Fraught negotiations in Washington have yielded a deal on raising the U.S.’s borrowing capacity without sending the stock market into a tailspin, as some on Wall Street had feared they might. But more risks may lie ahead. Investors who spent the better part of the past month fixated on the welter of debt-ceiling related headlines…
Megacap technology stocks have dominated the U.S. stock market performance this year, powering the Nasdaq Composite to a new nine-month high this week as investors have loaded up on them in a “safe-haven play” on concerns over a potential recession, a federal debt-ceiling breach and more stress in regional banks. The tech-focused Nasdaq-100 index NDX,…
Most of the first-quarter earnings blizzard has passed, and the results, overall, haven’t been as bad as expected — thanks in large part to the nation’s biggest tech companies: Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft. The S&P 500 index SPXhas largely moved sideways over the past few weeks, as markets try to stomach concerns about…
More than 186,000 global technology-sector employees have been laid off since the start of 2023, according to data compiled by the website Layoffs.fyi. The website’s tally of 2023 global tech layoffs has gone up more than sevenfold since mid-January. The data show that 2023 has surpassed 2022 for global tech redundancies, with 637 tech companies…
Vice President Kamala Harris will reportedly host the chief executives of Alphabet GOOG GOOGL, Microsoft MSFT, OpenAI and Anthropic at the White House on Thursday to discuss artificial-intelligence issues. Reuters and CNBC reported Tuesday that Harris seeks a “frank discussion” of the risks and ethics in developing AI technology, and “other ways we can work…
Meta and Amazon are the latest big-name tech companies in the layoffs spotlight, joining Dropbox, Electronic Arts, Palantir Technologies, Twilio, Zoom, eBay, Okta, Splunk, PayPal, IBM, SAP, Spotify, Alphabet, Intel, Microsoft, Coinbase, Cisco, and Salesforce. More than 184,000 global technology-sector employees have been laid off since the start of 2023, according to data compiled by…
Ray Dalio, billionaire and founder of Bridgewater Associates, holds a “little bit” of bitcoin BTCUSD, but “doesn’t understand why people are more inclined to go to bitcoin than gold,” he said in a new podcast interview with YouTuber Chris Williamson. MarketWatch has reported in the past that Dalio holds bitcoin. “Cryptocurrency or Bitcoin doesn’t move…
The thirst to buy stocks tied to the artificial intelligence revolution has driven half the gains in the stock market this year, a trend that looks set to continue Wednesday with OpenAI investor Microsoft flying higher in the premarket. There’s another trend that might repeat itself. Analysts at Bespoke Investment Group studied buy-the-dip behavior and…
Microsoft Corp. shares headed toward their highest prices in more than year in Tuesday’s extended session, after the software giant reported better-then-expected profit and revenue and guided for continued strong results in an uncertain economy. Microsoft MSFT reported fiscal third-quarter profit of $18.3 billion, or $2.45 a share, up from $2.22 a share a year…
Expect Microsoft executives to discuss AI a lot when they reveal financial results Tuesday afternoon, but the more important disclosure will be tucked away.
Big Tech didn’t offer strong holiday returns, but Wall Street still responded to fourth-quarter results by throwing $2 trillion in valuation at the biggest tech companies. That stock bounce appears to be predicated on a widespread belief that there will be a rebound in the second half of this year, when companies lap the results…
Traders are growing increasingly confident that U.S. stocks are headed for a selloff. But history shows the opposite is more likely, according to an analysis by one macro strategist. Speculative traders are more bearish than at any time in the last decade, according to the latest release from the Commodity Futures Trading Commmission’s weekly commitment…
More than 168,000 global technology-sector employees have been laid off since the start of 2023, according to data compiled by the website Layoffs.fyi. The website’s tally of 2023 global tech layoffs has gone up more than sixfold since mid-January. The data show that 2023 has surpassed 2022 for global tech redundancies, with 561 tech companies laying…
U.S. stocks have shrugged off a number of threats since the start of the year, powering through the worst U.S. bank failures since the 2008 financial crisis, while resisting the pull of rising short-term Treasury yields. This helped all three main U.S. equity benchmarks finish the first quarter in the green on Friday, but that…
U.S. stocks finished higher in volatile trading on Thursday, clawing back some of the Wednesday’s selloff as investors attempted to shake off concerns about banking-sector stability and the impact of an expected credit crunch. The Dow fell 530 points on Wednesday as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s remark that her department hadn’t discussed blanket protections for…
“‘The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the internet, and the mobile phone.’” — Microsoft-co founder Bill Gates on his blog For the second time in his 67 years, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates has been truly blown away by a “revolutionary” technology. The first time…
If it was not obvious by 2022’s sharply lower financial results for most tech companies, the shocking collapse last week of Silicon Valley’s go-to bank marked the bitter end of the past decade’s big tech boom. The near Lehman-like collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last Friday was a massive blow to the startup and venture-capital…
More than 125,000 global technology-sector employees have been laid off since the start of 2023, according to data compiled by the website Layoffs.fyi. The website’s tally of 2023 global tech layoffs has gone up almost fivefold since mid-January. Related: Palantir joins growing list of tech companies announcing layoffs The data suggest that 2023 is firmly on pace…
SANTA CLARA, CALIF. — Starbucks Corp. employees met with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna at his California office on Friday and contended the company is retaliating against employees who unionize or are trying to organize, and is not bargaining in good faith. The giant coffee chain denies those allegations. But what the Democratic congressman from Silicon…
““I’m Sydney, and I’m in love with you.”” Those words come not from a human, but from an A.I. chatbot — yes, named Sydney — that is built in to a new version of Bing, the Microsoft MSFT, -2.66% search engine. When New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose recently “met” Sydney — the chatbot…