DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE, March 29 (Reuters) - Investors are piling into China's tech, media and telecom shares, with speculative bets on chatbot development crowding out other sectors in a scenario that offers a stark contrast with global caution. On some days, including several last week, turnover in tech, media and telecom (TMT) stocks made up more than 40% of total market trade, according to China Merchants Securities' research, for a record concentration of trading volume. "In the stockmarket, AI will be an epic opportunity," said Niu Chunbao, a fund manager at Wanji Asset Management who worried he was missing the rally and bought AI stocks in recent weeks, after cutting exposure to new energy in February. An eye-catching tripling in the share price of chipmaker Cambricon Technology Corp (688256.SS) has driven its market value above $10 billion, despite the company reporting losses since 2017. ($1=6.8891 Chinese yuan renminbi)Reporting by Jason Xue in Shanghai and Tom Westbrook in Singapore; Editing by Clarence FernandezOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ The world's top metals trader is stuck in another nickel-shipment snafu after getting bags of stones from a Dutch warehouse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Filip De Mott | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Trafigura discovered that it received bag of stones from a warehouse in Rotterdam instead of nickel. Last month, Trafigura disclosed an unrelated fraud on nickel shipments and faces a $577 million loss. Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that JPMorgan Chase was the owner of bags of stones at the warehouse. Stratton Metals, a metal trader in Europe, also reportedly got bags of stones instead of nickel. Meanwhile, Trafigura has said there's no connection between the bags of stones and a separate snafu related to nickel cargoes.

☆ JPMorgan Chase thought it had $1.3 million of nickel, but they were all bags of stones. It's happened before.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

JPMorgan Chase kept bags of stones in a warehouse thinking they were nickel. In November 2022, commodities trading giant Trafigura discovered carbon steel and other types of steel and iron instead of the nickel it had ordered. Carbon steel tends to be priced at about 5% of the value of the costlier metal, according to the Financial Times. Nickel prices surged to around $50,000 a metric ton on March 7, 2022 and then to $100,000 a ton a day later, but have come off to around $22,800 a ton ton now. In the complaint, a merchant called Nanni criticized his supplier for sending him low-quality copper ingots and demanded his money back.

☆ Bank of America names senior Europe TMT bankers in reshuffle -memo
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Amy-Jo Crowley | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, March 9 (Reuters) - Bank of America (BAC.N) has made a handful of senior appointments within its investment banking team advising European technology, media and telecom (TMT) companies, an internal memo seen by Reuters showed. The memo, which was confirmed by a Bank of America spokesperson, said the U.S. bank has named veterans Alexandre Gafsi and Emmanuel Hibou as chairs of TMT Investment Banking in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to "focus fully on covering some of our key clients". It has also appointed Thomas Koehrer and James Robertson as co-heads of TMT Investment Banking for the EMEA region. Peter Luck, who has been co-head of UK Investment Banking with Robertson, is now taking over full UK responsibilities. Reporting by Amy-Jo Crowley; Additional reporting by Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro; Editing by Elisa Martinuzzi and Alexander SmithOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ U.S. equity investors should be cautious and consider shorting equities, says market strategist
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | 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 EmailU.S. equity investors should be cautious and consider shorting equities, says market strategistChris Watling, CEO and chief market strategist of Longview Economics, said equity investors in the U.S. should be cautious and consider shorting equities due to the current market environment. In an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe," Watling explained that the U.S. equity market is currently on a relative P/E ratio that has only been substantially higher during the TMT bubble and the pandemic.

☆ Disney's Bob Iger details plans at Morgan Stanley's TMT conference
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Melissa Lee | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

In this videoShare Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailDisney's Bob Iger details plans at Morgan Stanley's TMT conferenceCNBC's Robert Frank reports on investment taxes and Pres. Biden's budget. With CNBC's Tyler Mathisen and the Fast Money traders, Tim Seymour, Jeff Mills, Julie Biel and Guy Adami.

☆ Metal tycoon sued over missing $577 million in nickel told cargo inspectors he'd had a heart attack, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An Indian tycoon sued over missing nickel cargoes told inspectors he'd had a heart attack, per the FT.Trafigura alleges many of Prateek Gupta's shipments didn't contain any nickel and it faces a $577 million loss. Commodities trading giant Trafigura has sued Prateek Gupta and companies associated with him, including TMT Metals and UIL Malaysia. Trafigura's head nickel trader, Sokratis Oikonomou, arranged for a physical inspection of the cargoes shipped by Gupta's firms on November 9, the report said. Trafigura has said none of the Rotterdam containers had the the nickel previously agreed in orders, but contained carbon steel instead. Gupta was hit with a $625 million freezing order by a London court after Trafigura filed its fraud lawsuit.

☆ Inside Citadel's internship program for aspiring traders that paves the way for a six-figure salary at the elite hedge fund after college
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Emmalyse Brownstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

Citadel, one of the largest hedge funds, accepts just 1% of applicants to its associate program. Few college students know what a hedge fund is, let alone that they want to work for one. Its associate program lets aspiring fund managers skip the traditional two-year investment banking program that is usually a prerequisite for a hedge fund job. The associate program is different from Citadel's broader internship program. But the accelerated nature of the CAP program appealed to him over other opportunities, he said.

Manchester United, INEOS, Tesla and Musk did not reply to requests for comment. "For potential buyers, football clubs like Manchester United are considered trophy assets driven by the perception of exclusivity. The size of that bid has fuelled speculation Manchester United will attract significantly more. Manchester United is the fourth richest soccer club in the world, according to analysis by Deloitte. A small portion of Manchester United shares is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

☆ A top commodity trader is staring down a $577 million loss after discovering metal cargoes it bought were missing nickel, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Trafigura faces a $577 million loss on nickel shipments in what the company calls a systemic fraud, according to Bloomberg. The commodities trading giant discovered some of the metal cargoes it bought were missing nickel. A full container of nickel, an expensive metal that is typically traded in large volumes, can be worth roughly $500,000. Trafigura has begun legal action against Indian businessman Prateek Gupta and several companies connected to him, including TMT Metals and UD Trading Group. When contacted by Bloomberg, UD Trading's Dubai office had no comment, and its calls to TMT Metals' London office went unanswered.

☆ Coinbase was hit with a $3.6 million fine by the Dutch central bank for failure to properly register in the country
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Dutch central bank hit Coinbase with a $3.6 million fine for non-compliance. A Coinbase spokesperson told Insider that the company is "carefully considering" the objections and appeal process. The central bank fined Coinbase rival Binance $3.3 million in July. Coinbase refutes the bank's claims, adding that the company is "carefully considering the objections and appeals process" for the fine. DNB also hit Coinbase competitor and world's largest crypto exchange Binance with a $3.35 million fine in July.

☆ Alphabet finally makes the tough call to lay off workers. Here's how its cut of 12,000 jobs compares to the rest of Silicon Valley.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Despite seemingly all of its internet peers announcing job cuts, Google likely hired another 6K employees in 4Q22," Schilsky wrote. The 12,000 figure shared by Pichai on Friday suggests Alphabet layoffs are roughly in line with most of its peers. Meta's layoffs of more than 11,000 employees — announced in November — work out to around 13% of the company's overall workforce. According to filings, 98% of Meta's revenue currently comes from ads, and 87% of Alphabet's revenue comes from advertising. This wouldn't be a problem, he suggests, if Meta's revenue per employee hadn't fallen over the last 12 months $1.6 million per employee to $1.4 million.

☆ Netflix to live-stream Screen Actors Guild Awards
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

REUTERS/Bing GuanJan 11 (Reuters) - Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) will live-stream the annual Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards beginning in 2024, as it explores bringing live programming to its service. The streaming giant stepped in to carry the SAG Awards, which had lost its broadcast home on cable networks TNT and TBS. Netflix will stream this year's ceremony on its YouTube Channel and, next year, stream the awards show to subscribers via Netflix's service. Nominees will be announced at 7 a.m. Pacific time on Wednesday and the 29th Annual SAG awards take place on Feb. 26. Netflix is in the early days of testing live broadcasts, as it contemplates bringing live sports to the platform.

☆ Vince McMahon is back at WWE to ensure a smooth sale process. Here's who might want to buy it
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( Alex Sherman | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

WWE has hired JPMorgan to help the company advise on a potential sale, according to people familiar with the matter. But it remains unclear what type of role, if any, McMahon would want at WWE if he sold the company. WWE has a market capitalization of more than $6 billion after rising nearly 17% percent on Friday, buoyed by heightened sale speculation. McMahon's company already has an exclusive streaming deal with Comcast's streaming service, Peacock, and a cable TV deal with NBCUniversal's USA Network. Fox sold off most of its entertainment assets in its $71 billion sale to Disney in 2019, but WWE fits with the smaller company's sports and live events focus.

☆ The top stories in the world of banking in 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

While 2022 wasn't a banner year for banks, it also wasn't a complete disaster. Will Nance, Neena Bitritto-Garg, Corinne Blanchard, and Michael Elias Goldman Sachs; Citi; Cowen; Deutsche Bank; Sean Gladwell/Getty; Savanna Durr/Insider1. At Goldman Sachs ID swipes were tracked. But by 2022 the wheels were starting to fall off on CEO David Solomon's consumer ambitions, as first reported by Insider. This fall, Wells Fargo made the decision to move tens of thousands of accounts out of its private bank that had under $5 million.

☆ Netflix co-CEO yet to see a path to profitability in 'renting big sports'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 6 (Reuters) - Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos on Tuesday said he has yet to see a path to profitability in live sports on the streaming service. Sarandos said the economics of professional sports were built around the economics of television - and buying rights is expensive. "We've not seen a profit path to renting big sports today," Sarandos told the UBS Global TMT conference. Sarandos said Netflix has been able to add subscribers without the lure of big sporting events, such as the Super Bowl. He said he is "confident" the service can double in size without streaming live sports, although he did not rule it out entirely.

Shares of Paramount Global fell Tuesday after CEO Robert Bakish warned that fourth-quarter advertising revenue would be lower than the company's sluggish third-quarter figures. Paramount's ad revenue declined 2% in the third quarter. Paramount isn't the only media company to say the ad market is rough. NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said at the UBS conference Monday that it has steadily worsened over the last six to nine months. Programing note: Paramount CEO Robert Bakish will appear on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Wednesday at 10 a.m.

☆ Netflix co-CEO Sarandos says streamer likely to offer multiple ad-supported tiers
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Lillian Rizzo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Netflix is likely to offer multiple subscription plans with ads in the future, the company's co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said on Tuesday, just weeks after the streaming giant rolled out its first ad-supported option. For viewers who don't want to see commercials, Netflix already offers multiple plans ranging in price from $9.99 a month to $19.99 a month. And the company will likely do the same for its ad-supported model as the business grows, Sarandos said at the UBS TMT conference. "We have multiple tiers today, so it's likely we'll have multiple ad tiers over time, but nothing to talk about yet," Sarandos said. Disney+ also plans to launch a tier with advertising, while also raising prices for its commercial-free option and other streaming services.

☆ Peacock streaming service has over 18 mln global paid subscribers
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Helen Coster | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Dec 5 (Reuters) - Comcast Corp-owned (CMCSA.O) NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service has over 18 million global paid subscribers, NBCUniversal Chief Executive Jeff Shell said while speaking at the UBS Global TMT Conference Monday. That number is up from the 15 million the company reported in October. Reporting by Helen CosterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Winners and Losers of Advertising During an Economic Downturn
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Executives from three of the largest ad agencies — Magna Global, GroupM, and Zenith — spoke at UBS' Global TMT Conference about how the ad industry will shake out next year. Kate Scott-Dawkins, global director of business intelligence at GroupM, said that retail media was the fastest-growing area within digital advertising this year. It upped its retail media forecast to $110 billion this year, up from $100 billion in September. Streaming TV is also starting to compensate for dips in linear TV ad spending. TV advertising will dip because it lacks annual commitments from advertisers, causing ad prices to come down to pre-covid levels.

☆ Private equity is starting to bet big on the cloud. Here's why firms like Blackstone are making the move.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Like other Wall Street firms upended by the technology, PE firms' motivation to make the move is tied to harnessing the copious amounts of data they manage. GFT works with more than 20 private-equity firms for digital transformation, including a handful of tier-one PE companies, he said. Some PE firms have tried to leverage their scale for pricing discounts among cloud providers, Mahenthiran said. Major cloud providers, like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, have been hungry for more Wall Street market share. That hasn't stopped PE firms from trying to hire out data-science and cloud teams to help front-office researchers find new opportunities and oversee internal cloud infrastructure, Vyas said.

☆ Private equity is opening up to the public cloud, setting up a new battleground for AWS, Microsoft, and Google to win over Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Like other Wall Street firms upended by the technology, PE firms' motivation to make the move is tied to harnessing the copious amounts of data they manage. GFT works with more than 20 private-equity firms for digital transformation, including a handful of tier-one PE companies, he said. Some PE firms have tried to leverage their scale for pricing discounts among cloud providers, Mahenthiran said. Major cloud providers, like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, have been hungry for more Wall Street market share. But the wait-and-see approach has put PE companies far behind their Wall Street peers.

☆ Herbert Smith Freehills appoints Roberts and Robinson as TMT lead partners
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

SINGAPORE, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Herbert Smith Freehills has appointed Veronica Roberts and Mark Robinson as joint global sector lead partners of the global law firm's technology, media and telecoms (TMT) sector. Based in London, Roberts is an European Union, United Kingdom competition law expert who also leads Herbert Smith Freehills' global foreign investment group, the law firm said in a statement late Wednesday. Singapore-based Robinson has advised on corporate transactions, investments and projects in Asia and previously worked in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Herbert Smith Freehills said it has more than 360 lawyers in its TMT sector. Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by Anshuman Daga and Rashmi AichOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Tech rout widens as Meta sinks after results
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Meta's results come a day after Google-parent Alphabet and Microsoft posted dismal numbers, sparking a wide-spread selloff in tech stocks. A year after changing its name to Meta to focus on shared virtual reality, the company posted an accelerating sequential decline in quarterly revenue. Meta also bumped up its full-year 2023 total expenses outlook to $96 billion to $101 billion, significantly higher than a revised estimate for 2022 total expenses of $85 billion to $87 billion. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said he expects the metaverse investments to take about a decade to bear fruit. At least eight brokerages slashed their price targets on Meta, with Baird's $80 cut to $150 the steepest of the lot.

☆ Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg just raised a giant middle finger to Wall Street. The company says its metaverse business will lose even more money next year.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Facebook warned that its Reality Labs metaverse business will lose even more money in 2023. It lost $10 billion over the whole of 2021, and the company said spending costs for Reality Labs are only going to keep growing. "We do anticipate that Reality Labs losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year," the company said. He specifically asked Facebook to limit metaverse spending to $5 billion a year. A main part of the immersive digital world Mark Zuckerberg is attempting to build out is avatars.

Search resuls for: "TMT"

25 mentions found