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☆ Apple gets its price target slashed by nearly 13% at Wedbush, but it says the tech giant's demand story still looks more resilient than Wall Street believes
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Carla Mozée | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Apple's price target was cut by more than 12% to $175 at Wedbush Securities on Wednesday. Demand headwinds are creeping into Apple's growth story but the overall picture is more resilient than Wall Street is seeing, the firm said. It cut its price target on Apple by 12% to $175 from $200 and held onto its outperform rating. Meanwhile, Apple's underlying demand story still has more than 200 million iPhone units that haven't been upgraded in about four years. The new $175 price target reflects a more base-case valuation in an uncertain environment with some demand headwinds starting to creep into Apple's growth story, said Ives.

☆ Elon Musk responds to Twitter's first widespread outage under his leadership by saying the platform is working for him
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter faced its first widespread outage under Elon Musk's leadership on Wednesday evening. Musk responded to the reports by tweeting: "Works for me." Twitter staff previously raised concerns about outages after Musk laid-off half the company's staff. Musk responded to some unaffected users discussing the reports, saying: "Works for me." Fears about such an outage began after Musk laid off around half of Twitter's 7,500 staff soon after he purchased the company.

☆ Labor market is easing to suggest a wage growth roll-over, says Mark Zandi, Moody's chief economist
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailLabor market is easing to suggest a wage growth roll-over, says Mark Zandi, Moody's chief economistMark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, joins 'The Exchange' to discuss the market's anticipation of a recession, signs of meaningful slowing in job growth and the Fed's focus on core service inflation.

☆ Worker demands for more money on the job hit a record level, a New York Fed survey finds
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Eric Rosenbaum | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The level surpassed the $73,283 record reached earlier this year in March, which it had more recently dipped below. The continued strength in the labor market will will put pressure on companies to keep using price as a lever to make back some of the margin lost to labor costs. This approach to offering more pay doesn't tie them into salary increases which can't be easily reversed, and also does not factor into the wage inflation trend for long. But for now Powell is stuck with a labor market that isn't relenting to Fed policy as quickly as hoped. "We do see a very, very strong labor market, one where we haven't seen much softening, where job growth is very high, where wages are very high.

☆ When will the Federal Reserve ease its rate hikes and inflation fight? Keep an eye on your annual raise
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Eric Rosenbaum | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a news conference in Washington, November 2, 2022. It's the labor market as much as the CPI, and employment data remains troubling for the Fed. Inflation is down, but employee expectations are still high for raises because they have lost purchasing power. This views positions the positive news on CPI inflation as only one piece of the puzzle, and not even the biggest piece as far as the Fed is concerned. And until the Fed sees that labor market inflation coming into line, the central bank is not likely to make a major move away from its tightening course.

☆ The Fed's path to a 'Goldilocks' economy just got a little more complicated
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Jeff Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Spencer Platt | Getty ImagesLittle effect from policy movesThe numbers would indicate that 3.75 percentage points worth of rate increases have so far had little impact on labor market conditions. Much of the Street analysis after the report was viewed through the prism of comments Fed Chairman Jerome Powell made Wednesday. Among them were supply chain issues, housing growth, and labor cost, particularly wages. "Wages are rising more than productivity, as labor supply continues to shrink. To restore labor demand and supply, monetary policy must become more restrictive and remain there for an extended period."

☆ Elon Musk's 'hardcore' work ultimatum was a deliberate plan to push Twitter employees out after he was warned against cutting more than 50% of staff
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elon Musk laid off half of Twitter's staff. But he agreed to laying off just 50% to start with after he was advised again making bigger cuts, Platformer reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. Instead, he sent staff a now-infamous email telling them to commit to "hardcore" work as a deliberate ploy to push more employees to leave, Platformer reported. Immediately after taking control of Twitter, Musk fired some key execs including CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal. Some staff who committed to Musk's "hardcore" Twitter, meanwhile, were laid off by the company, Platformer and Bloomberg reported.

☆ TikTok is still hiring despite the tech downturn. Here's how much it pays for hundreds of engineering, marketing, and other US jobs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Ashley Rodriguez | Dan Whateley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +42 min

Insider analyzed US work-visa data to gauge salary levels at TikTok and parent company ByteDance. The data show TikTok and ByteDance offered staffers on US work visas $30 an hour to $400,000 a year. And TikTok has begun to get into its stride with advertisers who are now taking it more seriously as a marketing platform. Based on the data, TikTok and ByteDance offered from late-2020 to mid-2022 base salaries ranging from $30 per hour to $400,000 per year for various roles. TikTok's median annual base salary was roughly $184,000 per year, based on data from 319 foreign-labor certification applications.

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☆ Twitter users flood the site with eulogies amid mounting fears of its imminent collapse and concerns that 'critical' teams are spread thin
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Britney Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Twitter users worried about a possible site collapse shared memes and tweets with #RIPTwitter. Nithish Billava replied to Musk's tweet with the same meme, but with Musk's face over the tombstone saying, "Fixed it" with the sweat smile emoji. Gluscevic's tweet shows Musk's face on the little girl's face and the Twitter app on the house. Other Twitter users compared the demise of Twitter to the sinking of the Titanic. As we wait to see what happens next, Twitter users continued bidding adieu to the website on Friday morning.

☆ In Burnley, Britain's cost of living crisis hits home
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Natalie Thomas | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

[1/6] Keelie Topping shops in the parish of the Church of St Matthew the Apostle in Burnley, England, Britain November 10, 2022. While millions in Britain face a difficult winter, the Centre for Cities think tank says the nearly 95,000 residents of Burnley are most exposed to the shockwaves ripping through the economy. Consumers in Burnley saw prices rise 11.7% in the year to September, the think tank estimates, compared with 10.1% nationally, and 9.1% in London. Britain's exit from the European Union has so far failed to yield economic dividends for places like Burnley. Adrian Pabst, at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research think tank, said the cost of supporting the poorest households did not have to be big.

☆ Twitter insiders are getting more worried that the site is at massive risk of crashing under Elon Musk's reign
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Kali Hays | Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Thousands of Twitter employees have been laid off, and Twitter cut costs in infrastructure. Twitter is already under strainA big test for Twitter will be the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off this weekend. In 2018, Twitter boasted its "massive role" in World Cup fandom that year and live matches, which drove 115 billion views of tweets with the World Cup hashtag. The tool was affected by Musk's decision on Monday to turn off the many "microservices" at Twitter, a current employee said. But convincing people to return to the chaos under Musk has been a tough sell, two current employees said.

☆ California’s Natural-Gas Bans Push Largest Gas Utility to Find a New Strategy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Katherine Blunt | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

As California expands its efforts to phase out natural-gas use in homes, the nation’s largest gas utility is trying to reinvent itself for a future in which far fewer customers use its core service. Southern California Gas Co., a unit of Sempra , is studying how to repurpose its system—and handle the costs of doing so—as the state works to ban the sale of gas furnaces and water heaters starting in 2030. The state’s initiatives are the latest in a series of measures aimed at reducing future gas use to address climate-change concerns. Already, about 50 California cities and towns have regulations in place to ban or limit gas hookups in new buildings.

☆ Leaked audio reveals Cerebral execs telling workers they blew through too much money too quickly. Here's how the embattled mental-health startup is changing course.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Blake Dodge | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

The embattled startup hired against unprofitable growth, Jess Muse, Cerebral's president, said. Cerebral, she said, paid more money on advertising to bring in new patients than it recouped by providing mental-health services and prescriptions. Prioritizing turning a profitCerebral leaders held a series of staff meetings on Monday. During the Monday staff meetings, at least two employees expressed concerns about the increased workload, since remaining staff are taking on patients of those who were laid off. Several employees accused company leaders of blindsiding workers with layoffs after the employees said they were assured the company was performing well.

☆ The two words investors want to hear from Wednesday's Federal Reserve meeting
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Jeff Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

As markets look for signs that the Federal Reserve is stepping away from its breakneck pace of interest rate hikes, two words from this week's meeting could be crucial. No one is expecting the Fed to stop rate hikes, at least for several months. "The November FOMC meeting is not about the November policy rate decision. Instead, the meeting is about future policy rate guidance and what to expect in December and beyond." Even with the step-down hopes from Wednesday's meeting, market expectations are still for a fairly aggressive Fed.

☆ Turkish competition board fines Meta Platforms $18.6 million
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ISTANBUL, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Turkey's competition authority has fined Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) 346.72 million lira ($18.63 million) for breaking competition law, it said on Wednesday. Turkey's competition authority said Meta must act to reinstate competition in these markets and prepare annual reports about the steps it will take for the next five years, the authority said. Social media companies have been a focus of attention in Turkey, which adopted a law last week that would jail journalists and social media users for up to three years for spreading "disinformation". Analysts have said social media companies are unlikely to abide in full by the law that requires them to remove "disinformation" content and share user data with authorities. ($1 = 18.6080 liras)Reporting by Ebru Tuncay; Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Daren Butler and Barbara LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Analysts are pounding the table for these 'well positioned' stocks head of earnings
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Analysts say there are a handful of buying opportunities as earnings season continues, including a slew of big names. CNBC Pro combed through the top Wall Street research to find stocks to buy ahead of earnings. In fact, Keane said the company's upside potential is so large, it hasn't even begun to scratch the surface. In fact, the firm said it sees "potential upside" due to iPhone "share gains in China and the enterprise market." "We believe CMG represents a rarity as we hunt through our coverage for earnings upside," Bittner said.

☆ Premarket stocks: The Fed isn't about to back down from its inflation fight
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. London CNN Business —Twelve days from now, the Federal Reserve will meet again, and expectations for the central bank’s next moves are firming up. The consensus among investors: Persistently hot inflation means the Fed will need to continue with its string of aggressive interest rate hikes, which is unprecedented in the modern era. In an interview with Reuters on Friday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said inflation had become “pernicious,” which means that “frontloading” larger rate hikes is logical. But with two quarters of disappointing deliveries caused by supply chain issues and Covid-related shutdowns in China, that goal has looked increasingly out of reach, my CNN Business colleague Chris Isidore reports.

Kakao shares plunged as much as 9.5% on Monday to their lowest since May 2020, wiping out 2 trillion won ($1.39 billion) in market capitalisation at one point, while shares in affiliates KakaoPay (377300.KS) and KakaoBank (323410.KS) lost more than 8% before paring losses. South Korea's technology ministry is probing whether the outage violated any laws while the communications regulator is reviewing the matter, including questions of user compensation, officials said on Sunday. An initial probe on Sunday found electrical issues around battery racks in third basement floor of the data centre, which is operated by SK C&C (034730.KS), may have caused the fire. REPUTATIONAL HITThe Kakao messaging application and the Kakao T taxi booking application are seen on a mobile phone in this illustration photo March 13, 2018. It said on Monday it would discuss compensation with data centre operator SK C&C for losses it and its key units have sustained.

☆ Kakao shares slump as outage sparks calls for regulatory scrutiny
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( Joyce Lee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Kakao shares plunged more than 9% on Monday to their lowest since May 2020, while shares in Kakao affiliates KakaoPay (377300.KS) and KakaoBank (323410.KS) also plunged more than 8% in morning trade. Police and the National Forensic Service are conducting a second investigation on Monday at the data centre, which is operated by SK C&C (034730.KS). After an initial probe on Sunday, police said electrical issues around battery racks in third basement floor of the data centre may have caused the fire. It said in a regulatory filing on Monday that after it normalises services, it will discuss compensation with data centre operator SK C&C for losses sustained by Kakao and its key units. A Kakao spokesperson declined to provide the total number of servers it uses, citing security concerns.

This was the fourth straight week that funds have reduced their collective bet on rising U.S. interest rates. A short position is essentially a wager that an asset's price will fall, and a long position is a bet it will rise. Funds are now holding the smallest net short three-month SOFR position since July, and it has pretty much halved in the last six weeks. There have only been 11 weeks of bigger net short positions since the contract's launch over 30 years ago. "With 2s already at 4.5% and the terminal Fed funds rate in March 2023 almost at 5%, it seems unlikely that 2s can sell-off much more in the near term.

☆ Soaring rent, food costs keep U.S. inflation on front burner; labor market tight
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Lucia Mutikani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Food prices increased 0.8%, with the cost of food at home advancing 0.7% amid rises in all six major grocery store food groups. The war in Ukraine also poses an upside risk to food prices. In the 12 months through September, the CPI increased 8.2% after rising 8.3% in August, decelerating for a third straight month. The so-called core CPI is being largely driven by the higher costs for rental accommodation. The core CPI jumped 6.6% in the 12 months through September, the most since August 1982, after rising 6.3% in August.

☆ The Fed will be more aggressive with rate hikes into early 2023 after September's inflation shock, Barclays says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Carla Mozée | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

It projects the Fed to raise rates by 75 basis points in December and by 50 basis points in February 2023. For the first meeting of 2023, Barclays foresees a rate hike of 50 basis points, up from its past forecast of 25 basis points. Put together, that would propel the fed funds rate to a range of 5% to 5.25% in February. After the September inflation report, investors believe the odds of a 75-basis-point rate hike at the December Fed meeting have doubled. The Fed is expected on November 1-2 to deliver its fourth straight rate hike of 75 basis points and its sixth increase of 2022.

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