about the Fed: Traders are infatuated with CPI, but it’s likely going to affect markets more than it will future Fed policy. “CPI is the big inflation report that affects markets more than any other,” he said. Even beyond housing, the services sector has seen year-over-year inflation higher than 3.9% every month since March 2021, said Chaudhuri. And as Powell noted in Washington last week, the stickiness of core services inflation is his greatest concern.

☆ Amazon is the latest threat to Facebook as ad targeting suffers
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

"So many people start their shopping on Amazon," Hassett said in an interview. People take selfies in front of the logo of Facebook parent company Meta on November 9, 2022 in Menlo Park, California. Liu Guanguan | China News Service | Getty ImagesFor Loftie, Amazon and Google provide better value because a shopper is showing intent by searching for a particular item. "In the near term, we expect Meta ad share to decline further in '23 given macro headwinds and the pivot to Reels," they wrote. Rachel Tipograph, CEO of marketing technology firm MikMak, said there are other unforeseen costs tied to Amazon advertising.

☆ The AI war set off by ChatGPT is ramping up and Google stock is poised to spike 21% as it joins the fray, Bank of America says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Carla Mozée | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Google is ready for 'battle' in the AI-services space, and the stock could rise by another 21%, says Bank of America. Microsoft and Baidu have joined the race to capitalize off the growing hunt for AI tools set off by ChatGPT. Google introduced its Bard AI service on Monday. Google introduced Bard on Monday, with CEO Sundar Pichai describing it as "an experimental conversational AI service" - which sounds much like ChatGPT, which launched in November. "Per industry experts … Google may have more data to access than ChatGPT, Google has extensive computing infrastructure to build on and, of course, Google search has a large distribution advantage with iOS and Android," said Post.

☆ Apple and Google’s app stores wield ‘gatekeeper’ power and should be reined in, Commerce Department says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington CNN —The Biden administration on Wednesday took its biggest swipe yet at app stores run by Apple and Google, with a new report accusing the two tech giants of exercising “gatekeeper” power that has led to “suboptimal” levels of competition in digital markets. In a statement, Apple said its app store has benefited developers and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs. In the past, Apple has argued that its control over iOS app distribution helps promote users’ privacy and security. Many of the report’s recommendations echo provisions in federal legislation that received bipartisan support last Congress, but that failed to become law. The findings had been informed by public comments submitted to the Department in the months leading up to the report.

☆ How the Supreme Court could soon change free speech on the internet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +19 min

Musk's actions since closing the deal last year have illuminated how he sees the balance internet platforms must strike in protecting free expression versus user safety. The Supreme Court has yet to decide if or when to hear the cases, though many expect it will take them up at some point. The Age-Appropriate Design Code requires internet platforms that are likely to be accessed by kids to mitigate risks to those users. Google said such a change would also make the internet less safe and less hospitable to free expression. The Supreme Court of the United States building are seen in Washington D.C., United States on December 28, 2022.

☆ Here are Monday's biggest analyst calls: Tesla, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Chevron, Meta, Shopify & more
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Morgan Stanley upgrades Colgate-Palmolive to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said in its upgrade of Colgate that it sees an attractive entry point. "We upgrade shares from Neutral to Buy as we see the last of tough comparables for SHOP subsiding entering '23." Bank of America reiterates Meta as neutral Bank of America says it's cautious heading into Meta earnings on Wednesday. Berenberg upgrades Tesla to buy from hold Berenberg said in its upgrade of Tesla that "factory innovations support long-term margins." Morgan Stanley reiterates Southwest Airlines as overweight Morgan Stanley says it's sticking with shares of the airline.

☆ The DOJ's antitrust case against Google is ambitious but risky
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

But alongside the possibility of great reward comes significant risk in seeking to push the boundaries of antitrust law. "All antitrust cases are an uphill battle for plaintiffs, thanks to 40 years of case law," said Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt Law School. But, Allensworth added, the government's challenges may be different than those in many other antitrust cases. Like all antitrust cases, this one is unlikely to be concluded anytime soon. "This is clearly the blockbuster case so far from the DOJ antitrust division," Francis said.

☆ Google CEO defends job cuts in animated town hall as employees demand clarity on process
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Google CEO Sundar Pichai led the companywide meeting and told employees that executives will see their bonuses cut. "I understand you are worried about what comes next for your work," Pichai said. Prior to the job cuts, Google had made the decision to pay out 80% of bonuses this month with the rest expected in March or April. Thomas Kurian, the CEO of Google Cloud, offered some perspective on the areas that saw cuts. Last month, Google employees asked executives at an all-hands meeting whether the AI chatbot ChatGPT represents a "missed opportunity" for Google."

☆ Amazon is emerging as a force in digital ads, but here's why we remain cautious on the stock
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Paulina Likos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Amazon 's (AMZN) advertising business is emerging as a primary competitor to Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Platform s (META), according to a new Wall Street survey. While encouraged by the growth in its ad business, we still don't think the tech and e-commerce giant has done enough to cut costs to protect margins. In the survey, 50 senior U.S. ad buyers said they anticipate Amazon's ad market share to rise from 6% in 2022 to 7% in 2024. Moreover, 40% of ad buyers believe Amazon will "emerge as a meaningful ad platform alongside GOOG and META." The analysts cited lower revenue from the company's cloud business, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

☆ Premarket stocks: Get ready for a spending slowdown this holiday season
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Retail sales surged by 1.3% in October. What’s happening: Wednesday’s headline retail sales numbers, reported by the US Census Bureau, came in strong, but the momentum is unlikely to continue. These cracks in retail are starting to show just as the sector enters its most critical sales period: The holiday shopping season. The bottom line: This holiday season will likely be a mixed bag with some winners and losers in the retail sector, said Saunders. “We do have to do some tax rises, do some spending cuts, if we’re going to show we’re a country that pays our way,” he told Sky News on Sunday.

☆ Ticketmaster meltdown for Taylor Swift tickets sparks outrage
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The Justice Department and many state attorneys general have made similar complaints over the years. The Justice Department and states allowed the Live Nation Ticketmaster merger to go through despite a 2010 court filing in the case raising objections to the merger. In the filing, the Justice Department said that Ticketmaster’s share among major concert venues exceeded 80%. Past efforts to rein in Ticketmaster control over the ticket market have failed. The Justice Department and the states gave approval of to the Live Nation-Ticketmaster combination, but did call for some oversight.

☆ Premarket stocks: The Fed is killing the housing market
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

This ultra-resilient economy stands in the face of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive attempts to quell inflation by slowing growth through aggressive interest rates. Those higher rates, fueled by the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented campaign of hiking interest rates to tame soaring inflation, are beginning to choke the housing market. “The surge in mortgage rates and extremely high housing prices has led to massive pullback in first time home purchasing and has pushed investors to the side. But housing is a bellwether for the rest of the economy, and these contractions will inevitably weigh on broader US growth. Alphabet (GOOG) and Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META) fell short of earnings expectations last quarter, citing a slowing digital ad market.

☆ Premarket stocks: Big Tech can't save your investments
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

But disappointing earnings from Big Tech stocks have the tendency to turn the broader market south thanks to their immense market value. Beyond determining market sentiment, tech earnings also offer important clues about where the economy is heading. In particular, sales growth in the cloud business – one of the company’s biggest bright spots in recent years – was lower than analysts had hoped. Its fiscal second-quarter forecast came in short of Wall Street estimates, sending shares down 8% on Wednesday. A slowing economy, geopolitical chaos and heightened inflation have all worked to dry up the number of IPOs and mergers and acquisitions made on Wall Street.

☆ Here are Wednesday's biggest analyst calls: Tesla, Microsoft, Disney, Amazon, Alphabet & more
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Bank of America downgrades Whirlpool to underperform from neutral Bank of America said there has been a severe drop in appliance demand. Bank of America reiterates Uber as buy Bank of America said it's staying "constructive" on Uber heading into earnings on Nov. 1. Morgan Stanley upgrades Discover to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock on a potential buyback resumption. " Morgan Stanley reiterates Disney as overweight Morgan Stanley said Disney shares already have baked in macro risks. Morgan Stanley reiterates Tesla as overweight Morgan Stanley said it's seeing signs that Tesla is "taking steps to become a bigger player in its own battery supply chain."

☆ Wall Street analysts see short-term pressure for Alphabet following earnings miss
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Carmen Reinicke | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Revenue also came in short at $69.09 billion where Wall Street analysts anticipated $70.58 billion. Those weaker-than-expected results were driven by a slowdown in ad spending and a slip in revenue at YouTube, areas where analysts expected growth. Citi analyst Ronald Josey cut his price target on the company to $120 from $140 to reflect slower revenue growth and margin pressures. A leaner Alphabet Alphabet announced that it would slow hiring in the coming quarter in a move to increase efficiency. "We believe advertising, content and product sales are converging, and GOOGL appears to be ahead of this trend, which is promising."

☆ Premarket stocks: The Fed may have changed markets forever
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Federal Reserve officials have clearly stated that they have no plans to pivot away from their policy of aggressive rate hikes to fight persistent inflation. It’s become pointless to try to apply economic rationale to stock markets, Prins told me in a recent interview. Another mandate: The Federal Reserve is mandated to keep unemployment and prices in check, but the third unofficial mandate of the Fed is to boost markets, said Prins. They understand, says Prins, that eventually the Fed will return to its long-term policy of aiding markets. The Federal Reserve has stepped up its efforts to tamp down high prices via a series of blockbuster interest rate hikes.

☆ 'Run, don't walk' from index funds, says a hedge fund manager who ran one of the best-performing mutual funds. He breaks down why most funds aren't ready for a two-stage bear market that could last ov
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Laila Maidan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

George Noble says most fund managers and index funds aren't equipped for the changing economy. He admits that equity hedge funds haven't fared well in the last decade when their performance became mediocre. Between 1991 to 2009, he ran two hedge funds that eventually closed. He points to the Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund VIP Index, a collection of the top long-equity holdings within the portfolios of fundamentally driven hedge fund managers, as an example. For this reason, index funds, technology funds, and high-growth funds are a disaster.

☆ Premarket stocks: Why investors aren't going green
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

ESG funds in September saw their largest outflow of investor cash since the March 2020 recession. These ESG and responsible investing funds saw assets under management peak above $8.5 trillion in late 2021. That’s because ESG ratings agencies tend to rate companies against others within their industry, so oil and gas companies are rated separately from automotive companies. A debate over how to regulate ESG funds is also adding to the noisy picture. But the hurdles facing ESG investing show that doing so is easier said than done.

☆ Analysts love these stocks set to report earnings in the week ahead
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-23 | by ( Fred Imbert | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

One approach that could help is by looking at the names most beloved by analysts heading into earnings. The e-commerce giant is slated to report earnings Thursday. Alphabet, which is set to report earnings Tuesday, has struggled in 2022, losing 30% in that time. The company is slated to report earnings Thursday. ServiceNow and Alexandria Real Estate have the most buy rating from analysts covering them at 83.5% each.

☆ Texas sues Google over alleged ‘indiscriminate’ biometric data collection
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN Business —Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Google on Thursday, alleging the tech giant had violated the state’s biometric privacy law by “indiscriminately” collecting voiceprints and facial recognition data from users and non-users of the company’s products without their consent. “Of course, this is only visible to you and you can easily turn off this feature if you choose and we do not use photos or videos in Google Photos for advertising purposes. The company has also allegedly listened in on Texans “without regard to whether a speaker has consented to Google’s indiscriminate voice printing,” according to the complaint. In February, the state claimed a now-shuttered Facebook photo-tagging tool — which was the subject of a $650 million biometric privacy settlement in Illinois last year — had also been a violation of the Texas biometric law. Texas has multiple lawsuits ongoing against Google, including two other consumer protection cases and an antitrust case targeting Google’s dominance in digital advertising.

☆ What to do with your old phones, gadgets and other e-waste
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

But in the process, these and other companies may also be adding to a growing problem: electronic waste. Friday marks International E-Waste Day, an annual opportunity to reflect on the impacts of electronic waste and do more to repair or recycle them. The e-Stewards group and Sustainable Electronics Recycling International each offer online tools to find recycling centers that they have certified. The collective impact of recycling e-waste can be staggering. But not all municipalities in the US offer infrastructure for e-waste recycling.

☆ Google Pixel event: Tech giant unveils new smartphones and its first smartwatch
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-06 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Google on Thursday unveiled its new Pixel 7 smartphone lineup and its first-ever Pixel smartwatch, packed with tracking and health features from its subsidiary Fitbit. The new Google Pixel 7 and Google Pixel 7 Pro GoogleBoth models run on Google’s new Tensor G2 processor, which powers the device’s machine learning and speech recognition capabilities, and several camera features. But one area where Google could make a greater impact this year is with the introduction of the Pixel watch. The Google Pixel Watch GoogleThe new 41 mm Google Pixel Watch features a circular, domed-shaped Gorilla Glass display that’s scratch- and water-resistant. The Pixel Watch comes in black, gold and silver finishes.

☆ Google CEO Pichai tells employees not to 'equate fun with money' in heated all-hands meeting
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

In this article GOOG Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNTAlphabet CEO Sundar Pichai gestures during a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, on January 22, 2020. Fabrice COFFRINI | AFP | Getty ImagesAs Google tries to navigate an unfamiliar environment of slowing growth, cost-cutting and employee dissent over cultural changes, CEO Sundar Pichai is finding himself on the defensive. Pichai admitted that it's not just the economy that's caused challenges at Google but also an expanding bureaucracy at Google. Pichai said leadership is combing through more than 7,000 responses it's received from employees regarding suggestions from the Simplicity Sprint effort. Kristin Reinke, head of Google finance, said at the meeting that sales teams will have more leeway to travel since their jobs require meeting with customers.

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