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☆ 10 of Wall Street's top tech execs detail how the public cloud is revolutionizing the way they do business: 'We are fundamentally rethinking how we solve problems.'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Bianca Chan | Carter Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

This year saw the continued embrace of the public cloud by Wall Street firms. Wall Street is headed for the clouds. But now, a wholesale migration from physical, on-premise data centers to cloud networks is fully underway within financial services. Finance firms are using a move to the cloud as an opportunity to overhaul their business beyond just upgrading back-end tech. Here are the six top trends to watch in the cloud in 2023, according to top Wall Street tech execs.

☆ Here's how to get geared up for 2023 on Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

But first, Wells Fargo takes a new approach to tech. Ather Williams, senior executive vice president and head of strategy, digital, and innovation at Wells Fargo Wells Fargo1. In other news:After years of hesitancy, Wall Street is finally turning the corner on its acceptance of the public cloud. From a surge in dealmaking to the rise of superpowered software, these are the key trends top VCs are eyeing this year. We identified 34 tech companies that seem primed for a deal.

☆ Our best stories on financial tech in 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Today, we're going to recap all the great stories we've done this year on financial tech, whether it's up-and-coming startups or the projects at the biggest banks and investment firms. Wall Street and sports have a long history together. How top Wall Street firms are testing out cutting-edge tech. Shaw, here are 10 of the most innovative tech projects at top Wall Street firms. And we also identified the top Big Tech executives who could get poached by Wall Street firms looking to do more in the cloud.

☆ IBM beat all its large-cap tech peers in 2022 as investors shunned growth for safety
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

But in a year that saw investors abandon all major tech stocks, Big Blue was in the green. High gas prices, soaring inflation and the Federal Reserve's steady pace of rate increases have punished growth stocks and favored more mature, less volatile names that are viewed as more recession-resistant. Among U.S. tech companies valued at $50 billion or more, IBM was one of only two to generate positive returns in 2022. IBM beats Big Tech in 2022 CNBCIBM is "trading well above its historical range," Bernstein Research analysts wrote in a Dec. 20 note to clients. IBM's model through 2024 calls for mid-single-digit revenue growth, translating into free cash flow growth in the high single digits.

☆ Goldman Sachs' year-end bonuses are going to be brutal, and everyone's pointing fingers on who's to blame
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

When things were going good, Goldman Sachs' CEO David Solomon could seemingly do no wrong. Last year, thanks to a booming M&A market and a favorable trading environment, life was good at the elite Wall Street bank. Top tech executives from 10 Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and KKR, share their predictions for the top public-cloud trends next year. Bad news: You're not the only one waiting for rates to drop to buy a home; so is Wall Street. Here's what a home-buying spree from Wall Street could mean for the entire industry.

☆ Inside Wall Street's cloud ambitions: From cutting costs to new security tools, tech execs from Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and others predict the top cloud trends in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Bianca Chan | Carter Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

☆ Private-equity firms are coming around to the idea of using more data in the investment process. It's still an uphill battle.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Take Blackstone, which recently expanded a data tool it originally built for its real-estate business to be used across its PE portfolio. As recently as just a few years ago, PE firms were just starting to warm to the idea of building out data-science teams. But that tech has been a hard sell for PE firms as well, until recently. Many PE firms are just now waking up to the possibilities of the public cloud. To be fair to PE firms, figuring out how to incorporate data analysis into the investing process is no easy task.

☆ Here are Monday's biggest analyst calls: Tesla, Amazon, Netflix, Moderna, Nike, Coinbase & more
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Here are Monday's biggest calls on Wall Street: Morgan Stanley names Microsoft a top 2023 pick Morgan Stanley said it sees accelerating earnings per share growth for Microsoft in 2023. Morgan Stanley reiterates Netflix as equal weight Morgan Stanley raised its price target on Netflix to $275 per share from $250 but said the valuation has come too far too fast. Telsey names Amazon a top 2023 pick Telsey said the e-commerce giant will continue to gain share in 2023. " Morgan Stanley names Formula One Group a top 2023 pick Morgan Stanley said the company is top beneficiary in the rising popularity of auto racing. Goldman Sachs names SolarEdge a top 2023 pick Goldman said shares of the solar company are attractive heading into next year. "

☆ A data tool Blackstone built for its real-estate empire is now being used across its PE portfolio. Here's why it could play a key role in the investing giant uncovering new deals.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Carter Johnson | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The firm built Data Direct for its real-estate business, but is now using it across private equity. Blackstone Chief Technology Officer John Stecher told Insider that Blackstone now uses Data Direct — previously called Real Estate Data Direct — across both its real estate and private-equity portfolios. From real estate to private equityInsider first detailed the launch of Data Direct, then known as Real Estate Data Direct (REDD), last year. Data Direct, at its heart, is a data tool, and its success is predicated upon importing reliable information in the first place. Having good, clean data has made Data Direct very successful," he added.

☆ Goldman Sachs has plans for deep headcount cuts in the new year
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

But first, the Goldman cuts go deep. Goldman's bankers and others on Wall Street still enjoy pay packages that are beyond that of most American workers. Some portion of Goldman's cuts are being made with an eye to 2023 and 2024, suggesting that the firm's leaders don't expect a return to go-go days anytime soon. Click here to read more about the cuts set to hit Goldman Sachs. Private-equity firm Advent announced plans to acquire satellite maker Maxar Technologies for $6.4 billion in a deal that included Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley.

☆ 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.

☆ Baird downgrades Salesforce, says leadership changes and companies cutting jobs will hurt the stock
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce could struggle with new leadership in a macro environment that's more difficult to traverse, according to Baird. Analyst Rob Oliver downgraded the stock to neutral from outperform and slashed his target to $150 from $200. "We believe the combination of macro headwinds and seat-based software pressure (driven by recent workforce cuts/hiring slowdown) could pressure revenue growth near term," Oliver said in a note to clients. Salesforce also stands to gain from increased interest in cloud marketing, he said, through acquisitions of Radian6, BuddyMedia and DemandWare. Increased competition through public cloud companies are emerging vendors in more specialized offerings could also hurt the stock.

☆ 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.

☆ Public-cloud providers are reimagining themselves as consultants. Here's how AWS, Azure and Google Cloud are helping finance firms use the tech to rethink their business.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

In turn, public-cloud providers are reimagining themselves as business consultants. Wall Street firms are embracing the cloud for everything from research to risk and marketing. Cloud providers are building teams to interface with execsFinancial firms making the jump to the cloud are thinking beyond their IT divisions. Some of the largest Wall Street shops are taking the opportunity to rethink how they run their businesses entirely. Wall Street uses cloud to hit the reset buttonSelipsky's comments ring true on Wall Street, where cloud projects can have firm-wide ripple effects.

☆ BofA says the bull case for chips is 'compelling,' picks its top stocks to buy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Weizhen Tan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Chip stocks, once a hot favorite among investors, are doing poorly this year . But BofA says that despite consumer demand remaining under pressure, the "bull case for semis is also compelling." Here are some themes that chip stocks could ride on, says the bank, which also picked names to buy. BofA picked these stocks that it said have "best-in-class" 30% free cash flow margins, with 1.8% dividend yield: Analog Devices – its top pick, and Broadcom . Compelling valuations The bank says semiconductor capital equipment stocks "provide an ideal mix of compelling valuations," with about 14 to 15 times forward price-to-earnings.

☆ Private equity is ready to make moves as the economy sours, but its approach to dealmaking might be different than in years past
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

When the going gets tough, PE gets going. Insider's Casey Sullivan and Rebecca Ungarino examined one segment of Wall Street that is primed to take off despite an economy that has left almost everyone hurting. The big question is where will PE firms look to deploy capital. How long PE firms resist those types of deals still remains to be seen, though. People who left Wall Street for crypto aren't second guessing themselves.

☆ Nvidia says it is working with Microsoft to build 'massive' cloud AI computer
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Jane Lanhee Lee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

OAKLAND, Calif, Nov 16, (Reuters) - U.S. chip designer and computing firm Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) on Wednesday said it is teaming up with Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) to build a “massive” computer to handle intense artificial intelligence computing work in the cloud. The AI computer will operate on Microsoft’s Azure cloud, using tens of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs), Nvidia’s most powerful H100 and its A100 chips. “We're seeing a broad groundswell of AI adoption ... and the need for applying AI for enterprise use cases.”In addition to selling Microsoft the chips, Nvidia said it will partner with the software and cloud giant to develop AI models. Buck said Nvidia would also be a customer of Microsoft’s AI cloud computer and develop AI applications on it to offer services to customers. This is important as heavy AI computing work requires thousands of chips to work together across several servers.

☆ One professional trader game planned for Alameda's blowup, but it still wasn't enough to protect against FTX's collapse
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of crypto exchange FTX. Amid the implosion of crypto exchange FTX, I'm sure many of you had a similar thought creep into your mind. That would be unfathomable that he would do that — even if your prop shop went down, why would you risk a $32 billion exchange business that prints money?" The lake-side castle the New York Yankees legend put on the market four years ago is now reportedly going to auction with an opening bid of $6.5 million. Keep updated with the latest business news throughout your day by checking out The Refresh from Insider, a dynamic audio news brief.

☆ 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.

[1/2] Handout image shows 4th Gen AMD EPYC processor, launched by AMD on November 10, 2022, in this undated handout image. AMD/Handout via REUTERSNov 10 (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.O) launched its latest data center chip on Thursday and said Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Azure, Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O) Google Cloud and Oracle Corp would be some of its customers. "What that means for enterprises and for cloud data centers is that it translates into lower capex, lower opex and lower total cost of ownership," she said. Genoa launches at a time when rival Intel Corp's (INTC.O) latest data center chip, code named Sapphire Rapids, has struggled with delays. "IDC expects AMD will stay on track, continue building up market share in public cloud deployments," said Ashish Nadkarni, datacenter and cloud analyst at IDC.

☆ Meet the key people involved in the passing of the torch at Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Associates
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Co-CEOs of Bridgewater Associates Nir Bar Dea and Mark Bertolini. When it comes to the world of hedge funds, there's arguably no bigger name than Ray Dalio. It's not just the fact that Dalio grew Bridgewater Associates to the $150 billion behemoth that it is today. To be sure, Bridgewater isn't the only hedge fund in the midst of a changing of the guard. The dispute between billionaire Dan Och and Sculptor Capital Management doesn't seem like it'll be cooling off anytime soon.

☆ Vanguard's head of tech details the asset manager's move to the public cloud that's already helped it cut costs by 30%
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Bianca Chan | Carter Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Vanguard's tech chief is ready to play the field when it comes to the public cloud. Since Vanguard's first big push into public cloud in 2019, the firm has primarily relied on Amazon Web Services for much of its cloud tools. Similarly, he referenced the potential of Google Cloud Platform's "analytics capabilities" as another potential selling point. The public cloud is one of five main pillars of Vanguard's broader modernization of its application portfolio that began around 2019. In 2021, AWS detailed how the tech giant meets with Vanguard's Cloud Business Office monthly to review costs, and in one instance reduced its serverless compute expenses by 50%.

☆ Big Tech falters on dreary earnings and forecasts for Q4— Meta has worst week ever, Amazon tumbles 13%
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Other than Apple , it was a brutal earnings week for Big Tech. Alphabet , Amazon , Meta and Microsoft combined lost over $350 billion in market cap after offering concerning commentary for the third quarter and the remainder of the year. Between slowing revenue growth — or declines in Meta's case — and efforts to control costs, the tech giants have found themselves in an unfamiliar position after unbridled growth in the past decade. In Amazon's ad business, revenue growth accelerated to 30% from 21%, topping analysts' estimates. Analyst Aaron Kessler at Raymond James lowered his price target on Amazon stock to $130 from $164 after the results.

☆ Microsoft shares sink more than 8% on weak guidance, but analysts bullish on rebound
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Shares of Microsoft dropped as much as 8% early Wednesday, a day after the company released its fiscal first-quarter earnings. Microsoft surpassed expectations on the top and bottom lines, but the stock was pressured by weak guidance and cloud revenue that missed expectations. CEO Satya Nadella said on a conference call with analysts that cyclical trends are affecting Microsoft's consumer business. Analysts at Morgan Stanley also remain confident in Microsoft's growth potential despite its weak cyclical areas and guidance. Microsoft shares have fallen about 25% so far this year, while the S&P 500 stock index is down 19% over the same period.

☆ These 16 cloud-software companies could be acquired by tech giants or private equity as the economy sours, according to RBC analysts
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Paayal Zaveri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Here are the 16 software firms RBC analysts say are M&A targets for tech giants and private equity. More software M&A is in the forecast as valuations and stock prices continue to drop — and private companies aren't the only ones likely to get gobbled up. Additionally, private-equity firms will likely continue snapping up public cloud-software companies and taking them private while prices are low, according to analysts. "In other words, we believe larger scale debt-financed private-equity takeouts could be unlikely in the near-term," RBC analysts wrote. Here are the 16 software firms that are M&A targets, according to RBC analysts:

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