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<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Fighting Jihad Crisis Means Chad Africa [/INST] QuickTakes news. Title: What Chad’s Crisis Means for Fighting Jihad in Africa. Short_description: What Chad’s Crisis Means for Fighting Jihad in Africa. Description: The impoverished country of Chad used to be derisively referred to as a “nil state.” It shook off that label eight years ago, according to the then-foreign minister, when its military became a , in the fight against jihadists in the Sahel, a semi-arid stretch of West and Central Africa, south of the Sahara desert. Now, however, Chad is facing an escalation of its own security and stability crises after the , in April of long-time President Idriss Deby, the result, according to the army, of injuries sustained in a rebel attack. His sudden demise -- followed by a military takeover -- have raised questions about the continuation of Chad’s role as an ally of France, the U.S. and other powers in the battle against violent Islamism., A herder’s son from the minority Zaghawa ethnic group, Deby joined the military and climbed through its ranks to become its commander-in-chief. He assumed the presidency in 1991 after leading a rebellion against autocratic leader Hissene Habre -- who was later , of crimes against humanity by a special court in Senegal. Initially hailed as a liberator, Deby’s popularity slipped as his rule grew increasingly authoritarian. Despite Chad’s , -- its daily output of 127,000 barrels is the seventh biggest in sub-Saharan Africa -- it remains one of the world’s , , with about 80% of its 16 million people reliant on subsistence farming and herding to survive. Military spending took precedence over health and education, a major contributor to Chad’s appalling living standards. A third of the national budget went to the defense force in 2009, although the proportion had dropped to 14% by 2019, World Bank data show., Chad committed at least 1,200 troops to a regional task force known as the G5 Sahel that’s being deployed to the border zone between Niger and Mali, where a separatist insurgency that began in northern Mali in 2012 first enabled jihadist militants to gain , . Chadian soldiers are also part of a multinational effort to counter attacks by groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qaeda elsewhere in the Sahel. Chad hosts about 1,000 of the 5,100 soldiers that France has deployed to the region. But attacks have continued despite the efforts to quell them. Djimadoum Tiraina, the junta’s vice president, has reassured diplomats that Chad remains committed to military operations in the Sahel., Its military -- some 35,000 troops in all -- is looking increasingly overstretched. Domestic rebels have accumulated heavy weaponry and fighting experience in neighboring Libya. In the April incursion they got to about 300 kilometers (190 miles) from the capital, N’Djamena, before they were repelled. A renewed rebel offensive could see the junta repatriate some of its troops from the Sahel. The junta may also need to bolster the ranks of its security forces domestically should widespread discontent over poverty and the Deby family’s continuing political dominance erupt into social unrest. A Chadian troop withdrawal would be problematic for the French government, which wants to scale down its own operations. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has warned that Deby’s death will “create a big vacuum” in efforts to counteract terrorism., Several groups opposed Deby, none of which are currently affiliated with the jihadists. The Front for Change and Concord in Chad was responsible for , that the army says claimed the president’s life when he visited the battlefield. Based in Libya and known by its French acronym FACT, it was founded in 2016 by Mahamat Mahdi Ali and is mainly comprised of army dissidents. The group splintered from the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development after infighting, largely along clan lines, when Mahdi tried to take control. The UFDD almost toppled Deby in 2019 before it was repelled by French forces. (Deby also survived bids to overthrow him in 2006 and 2008.) An , to the U.N. Security Council in 2019 estimated FACT had about 700 men, and the UFDD 100., Mahdi, who studied law and politics in France, has said that, unlike the UFDD, his group doesn’t want to seize power for itself but to clear the way for a democratic transfer of power in Chad. After Deby’s death, he told Radio France Internationale that FACT was ready to accept a cease-fire and find a political solution to the crisis. “Chad needs new leaders,” he was , . The junta has , negotiations., The late president had positioned himself and his army as key players in the fight against jihadists, helping to deflect international criticism even as he clamped down on the opposition and civil rights groups and muzzled the media. He appointed members of his family to head the security services, state oil company and other key institutions. A 2018 , would have allowed the 68-year-old, already one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, to remain until 2033. While regular elections have been held since 1996, their credibility has been repeatedly questioned. Provisional tallies from the April 11 , -- which excluded seven opposition candidates -- showed him winning a sixth term with 79% of the vote. His death was announced on April 20, just hours after the results came out., A transitional military council comprising 15 army generals and led by the late president’s 37-year-old son, , . The junta says it will rule for 18 months, even though the constitution clearly states a successor should be elected in 90 days. It has , as prime minister Albert Pahimi Padacke, who had held the job until Deby abolished it in 2018, and told Cabinet ministers to keep going to work. Opposition parties, religious and civil rights groups and others -- including the rebels -- have called the military takeover unlawful. But aside from rebel military victory, there are no real options other than street protests and lobbying the international community. The former colonial power France has , the junta, citing a need for stability, but called for a short transition. The African Union expressed deep concern about the military takeover, saying the situation threatens regional “peace, security and stability.”, At least 1,000 soldiers, militants and civilians , in the first quarter of 2021, with Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Mali the worst affected countries. While , have killed several top Islamist militant commanders, local troops have struggled to hold onto territory. Analysts argue that it’s time for a more development-focused strategy to counter the insurgents and make it more difficult for them to recruit disaffected youths. Civil rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have meanwhile accused western and regional troops of abusing civilians and exacerbating the conflict, in part due to their to frustration about being overstretched., While the government doesn’t have outstanding foreign bonds, it is indebted to banks, other nations and some private lenders, including Glencore Plc, which is owed $347 million. The commodity trader was forced to restructure its loans to Chad in 2015 and 2018 after oil prices fell. The price of Chad’s debt has , on the secondary market, indicating that investors are clearly nervous that junta will default or seek a restructuring., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Katarina Hoije &. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 1:30 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Favorite Tax Break Wall Street Biden Target [/INST] QuickTakes news. Title: Why Wall Street’s Favorite Tax Break Is a Biden Target. Short_description: Why Wall Street’s Favorite Tax Break Is Biden Target. Description: One of the most reviled loopholes in a tax code full of them is under threat again. While the average American worker must pay the standard tax rate on their income, wealthy private equity managers and venture capitalists are able to pay a lower capital gains rate on one of their main forms of compensation. That’s made the so-called carried interest loophole a favorite target of politicians who call it part of a system rigged to benefit the rich, while exacerbating income inequality. Despite that, through the years, the private equity industry has successfully lobbied to keep the provision. Now President Joe Biden is hoping to succeed where others before him have failed by , the tax break., It allows private equity and venture capital managers to pay a more favorable tax rate on one of their main forms of compensation. Managers are able to pay a 20% long-term capital gains rate on their cut of the profit on the deals they make rather than get taxed at the 37% top rate for ordinary income., The origins of carried interest date back to medieval times when Italian merchants gave ship captains a cut of the profit for carrying their goods safely across stormy seas., Private-equity funds typically buy, revamp and grow mature companies with the goal of selling them for a hefty profit five to six years down the road. Venture-capital funds generally invest in fledgling businesses, sometimes at such an early stage that they generate little if any revenue. Managers in private equity generally make money in two ways: They typically charge investors a 2% annual management fee on assets. On top of that, they take a 20% cut of the profit on deals, usually only after a certain return threshold is met. The share of their earnings that comes out of that profit -- a figure sometimes in the , -- has been taxed as capital gains, at a much lower rate than the top marginal income rate applied to wages., Decades before the current explosion of growth in the private equity industry, the loophole came into existence. In 1954, Congress passed a law that enshrined it in the tax code with an original intent of helping employees in speculative fields such as oil and gas, according to a 2020 , in the Journal of Economics, Trade and Marketing Management., To, the carried-interest tax break altogether. It’s an idea the private equity industry is expected to fight vigorously. But the loophole could also be endangered, at least for top earners, by another Biden proposal, to raise the capital gains tax rate for households making over $1 million a year to 39.6%, the same level as his proposed top income tax rate., The last time the loophole was addressed was under President Donald Trump, who before taking office had said that wealthy managers were “, ” via the tax break. The Republican tax bill passed in 2017 fell short of ending the break altogether, instead requiring fund managers to hold their underlying investments for at least three years to have the lower rate versus the prior requirement of one year. That change mainly hit hedge fund managers who generally don’t hang on to their holdings for that long., The preferred tax treatment has been long battled over by lawmakers and those in the industry. Critics argue that the tax break is just like any other fee and should be treated as such. Proponents say carried interest encourages long-term investment and have also argued that it creates jobs. Meanwhile, some in other parts of the financial world, such as JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon, favor eliminating the tax break, calling it “another example of institutional bias and favoritism toward special interest groups.”, In 2018, the Congressional Budget Office , that taxing carried interest as ordinary income would raise $14 billion over nearly a decade. Private equity firms’ senior deal-makers are likely to , the most impact from any changes as they are the ones who typically earn the largest portion of the carry. As a result, firms may look to change how managers are paid, including ending so-called fee waivers, which are used to capture tax benefits by converting management fees to carry. Ending the loophole could impact recruitment in the industry, and create a more level playing field for banks and other companies trying to recruit applicants now drawn to private equity., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Sabrina Willmer &. Date Created: 29 Apr 2021, 9:30 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Rides Facebook ruling [/INST] QuickTakes news. Title: Trump Back on Facebook? Why So Much Rides on This Ruling. Short_description: Trump Back on Facebook? Why Much Rides on This Ruling. Description: Facebook Inc.’s independent Oversight Board is set to announce on Wednesday whether former President Donald Trump can rejoin the world’s largest social network, a decision with deep consequences for Trump, the company and the U.S. political conversation. The decision comes as social media platforms are under pressure to police false or inflammatory content on their sites while being accused of favoring liberal views and punishing conservatives., Facebook’s Oversight Board, a panel of lawyers, academics and journalists from around the world created last year to review controversial policy decisions, will rule on whether Trump should be granted access to his accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. That ruling is binding. It will likely also make non-binding recommendations on how the company should deal with Trump and other former political leaders in the future., It’s expected to be posted shortly after 9 a.m. New York time on Wednesday on the board’s , ., The ban dates to Jan. 6, when a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the counting of Electoral College votes for President Joe Biden. Facebook said it removed a video of Trump speaking about the protests, and a subsequent post about the election results, on the grounds that they “contribute to, rather than diminish, the risk of ongoing violence.” The ban was extended indefinitely the following day, meaning Trump’s page has been frozen for more than three months and he hasn’t been able to share content with his 35 million followers. The company portrayed the suspension as being as much about protection as punishment. “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg , ., On Jan. 21, the day after Biden’s inauguration, Facebook , to the board and asked it to rule on whether Trump’s indefinite ban should remain in place. The board says it also received an appeal, or “user statement,” on Trump’s behalf, along with 9,000 other comments during a public comment period., The board’s , , unveiled in mid-2020, includes an array of academics, including Michael McConnell, professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School; John Samples, vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute; human rights activists such as Maina Kiai, director of Human Rights Watch Global Alliances and Partnerships in Kenya; Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former prime minister of Denmark; and Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate., Under the board’s procedures, five members are , with debating and reaching a decision in any particular case. (Which five were assigned Trump’s case hasn’t been disclosed.) Their decision is presented to the full board for debate and any recommended changes to the language. Confirming the decision requires a majority vote. Not all board members have to cast a vote, but a majority of those that do must support the panel’s decision for it to be finalized. In Trump’s case, 19 board members are eligible to vote., The board has reviewed and issued a ruling in eight cases. Six times, it overturned Facebook’s initial decision to take down content, including one post about Covid-19 cures that had been deemed a threat to user safety. That track record was seen as a sign to some on the outside that the Oversight Board would reinstate Trump., He was far better known for his Twitter feed, which started long before he was president and was his go-to outlet for expressing thoughts about the news, praising loyalists and insulting rivals. As president, he kept up that practice and used the platform as well to fire staff and announce policy decisions. It’s unclear whether he can create the same buzz via Facebook, which, unlike Twitter, doesn’t deliver posts chronologically. Rather, Facebook’s algorithm shows users’ posts based on a complex, secret, ever-changing formula of user likes, dislikes, past usage, friends, even location. The company in 2018 decided to emphasize posts from friends and within Facebook groups and downplay news and posts from brands and companies. Trump supporters remain active on Facebook and have hundreds of groups dedicated to highlighting his ideas. But engaging with them is more complicated than a simple post via Trump’s own pages., Twitter banned Trump permanently “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” it said after the Jan. 6 riot. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey has stood by the move, calling it “the right decision,” even as conservatives , what they saw as a pro-liberal bias. Other company officials have said the ban won’t be reversed even if Trump were to run for office again. Trump had more than 88 million followers on Twitter. Snapchat Inc., another company that suspended Trump following the Capitol riots, also confirmed that Trump’s ban is permanent., This is the multimillion dollar question. As a candidate, Trump used Facebook as a fundraising juggernaut, raising hundreds of millions of dollars through pitches for small-dollar donations. It also served as an effective tool for rallying his supporters. He would be able to tap back into that base of support to raise money for himself and other candidates and encourage his supporters to back candidates of his choosing. As 2022 congressional and statewide races start to shape up, Trump is endorsing candidates who have been loyal to him and challenging those who weren’t. Beyond money, getting back on Facebook would give Trump a megaphone to do what he does best: rile up the Republican base and drive online conversation and cable news chatter. For now, he’s limited to issuing press releases and doing interviews with friendly conservative media outlets that don’t provide the same reach., A Facebook spokesman confirmed Trump would be subject to Facebook’s , , though it’s unclear if breaking the rules would lead to the same level of punishment as other users. Before being banned, Trump was subject to looser oversight of his posts than most users because he was designated a political leader, which means his violating posts were not typically removed. If he is reinstated but deemed a regular user -- as most private citizens are -- Facebook would hold him to strict limits on posts it deems abusive, misleading or offensive, and his posts could be removed. Users can eventually be banned for a period of time after a number of “strikes” against them, but the standards are subjective, and the designation of strikes isn’t publicized., Yes, like all other Facebook users. While Facebook doesn’t fact-check posts from leaders while they are in office, “former candidates for office or former officials continue to be covered by our third party fact-checking program,” according to a Facebook Help center page. That means Trump’s posts could be reviewed and labeled by some of Facebook’s , ., Expect a flurry of reactions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Whether Trump is allowed back on Facebook or not, Republicans will certainly bring up their longstanding complaints that social media platforms censor conservative speech. Democrats will likely raise concerns about hate speech and violence on the platforms, especially if Trump is allowed to return. There will likely be a renewed push to reform , of the Communications Decency Act, which provides broad liability protections over third-party content on the social media platforms. Numerous bills have already been introduced seeking to hold tech liable for online content. The ruling may also may push lawmakers to introduce legislation to hold tech companies responsible for the spread of misinformation and disinformation online., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Magan Sherzai, . Date Created: 04 May 2021, 7:34 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Mr. market Sentiment spectrum ICICI security India Strategy Opportunities buy [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: India Strategy - Exploring ‘Buy’ Opportunities Across The Sentiment Spectrum Of Mr. Market: ICICI Securities. Short_description: India Strategy - Exploring ‘Buy’ Opportunities Across The Sentiment Spectrum Of Mr. Market: ICICI Securities. Description: ICICI Securities Report, Long-term growth prospects as ‘perceived’ by the collective wisdom of investors (allegorised as Mr. Market) are embedded in stock prices which leads to major fluctuations in stock prices whenever those perceptions change. , Change in perception regarding long-term prospects due to short term events provides maximum opportunities in investing (examples – March 2020 market wide sell off; Titan in 2015-16; currently the second wave of Covid-19). , Using our proprietary market implied long term growth value framework on the NSE200 universe stocks, we classify fundamentally sound investible stocks with upsides (Buy rating by our analysts) into segments based on Mr. Market’s various degrees of pessimism/optimism. , Given the focus on long term growth which depends on sustainability of growth, we have preferred stocks with relatively lower environmental social and governance risk or the riskier ones showing improvement in their score.. Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 26 Apr 2021, 1:38 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Bond Update Reliance security April Rupee [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Rupee And Bond Update - April 27, 2021: Reliance Securities. Short_description: Rupee And Bond Update - April 27, 2021: Reliance Securities. Description: Reliance Securities Report, The Indian rupee appreciated against the U.S. dollar this Monday tracking a broad decline in the dollar index and rebound in equities., The rupee ended at 74.72 compared with 75.01 in the previous session. The rupee strengthened by 0.4% this Monday, its biggest single-session rise since April 16, 2021., Meanwhile, now investors will be keenly awaiting the U.S. Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan meetings this week., However, there is a possibility that the meetings could be a non-event for currencies as both governors could continue to signal a dovish stance on the monetary policy and continue their bond purchasing program., The benchmark 5.85% bond maturing in 2030 ended at Rs 98.64, yielding 6.04%, against Rs 98.66 and 6.04% yield at the previous close.. Publisher: Reliance Securities. Date Created: 27 Apr 2021, 9:13 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Infra Sector Monthly Update Dolat Capital construction [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Construction And Infra Sector Monthly Update: Dolat Capital. Short_description: Construction And Infra Sector Monthly Update: Dolat Capital. Description: Dolat Capital Report, New investments announced up by 300.1% YoY to Rs 811 billion (down 53.8% month-on-month) in April 2021, primarily due to increase in manufacturing, real estate, water which was partially offset by fall in power distribution., Tenders issued decreased 21.9% YoY to Rs 517 billion in April 2021 led by irrigation, water, real estate., Tenders published in FY21 increased 44.7% YoY to Rs 7,998 billion led by rise in roads, mining, water., Order awards up 61.8% YoY to Rs 182 billion led by increase in orders mainly in road, others segment which was partially offset by power and railways.. Publisher: Dolat Capital. Date Created: 06 May 2021, 3:13 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to ICICI Securities sector stock Trends compendium Beneficiaries [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Compendium Of 20 Sectors - Trends, Beneficiaries, Potentially Negatively Impacted Stocks: ICICI Securities . Short_description: Compendium Of 20 Sectors - Trends, Beneficiaries, Potentially Negatively Impacted Stocks: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, In April 2020, our analysts wrote ‘Andra tutto bene’ (everything is going to be alright!) in which we analysed the likely changes to consumption, industry structures, etc. , In April 2021, we revisited the thoughts, we looked beyond the noise, and present potential changes in operating environment and likely beneficiaries – Va tutto bene (everything’s fine!)., A root-cause-analysis of every trend indicates that it’s a consumer/customer behaviour change. , We present to you the most important trends, beneficiaries, potentially negatively impacted stocks across 20 sectors. . Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 26 Apr 2021, 3:21 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Household Savings Increase Motilal Oswal Slowest Vis nation vis India [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: India’s Household Savings Increase In 2020, But Rise The Slowest Vis-a-Vis Other Nations: Motilal Oswal
. Short_description: India’s Household Savings Increase In 2020, But Rise The Slowest Vis-a-Vis Other Nations: Motilal Oswal. Description: Motilal Oswal Report, A serious economic repercussion of Covid-19 has been forced consumer savings due to physical lockdowns., According to the Reserve Bank of India, household net financial savings (NFS) stood at 21.4% of gross domestic product in Q1 FY21 and 10.4% of GDP in Q2 FY21, compared with 7–8% of GDP in the pre-Covid-19 period., When we replicated the RBI’s methodology (as far as possible with information publicly available), we found household NFS had fallen to 8.4% of GDP in Q3 FY21., Nevertheless, financial savings account for just 35–40% of household savings in India., A comparison with other large nations reveals household savings (as % of GDP) have increased across countries., However, the rise in household savings in India in 2020 (equals to 1.1 times of 2019 levels) was the slowest vis-a-vis other nations (savings were as high as 5.4 times in Japan).. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 27 Apr 2021, 10:12 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Bajaj Finance Q4 Review Motilal Oswal Normalised FY22 Asset Quality [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Bajaj Finance Q4 Review - Asset Quality Improves; Expect A Normalised FY22: Motilal Oswal . Short_description: Bajaj Finance - Asset Quality Improves In Q4; Expect A Normalized FY22: Motilal Oswal . Description: Motilal Oswal Report, Bajaj Finance Ltd.’s Q4 FY21 profit after tax grew 42% YoY / 18% QoQ to Rs 13.5 billion (2% miss)., While net interest income beat our estimates by 7%, opex was 12% above our expectations., With in-line provisions, profit after tax came in largely in line with our expectations., For FY21, the company reported assets under management/net interest income/pre-provision operating profit growth of 4%/3%/6% YoY., However, profit after tax declined 16% on the back of aggressive cleanup stress due to Covid-19., The proforma gross non-performing loan ratio declined from 2.9% to 1.8% QoQ.. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 2:41 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to passenger Vehicle Segment Check Difficult year Strong Recovery Motilal Oswal uv [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Passenger Vehicle Segment Check: Strong Recovery In A Difficult Year Led By UVs: Motilal Oswal . Short_description: Passenger Vehicle Segment Check: Strong Recovery In A Difficult Year Led By UVs: Motilal Oswal . Description: Motilal Oswal Report, We analyzed the brand-wise data for the domestic passenger vehicle industry to understand segmental trends and market share changes., Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, domestic PV wholesales declined by just 2.2% in FY21 (versus a fall of ~18% in FY20), led by preferences for personal mobility and pent-up demand., Several launches from competition and lack of new launches from Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. led to a ~340 basis point decline in its domestic PV market share to 47.7%., While Hyundai maintained its market share at 17.4%, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. lost 90bp (to 5.8%), whereas Tata Motors Ltd. (up 330bp to 8.3%) and Kia (up 260bp to 5.7%) gained market share.. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 27 Apr 2021, 10:04 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to VST Industries Q4 Review Volume Recovery ICICI [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: VST Industries Q4 Review - Volume Recovery To Be Prolonged: ICICI Direct. Short_description: VST Industries Q4 Review - Volume Recovery To Be Prolonged: ICICI Direct. Description: ICICI Direct Report, VST Industries Ltd. posted revenue growth of 9.4% but, net of excise, topline fell 4.6%. , Cigarette sales witnessed growth of 12% to Rs 347.4 crore with flattish year-on-year volumes. , However, on a sequential basis, cigarettes volumes grew 15% during the quarter. , Tobacco sales declined 45.3% to Rs 35 crore on account of adverse exports due to the non-availability of containers. , The company has not taken a price increase in last nine months and does not intend to make any price changes in the next six months. , High priced cigarettes (at a price point of Rs 6, Rs 7, Rs 11) contribute ~45% of total volumes. . Publisher: ICICI Direct. Date Created: 29 Apr 2021, 3:38 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Solara Active Pharma Science pure api business large Player ICICI Securities [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Solara Active Pharma Science - Emerging As Large Player In Pure API Business: ICICI Securities . Short_description: Solara Active Pharma Science - Emerging As Large Player In Pure API Business: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, Solara Active Pharma Science Ltd. is emerging as a large-scale player in pure active pharmaceutical ingredient segment with a large product portfolio and presence across developed and emerging markets. , Company was formed by combining the demerged human API businesses of Strides Pharma Science Ltd. and Sequent Scientific Ltd. in FY18. , Key moats of the company have been:, 1. presence only in the API and contract research manufacturing service space thereby removing any potential conflict with clients, , 2. maintaining large market share in key products, , 3. long term business relationships with customers, and , 4. strong regulatory track record. . Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 8:26 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Indian Chemical Industry Resilience msme ICRA [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Building Resilience In MSMEs To Strengthen The Indian Chemical Industry: ICRA. Short_description: Building Resilience In MSMEs To Strengthen The Indian Chemical Industry: ICRA. Description: ICRA Research Report, Indian chemical and plastic industry are major contributor to gross domestic product and employ close to six million people. , While the domestic chemical sector is estimated to be ~ $178 billion, the plastic sector is ~Rs 2.25 crore. , While there are large players in the chemical sector, the micro, small and medium enterprise segment is estimated to account for ~25- 30% of the sector and plays a crucial role in the domestic chemical manufacturing and employment generation. , Further, the MSME sector accounts for 85-90% of the polymer processing segment of plastic industry. , While the MSMEs are concentrated towards segments where scale is not critical and research and development requirement is low, they also have presence in the niche specialty chemical segments.. Publisher: ICRA. Date Created: 23 Sep 2021, 8:14 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Equitas Small Finance Bank Q4 Review Improving Collection Efficiency Business Growth Motilal Oswal [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Equitas Small Finance Bank Q4 Review - Improving Collection Efficiency, Business Growth: Motilal Oswal . Short_description: Equitas Small Finance Bank Q4 Review - Improving Collection Efficiency, Business Growth: Motilal Oswal . Description: Motilal Oswal Report, Equitas Small Finance Bank Ltd. reported a profit after tax of Rs 1.1 billion (higher than our estimate), led by higher priority sector lending certificates fee income and lower provisions., Non-micro finance institution assets under management growth stood at 25% YoY, while the micro finance institution portfolio declined further., On the liability front, deposit growth momentum was strong, with the current account and savings account ratio improving to 34%., On the asset quality front, higher write-offs (Rs 1.7 billion) in the MFI portfolio resulted in an improvement in asset quality ratios., Collection efficiency for March 2021 improved to 108.5% (versus 105.4% in December 2020).. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 01 May 2021, 5:59 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Aavas Financiers Q4 Review Resilience Instils Confidence Deserves Premium ICICI Securities [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Aavas Financiers Q4 Review - Resilience Instils Confidence; Deserves Premium: ICICI Securities . Short_description: Aavas Financiers Q4 Review - Resilience Instils Confidence; Deserves Premium: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, Aavas Financiers Ltd.’s FY21 performance demonstrated resilient and best-in-class portfolio quality as indicated by stage-III assets at 0.98%, 60 basis points credit cost, 1+ days past due pool at 6.4%, and zero restructuring., Despite running tight filters in self-employed and loan against property segments, disbursements were down only 10% in FY21 while assets under management growth was more than 20%., Investing into franchise (adding branches and employees) during a challenging macro instills our confidence in its ability to sustain 25% AUM growth in FY23E and beyond., Core spreads improved through FY21 and can be maintained.. Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 03 May 2021, 3:18 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Strong Q4 Performance Challenging condition ICICI Symphony [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Symphony - Strong Q4 Performance Amid Challenging Conditions: ICICI Direct. Short_description: Symphony - Strong Q4 Performance Amid Challenging Conditions: ICICI Direct. Description: ICICI Direct Report, Symphony Ltd.’ reported sharp business recovery on the domestic as well as international front in Q4. , Consolidated revenues were up 36% year-on-year (approximately 57% quarter-on-quarter) to Rs 339 crore led by 38% and 35% YoY growth in revenue of domestic and international business, respectively. , Improvement in business sentiment and a sharp rise in export revenue helped drive standalone business. , The export revenue of the domestic business almost doubled to Rs 38 crore YoY in Q4 FY21. , On the international front, climate technologies reported a strong performance in Q4 FY21 led by revenue growth of 84% YoY. . Publisher: ICICI Direct. Date Created: 29 Apr 2021, 12:45 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Stellar Q4 Numbers provision Buffer ICICI Bank Centrum Broking FY22 Tide [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: ICICI Bank - Stellar Q4 Numbers; Provision Buffer To Help Tide Over FY22: Centrum Broking . Short_description: ICICI Bank - Stellar Q4 Numbers; Provision Buffer To Help Tide Over FY22: Centrum Broking . Description: Centrum Broking Report, ICICI Bank Ltd.’s FY21 earnings beat estimates on all parameters., Positive surprise on pre-provision operating profit driven by net interest income, fee income and lower provisions resulted in a profit after tax beat., Loan growth was strong at 14% year-on-year as retail grew robustly at 20% YoY due to market share gains driven by seamless credit delivery led by digitisation. , Asset quality for FY21 was better due to lower slippages (80% from retail)., Stress formation in FY22 versus FY21 could be lesser as the bank has strengthened its underwriting and collection mechanism over the last one year.. Publisher: Centrum Broking. Date Created: 26 Apr 2021, 5:55 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Maruti Suzuki Q4 Review Bookings Trend Strong Challenging Times Prabhudas Lilladher [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Maruti Suzuki Q4 Review - Bookings Trend Strong In Challenging Times: Prabhudas Lilladher. Short_description: Maruti Suzuki Q4 Review - Bookings Trend Strong In Challenging Times: Prabhudas Lilladher. Description: Prabhudas Lilladher Report, For Q4 FY21, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. reported lower than estimated Ebitda at Rs 19.9 billion (our estimate Rs 20.7 billion) while lower other income at Rs 0.9 billion (down 90% YoY, our estimate Rs 7.5 billion) dragged adjusted profit after tax by approximately 10% YoY at Rs 11.7 billion (our estimate Rs 15.5 billion)., Although raw material inflation and volume uncertainty to persists over Q1 FY22, passenger vehicle as a segment will likely emerge stronger with ease in standard operating procedures by state governments.. Publisher: Prabhudas Lilladher. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 2:36 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Axis Bank Q4 Review Growth Metrics Surprise Asset Quality Dolat Capital [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Axis Bank Q4 Review - Asset Quality, Growth Metrics Surprise Positively: Dolat Capital. Short_description: Axis Bank Q4 Review - Asset Quality, Growth Metrics Surprise Positively: Dolat Capital. Description: Dolat Capital Report, Axis Bank Ltd. reported net interest income and pre-provision operating profit growth of 11% and 17% year-on-year respectively., The miss in net interest income estimates was compensated by higher fee and treasury gains. , Margins were stable quarter-on-quarter at 3.56% despite improving cost of funds. , Asset quality metrics improved sequentially with 85 basis points decline in gross non-performing asset ratio to 3.7%, contained slippages at 3.6% for the quarter, decline in ‘BB and below’ book by 40 bps QoQ to 2% of advances, and restructured book at 0.3% of loans (against 0.5% for other large private peers)., Users have no license to copy, modify, or distribute the content without permission of the Original Owner. . Publisher: Dolat Capital. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 9:38 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Alternate Deal Contour Better acceptance ICICI Securities JSPL [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: JSPL - An Alternate Deal Contour Can Draw Better Acceptance: ICICI Securities . Short_description: JSPL - An Alternate Deal Contour Can Draw Better Acceptance: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. has announced sale of its 96.42% stake in Jindal Power Ltd. to a promoter entity Worldone. , The equity value (all-cash) for the offer is Rs 30.15 billion. Objectives are: , Deleveraging the balance sheet, to prepare for next phase of steel capex, i.e. increasing Angul capacity from six million tonne per annum to 12mtpa; and , Meet the environmental social governance objective of the company being in the top-10 lowest carbon-di-oxide emitting steel companies globally. , There are concerns that we could gather from our investor interaction on the implied enterprise value of the deal. . Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 4:50 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to CEO Tenure Cap Impact Private Bank MD Axis Securities RBI [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: RBI’s Private Bank MD, CEO Tenure Cap Impact: Axis Securities . Short_description: RBI’s Private Bank MD, CEO Tenure Cap Impact: Axis Securities. Description: Axis Securities Report, The Reserve Bank of India in its notification yesterday has capped the tenure of Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer/Whole-time Director at 15 years and for Promoter MD/CEO at 12 years., Under special circumstances and at the discretion of the RBI, the term for Promoter CEO may be extended up to 15 years., These rules apply to private lenders, small finance banks and wholly-owned subsidiaries of foreign banks., Banks such as HDFC Bank Ltd., ICICI Bank Ltd., and IndusInd Bank Ltd. had a change at the helm in the recent past., However, banks like Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd., DCB Bank Ltd., City Union Bank Ltd., Federal Bank Ltd., and RBL Bank Ltd. have long-running tenures (plus 10 years) of the current MDs.. Publisher: Axis Securities. Date Created: 27 Apr 2021, 3:53 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Strong Q4 Margin Performance Time high spread Filatex India ICICI [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Filatex India - All-Time High Spreads Aid Strong Q4 Margin Performance: ICICI Direct. Short_description: Filatex India - All-Time High Spreads Aid Strong Q4 Margin Performance: ICICI Direct. Description: ICICI Direct Report, The manmade yarn market has been characterised by strong demand and supply constraint within the industry, which has been beneficial for Filatex India Ltd., After a strong performance in Q3, the company reported yet another robust quarter, driven by sustained enhancement in yarn spreads., Revenue for the quarter grew 18% QoQ (28% YoY) to Rs 852.8 crore, mainly driven by blended realisations increasing 32% QoQ (36.4% YoY)., Gross spreads (including inventory gain) increased substantially by 49% QoQ (111% YoY) to Rs 37.3/kg, with gross margins expanding approximately 400 basis points QoQ (1200 bps YoY) to 30.0%.. Publisher: ICICI Direct. Date Created: 26 Apr 2021, 2:12 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Sony India Agree ICICI Securities Zee Entertainment Merger analysis [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Zee Entertainment-Sony India Agree On Merger: ICICI Securities' Analysis. Short_description: Zee Entertainment-Sony India Agree On Merger: ICICI Securities' Analysis. Description: ICICI Securities Report, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. and Sony Pictures India Ltd. have entered into a non-binding agreement to merge their operations in India with post-merger stake of 47% for existing Zee Entertainment shareholders and 53% for Sony; it would also include Sony infusing cash of $1.575 billion. , Zee Entertainment's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Punit Goenka will retain the same position in the merged entity and Zee will retain one board seat in it with majority of the board members to be nominated by Sony. , However, the extraordinary general meeting called by Invesco, the company's largest shareholder, to remove Mr. Goenka from the board remains a risk for the deal. . Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 23 Sep 2021, 3:10 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Long Term Story Intact Embassy Office Parks Term Headwinds Q4 Review ICICI Securities Near [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Embassy Office Parks REIT Q4 Review - Near-Term Headwinds, Long Term Story Intact: ICICI Securities . Short_description: Embassy Office Parks REIT Q4 Review - Near-Term Headwinds, Long Term Story Intact: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, The Embassy Office Parks real estate investment trust delivered a resilient performance in Q4 FY21 with office rental collections of over 99% (similar to nine months FY21)., However, office portfolio occupancy declined by 170 basis points QoQ to 88.9% owing to lease expiries in Manyata asset., Owing to the second Covid-19 wave in India, the Embassy REIT manager expects muted leasing activity for another two to three quarters with a possible revival in H2 FY22E, which is in line with our sector view.. Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 12:26 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Telecom Sector Update performance Shines Bharti Airtel ICICI security [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Telecom Sector Update - Bharti Airtel’s Performance Shines Again: ICICI Securities . Short_description: Telecom Sector Update - Bharti Airtel’s Performance Shines Again: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, In Q3 FY21, consumer spend on mobile services rose 4.6% quarter-on-quarter/20.9% year-on-year to Rs 390 billion on benefit of price hike and 4G penetration., Postpaid net revenue dipped 8.1% YoY, while it was up 0.4% QoQ on rising subscribers. , Prepaid net revenue grew 6.2% QoQ/34.1% YoY and average revenue per user rose 5.6 QoQ/35.7% YoY to Rs 95. , 4G subscriber addition was strong at 3.3% QoQ (net addition: 22.4 million) to 698 million. , Bharti Airtel Ltd.’s 4G subscriber market share improved to 23.7%, up 110 bps QoQ/320 bps YoY, and the company has been gaining market share in data usage, which rose 170 bps QoQ/550 bps YoY to 32% (significantly narrowed gap with its adjusted gross revenue market share, which is a positive).. Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 29 Apr 2021, 3:28 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Dalmia Bharat Q4 Review Gain Market Share Motilal Oswal [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Dalmia Bharat Q4 Review - Well-Placed To Gain Market Share: Motilal Oswal. Short_description: Dalmia Bharat Q4 Review - Well-Placed To Gain Market Share: Motilal Oswal. Description: Motilal Oswal Report, Dalmia Bharat Ltd. continued to post market share gains in Q4 FY21, as volumes grew 24% YoY (despite weak demand in South India), supporting 53% growth in Ebitda., Cost is expected to rise in the near term due to higher cost of steel slag and energy., On the other hand, the industry has taken a sharp 20% price hike in East India (approximately 50% of the company’s volumes) in the last two months, which would expand margins., We expect market share gains to continue, supported by ~25% capacity expansion over the next year.. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 01 May 2021, 3:21 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Credit Cost Elevated Kotak Mahindra Bank ICICI Securities growth Slippages Ready [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Kotak Mahindra Bank - Slippages, Credit Cost Elevated; Structurally Ready For Growth: ICICI Securities . Short_description: Kotak Mahindra Bank - Slippages, Credit Cost Elevated; Structurally Ready For Growth: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.’s Q4 FY21 earnings disconcerted on two counts:, Higher provisioning at more than 200 basis points (versus 120 basis points in nine-months FY21) and slippages at 4% in H2 FY21 (2.5% for FY21), quite uncharacteristic of the bank. However, on a positive note, gross non-performing assets settled near Q3 FY21 proforma levels, restructuring was a mere 0.2%, and special mention account-II pool negligible at 5 basis points. , On guided lines, loan growth sustained 4.5% quarter-on-quarter momentum, yet lags its private sector peers with mere 2% year-on-year growth, due to cautious stance on unsecured lending and pricing focus in corporate banking. . Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 04 May 2021, 3:15 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Term Outlook Promising HUL Q4 Review Motilal Oswal Fronts Medium [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: HUL Q4 Review - Beat On All Fronts; Medium-Term Outlook Promising: Motilal Oswal. Short_description: HUL Q4 Review - Beat On All Fronts; Medium-Term Outlook Promising: Motilal Oswal. Description: Motilal Oswal Report, Hindustan Unilever Ltd. reported a good set of numbers on all fronts in Q4 FY21, led by a recovery in its discretionary portfolio and detergents., Two-year average like-to-like sales growth has now improved to 5.8% in Q4 FY21 from minor decline in Q1 FY21., Ongoing lockdowns would result in a temporary impact on high-margin discretionary product sales, leading to a 4.3% earnings per share reduction in FY22E; we have retained our FY23E forecasts., We continue to monitor the situation as it unfurls.. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 9:14 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to currency movement CARE rating April [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Currency Movements In April: CARE Ratings . Short_description: Currency Movements In April: CARE Ratings . Description: CARE Ratings Research Report, The rupee turned out to be one of the weakest performing currencies this month as the table below shows. , The dollar did weaken against the euro by 2.6% by the end of the month in comparison with March 31, 2021 which should have ideally pulled all currencies up. , (Even in terms of average for weeks the dollar declined by 2.8% relative to last week of March). , This is different from what it was in March when the dollar strengthened. However, only the Turkish lira and Indian rupee fell. , The rupee which was at Rs 73.17/$ on March 31 ended at Rs 74.06/$ by April 30. . Publisher: Care Ratings. Date Created: 03 May 2021, 5:21 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to high Provisioning Drives Earnings Miss Asset Quality Ratios Improve RBL Bank Q4 Review Motilal Oswal [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: RBL Bank Q4 Review - Asset Quality Ratios Improve; Higher Provisioning Drives Earnings Miss: Motilal Oswal. Short_description: RBL Bank Q4 Review - Asset Quality Ratios Improve; Higher Provisioning Drives Earnings Miss: Motilal Oswal. Description: Motilal Oswal Report, RBL Bank Ltd. reported weak earnings in Q4 FY21, affected by elevated provisions and tepid net interest income growth., The management increased provisioning in its delinquent unsecured portfolio., On the business front, deposit growth picked up sequentially led by current account and savings account, while loan growth improved QoQ., However, growth in its credit cards portfolio remains muted., The management hinted at a change in business strategy, with increasing focus towards home, two-wheeler, tractor, and gold loans, while de-risking its loan book by pruning the mix of unsecured portfolio other than credit cards/micro finance institution.. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 05 May 2021, 10:31 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to HCL Technologies Q4 Review Outlook Encouraging Growth Drivers Dolat Capital Place [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: HCL Technologies Q4 Review - Growth Drivers In Place, Outlook Encouraging: Dolat Capital . Short_description: HCL Technologies Q4 Review - Growth Drivers In Place, Outlook Encouraging: Dolat Capital. Description: Dolat Capital Report, HCL Technologies Ltd. reported weak results with revenue growth of 2.5% in constant currency terms (our estimate 3.3%) and operating profit margin at 16.6% (our estimate 19.8%)., Results performance was affected by weak revenues, impairment impact of $16 million in products and platforms segment., Guided strong revenue growth for FY22 with base growth of double-digit, which along with strong total contract value data (net new TCV at $7.3 billion in FY21 – up 18% growth) implies a potential for much wider growth print for the year., Operating profit margin guidance stood at 19%-21% is a bit disappointing.. Publisher: Dolat Capital. Date Created: 24 Apr 2021, 7:45 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Fin Homes Q4 Review yield Soften Motilal Oswal Sharp pick disbursement [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Can Fin Homes Q4 Review - Sharp Pick-Up In Disbursements, But Yields Soften: Motilal Oswal. Short_description: Can Fin Homes Q4 Review - Sharp Pick-Up In Disbursements, But Yields Soften: Motilal Oswal. Description: Motilal Oswal Report, Can Fin Homes Ltd.’s Q4 FY21 profit after tax grew 13% YoY to Rs 1.03 billion (13% miss)., Profit after tax miss was driven by an net interest income miss (12%) and higher-than-expected opex (31%), offset by lower credit costs (77% below our estimate)., The company was one of the few housing finance companies whose disbursements had not picked up to YoY levels even by Q3 FY21., In Q4 FY21, disbursements surpassed YoY levels by ~45% to Rs 20 billion., This was a result of the change in the business model to home loans that are competitively priced to that of banks and large housing finance companies., As a result, its sequential loan book growth of 5% was the best in the past 17 quarters.. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 04 May 2021, 10:32 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Margins Lift Q4 earning Healthy Growth ICICI Securities Carborundum Universal [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Carborundum Universal - Healthy Growth, Margins Lift Q4 Earnings: ICICI Securities . Short_description: Carborundum Universal - Healthy Growth, Margins Lift Q4 Earnings: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, Carborundum Universal Ltd. has reported healthy execution coupled by strong margins propelling better-than-expected earnings in Q4 FY21., The company is gearing up to tap into future growth areas like electric vehicles, batteries, high purity silicon carbide used in 5G technology etc., The loss from overseas subsidiaries has reduced, and export market is expected to perform well., Improvement in domestic utilisation along with investments due to production linked incentive scheme is expected to fuel growth.. Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 12:39 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Bajaj Consumer Care Q4 Review Margin Pressure Dolat Capital [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Bajaj Consumer Care Q4 Review - Margin Pressure Continues: Dolat Capital. Short_description: Bajaj Consumer Care Q4 Review - Margin Pressure Continues: Dolat Capital. Description: Dolat Capital Report, Bajaj Consumer Care Ltd.’s Q4 FY21 revenue and Ebitda exceeded our estimate., Revenue growth was supported by new product launches, price hikes and favorable base., During Q4 FY21, general trade grew 40%, alternate channels increased 61% year-on-year., Modern trade witnessed good traction led by consumer and trade promotions. Regular flow of orders from canteen stores department was encouraging., Gross margin contracted 700 basis points due to elevated raw material prices, change in product mix and inventory provision in sanitizers., Full impact of price increases (up 2.5%) taken in February-March 2021 will be reflected in Q1 FY22E.. Publisher: Dolat Capital. Date Created: 22 Apr 2021, 10:54 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Indus Towers Q4 Review Term Uncertain Term Fine Dolat Capital medium Short [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Indus Towers Q4 Review - Short-Term Fine, Medium-Term Uncertain: Dolat Capital. Short_description: Indus Towers Q4 Review - Short-Term Fine, Medium-Term Uncertain: Dolat Capital. Description: Dolat Capital Report, Indus Towers Ltd. Q4 FY21 operating performance was marginally better led by higher tower/tenants additions., Ebitda was better than expected due to lower other expenses. Revenue/Ebitda/adjusted profit after tax grew by 2.9/19.6 /38.3% YoY., Negative energy spread for fourth quarter is a dampener., The medium-term risk for the company are with-respect-to survivability of Vodafone Idea Ltd. and/or reduction in rental/tenant., Shutdown of Vodafone Idea may significantly impact the business of the company., It may lead to approximately 40-45% reduction in tenancies in our view (partly absorbed by competing telcos) but with severe impact on profitability.. Publisher: Dolat Capital. Date Created: 24 Apr 2021, 7:47 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to HUL Q4 Review Led growth Prabhudas Lilladher Innovations [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: HUL Q4 Review - Innovations-Led Growth Ahead: Prabhudas Lilladher. Short_description: HUL Q4 Review - Innovations Led Growth Ahead: Prabhudas Lilladher. Description: Prabhudas Lilladher Report, Hindustan Unilever Ltd. Q4 numbers displayed strong beat on volumes front across segments and categories, while margins were aided by certain one offs in a highly inflationary environment. , We continue to remain constructive on the company given:, 87% of business has been gaining penetration and 82% reported share gains. , Health, hygiene and nutrition (80% of business) continues to witness healthy growth and recovery. , Integration with GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Ltd. will be over in H1 FY22 providing synergies to flow through., Gains from strategies like 'win in many Indias' and Shikhar will drive distribution led gains.. Publisher: Prabhudas Lilladher. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 2:13 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Inox Leisure Q4 Review Second wave Prabhudas Lilladher Liquidity Focus [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Inox Leisure Q4 Review - Liquidity Back In Focus Amid Second Wave: Prabhudas Lilladher. Short_description: Inox Leisure Q4 Review - Liquidity Back In Focus Amid Second Wave: Prabhudas Lilladher. Description: Prabhudas Lilladher Report, Inox Leisure Ltd.’s Q4 FY21 performance was broadly in-line with our estimates., Emergence of second wave has delayed the recovery process (only 17% screens are currently operational) and footfall stabilisation is expected in H2 FY22 given rising instances of localized lockdowns prompting us to cut our FY22E Ebitda estimates by ~40% odd., Nonetheless, we keep our FY23E estimates broadly intact and remain constructive over the long term as content pipeline is strong which is expected to result in bunching up of releases post reopening., Further, the company is well placed to manage liquidity crisis in the interim amid imminent fund raise of ~Rs 3 billion in near term.. Publisher: Prabhudas Lilladher. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 2:19 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Annual Premium Equivalent Growth Strong HDFC Life Q4 Review Persistency Trends Improving Motilal Oswal [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: HDFC Life Q4 Review - Annual Premium Equivalent Growth Strong; Persistency Trends Improving: Motilal Oswal. Short_description: HDFC Life Q4 Review - Annual Premium Equivalent Growth Strong; Persistency Trends Improving: Motilal Oswal. Description: Motilal Oswal Report, HDFC Life Insurance Company Ltd. reported improvement in new business annual premium equivalent (led by the non-participating and participating businesses), while the trend in retail protection remained muted., Value of new business margins improved to 27%, aided by a rise in non-Par as well as cost control., Thus, absolute VNB grew 52% YoY in Q4 FY21., On the persistency front, better trends were witnessed in the Par/protection business. As a result, 13th/25th month individual premium persistency improved ~200 basis point/500bp YoY., Overall, we expect the company to reflect 22% VNB growth over FY21–23E., Users have no license to copy, modify, or distribute the content without permission of the Original Owner.. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 27 Apr 2021, 10:07 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Bolster Mphasis experience Competencies Anand Rathi Blink [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Blink To Bolster Mphasis’ Experience Competencies: Anand Rathi. Short_description: Blink To Bolster Mphasis’ Experience Competencies: Anand Rathi. Description: Anand Rathi Report, Mphasis Ltd. acquired Seattle-based Blink UX for $94 million plus retention-payouts over the next two years. , Founded in 2000, Blink is into customer research, user design and customer experience, essentially strengthening Mphasis’ value proposition in engineering/product design and in customer-facing industries such as banking financial services and insurance. , It brings a reputed set of clients (leaders across sectors) with whom it shares long-tenured relations. , Margins take a hit over the next two years but expect stabilisation thereafter. , No change in overall margin guidance band despite the acquisition., Users have no license to copy, modify, or distribute the content without permission of the Original Owner. . Publisher: Anand Rathi. Date Created: 23 Sep 2021, 4:01 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Power Demand Motilal Oswal firm India [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: India’s Power Demand Continues To Remain Firm: Motilal Oswal. Short_description: India’s Power Demand Continues To Remain Firm: Motilal Oswal. Description: Motilal Oswal Report, An increase in Covid-19 cases has led to the announcement of stricter restrictions and curfews in various Indian states., The same has led to uncertainties over growth in India’s power demand., While the full implications on demand is yet to have panned out, the underlying data for power demand has so far not showed any signs of waning., It continues to trend a healthy 40%/9% versus April 2020/April 2019 levels., Funds from the Rural Electrification Corporation-Power Finance Corporation led Atmanirbhar scheme has picked up pace, and along with the improved power demand, has aided the receivables situation of generators.. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 27 Apr 2021, 11:10 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Tata Chemicals Q4 Review Motilal Oswal optimism [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Tata Chemicals Q4 Review - Too Much Optimism Built In: Motilal Oswal. Short_description: Tata Chemicals Q4 Review - Too Much Optimism Built In: Motilal Oswal. Description: Motilal Oswal Report, Tata Chemicals Ltd.’s consolidated Ebitda came in below our estimates – largely dragged down by North America and Europe – due to the absence of operating leverage and one-time costs., In the last six months, the company has rallied approximately 126%, whereas the Nifty has appreciated by ~20%., This outperformance is largely attributable to its plans to enter into the energy science business., Government of India has announced the production linked incentive incentive for the electric vehicle battery business, but plans are yet to be finalised (highlighted by the management during the Q4 FY21 call).. Publisher: Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Date Created: 05 May 2021, 10:52 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to HUL Q4 Review Discretionary Categories Dolat Capital Revival [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: HUL Q4 Review - Revival In Discretionary Categories: Dolat Capital. Short_description: HUL Q4 Review - Revival In Discretionary Categories: Dolat Capital. Description: Dolat Capital Report, Hindustan Unilever Ltd.'s results came ahead of our estimate as the core business registered 21% sales growth with 16% underlying volume growth., The beauty and personal care business reported 19.7% growth, exhibiting a strong recovery on a favourable base., The segment benefited from a strong sequential recovery in the discretionary categories., Despite the increase in raw material, lower brand investment and improved operating efficiencies helped expansion in Ebitda margin., We believe that the brand investments would increase hereon to support volume growth.. Publisher: Dolat Capital. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 9:07 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to IndusInd Bank Q4 Review IDBI Capital Asset Quality Restructured Book [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: IndusInd Bank Q4 Review - Asset Quality Improved; Restructured Book At 2.0%: IDBI Capital
. Short_description: IndusInd Bank Q4 Review - Asset Quality Improved; Restructured Book At 2.0%: IDBI Capital. Description: IDBI Capital Report, IndusInd Bank Ltd.’s asset quality improved with gross non-performing asset at 2.67% versus 2.93% QoQ (2.45% YoY) as recoveries/upgrades were higher; while slippage ratio (annualized) increased to 7.2% versus 5.0% QoQ., Restructured book stood at 2% (versus earlier guided at 1.8%) which comprises of 65% vehicle, 17% non-vehicle and rest from corporate book., Bank reported collection efficiency at 98% for March quarter versus 97% QoQ; however due to lockdown in specific states it declined by 1% in April month., Deposit reported strong growth of 27% YoY while advances grew by 3%YoY., Net interest income grew by 9% YoY (up 4% QoQ) while net interest margins remain stable QoQ.. Publisher: IDBI Capital. Date Created: 01 May 2021, 3:22 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Underwhelming Q4 Performance ICICI security HCL Technologies Outlook [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: HCL Technologies - Underwhelming Q4 Performance, Outlook: ICICI Securities. Short_description: HCL Technologies - Underwhelming Q4 Performance, Outlook: ICICI Securities. Description: ICICI Securities Report, HCL Technologies Ltd. has reported disappointments across the board – revenue growth, margins and outlook., Organic growth (up 1.6% QoQ, constant currency) was tepid and in-line with a typical March quarter even before the pandemic., Like Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. and Infosys Ltd., muted growth in March 2021 further strengthens our anti-consensus argument that industry growth rates are unlikely to accelerate going forward (versus pre-Covid-19)., Both revenue growth and margin guidance bands are unusually abstract and underwhelming., It should be noted that the company was one of the very few companies that came out with definitive guidance bands in June 2020 amid peak Covid-19 uncertainty.. Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 26 Apr 2021, 2:00 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Adani Ports Q4 Review Cash flow continued Focus Line Performance Centrum Broking [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Adani Ports Q4 Review - In-Line Performance; Continued Focus On Cash Flows: Centrum Broking . Short_description: Adani Ports Q4 Review - In-Line Performance; Continued Focus On Cash Flows: Centrum Broking. Description: Centrum Broking Report, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd.’s Q4 FY21 operational performance was strong and in-line with our estimates. , Profit after tax grew 285% year-on-year on a low base to Rs 12.9 billion (our estimate: Rs 12.6 billion). , Cargo (including Krishnapatnam port) grew 26.3% YoY to 73 metric tonne. , Port revenue/Ebitda grew 30%/41.6% YoY to Rs 31.2 billion/ Rs 21.7 billion (in-line). , Port Ebitda margin grew 12.1% YoY to Rs 297/metric tonne while in percentage terms expanded 570 basis points YoY to 69.4%. , Free cash in FY21 (net of interest, net working capital and capex) grew 47% to Rs 58 billion.. Publisher: Centrum Broking. Date Created: 06 May 2021, 5:48 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Mega Value Unlocking Mega Merger Dolat Capital Zee Entertainment [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Zee Entertainment - Mega Merger, Mega Value Unlocking: Dolat Capital. Short_description: Zee Entertainment - Mega Merger, Mega Value Unlocking: Dolat Capital. Description: Dolat Capital Report, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. and Sony Pictures Network Ltd. have signed a non-binding term sheet for the merger., Our calculation implies the valuation for merged entity at $11.1 billion (or Rs 816 billion) on post-money basis., These is basis $1.575 billion infusion by Sony for additional 14% stake (39% to 53%) in merged entity. , Zee Entertainment gets valued at ~Rs 400/share for its 47% stake in merged entity on post-money basis viz. Rs 816 billion, 47% equals to Rs 384 billion/960 million current o/s shares of the company (viz. ~27/22.5 times) FY23/24E earnings per share. , On pre-money basis, the company is valued at Rs 447/share. . Publisher: Dolat Capital. Date Created: 23 Sep 2021, 10:15 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Bond Update Reliance Securities April Rupee [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Rupee And Bond Update - April 29, 2021: Reliance Securities . Short_description: Rupee And Bond Update - April 29, 2021: Reliance Securities . Description: Reliance Securities Report, The Indian rupee appreciated against the U.S. dollar supported by the strength in local equities and foreign fund inflows. , The rupee ended at 74.35/dollar compared with 74.65 in the previous session. , Hopes that the second Covid-19 wave in the country will peak by the next month and dollar selling by foreign banks also aided sentiment. , The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex and the broader Nifty50 index ended 1.61% and 1.44% higher, respectively on Wednesday. , The benchmark 5.85% bond maturing in 2030 ended at Rs 98.53, yielding 6.05%, against Rs 98.52 and 6.05% yield at the previous close.. Publisher: Reliance Securities. Date Created: 29 Apr 2021, 9:31 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Bond Update Reliance security Rupee [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Rupee And Bond Update - May 05, 2021: Reliance Securities. Short_description: Rupee And Bond Update - May 05, 2021: Reliance Securities. Description: Reliance Securities Report, The Indian rupee appreciated for the second successive session against the U.S. dollar this Tuesday as traders trimmed their dollar long positions., However, a rebound in the dollar index and losses in local equities appreciation bias of the local unit., The rupee ended at 73.85 compared with 73.92 in the previous session., The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex and the broader Nifty 50 index ended 0.95% and 0.94% lower, respectively on Tuesday., The benchmark 5.85% bond maturing in 2030 ended at Rs 98.81, yielding 6.01%, against Rs 98.91 and 6.00% yield at the previous close.. Publisher: Reliance Securities. Date Created: 05 May 2021, 9:01 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Indus Towers Q4 Review Gross Addition Strong ICICI security Sustainability Low Visibility [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Indus Towers Q4 Review - Gross Addition Strong; Visibility On Sustainability Low: ICICI Securities . Short_description: Indus Towers Q4 Review - Gross Addition Strong; Visibility On Sustainability Low: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, Indus Towers Ltd.’s (erstwhile Bharti Infratel Ltd.) pro-forma (post-merger) Ebitda came in 10% higher than expected at Rs 34 billion (up 19.6% year-on-year) due to: , Lower than expected energy losses, which has been unpredictable in past few quarters; and, Lower other expenses and negligible corporate social responsibility cost., Net tenancy addition was higher at 4,128 (our estimate 3,500) on higher tower adds (3,715)., However, we are concerned about the sustainability of strong tenancy adds as Bharti Airtel Ltd./Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. recently bought huge quantity of spectrum, which may impact capacity-led tenancy demand, which indeed drives the sharing ratio., Also, Vodafone Idea Ltd.’s going concern risk has not receded.. Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 23 Apr 2021, 10:14 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Margin Acceleration Surprises Street TVS Motor Q4 Review ICICI Securities [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: TVS Motor Q4 Review - Margin Acceleration Surprises Street: ICICI Securities . Short_description: TVS Motor Q4 Review - Margin Acceleration Surprises Street: ICICI Securities . Description: ICICI Securities Report, TVS Motor Company Ltd.'s Q4 FY21 operating performance was a beat to consensus estimates as Ebitda margin came in at 10.1% (Ebitda/vehicle was at an all-time high of approximately Rs 5800)., Average selling price jump of 3.7% YoY (~Rs 57400/unit) continues to reflect improving product mix, higher exports and price increase (~1%)., The company in H2 witnessed strong operating leverage gains (volumes up 32%) which aided in negating the input cost inflation impact., The template of success in automotive remains product, brand and then margin (10% plus) which the company has now achieved.. Publisher: ICICI Securities. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 4:12 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Tech Mahindra Q4 Review Commentary Assures Double Total Contract Value Digit Growth Dolat Capital [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Tech Mahindra Q4 Review - Total Contract Value, Commentary Assures Double-Digit Growth: Dolat Capital. Short_description: Tech Mahindra Q4 Review - Total Contract Value, Commentary Assures Double-Digit Growth: Dolat Capital. Description: Dolat Capital Report, Tech Mahindra Ltd. reported constant currency growth of 0.7% QoQ (our estimate: 2.0%) due to weak performance of most verticals except banking financial services and insurance (4.9% QoQ growth)., Ebit margin further improved by 55 basis points to 16.5% (our estimate: 15.5%) led by higher off-shoring and improved operational efficiency., Net new total contract value signings showed a strong improvement at $1 billion (expects similar traction in Q1) while trailing twelve months TCV were down 40% at $2.2 billion., It has guided for double digit growth in FY22 which is led by improved deal win momentum and recovery in retail/manufacturing/telecom verticals.. Publisher: Dolat Capital. Date Created: 27 Apr 2021, 7:37 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Bajaj Finance Q4 Review Long Term Prospects ICICI [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: Bajaj Finance Q4 Review - Long Term Prospects Intact: ICICI Direct. Short_description: Bajaj Finance Q4 Review - Long Term Prospects Intact: ICICI Direct. Description: ICICI Direct Report, Bajaj Finance Ltd. posted a steady set of numbers on the business and operational front with QoQ improvement in assets under management, profitability being boosted by lower provisions., With high frequency risk, collections not warranting risk stance change guidance remains the same. Hence, it is a welcome sign., During the quarter, assets under management growth on a sequential basis was at a multi quarter high of 6.5% at Rs 152,947 crore led by 6.1% QoQ rise in mortgage book, while small medium enterprise, business-to-consumer and securities lending also showed respectable growth.. Publisher: ICICI Direct. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 11:45 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to KPIT Q4 Review Demand Environment Tata Elxsi Prabhudas Lilladher L&T Tech intact Cyient [/INST] Research Reports news. Title: L&T Tech, Cyient, Tata Elxsi, KPIT Q4 Review - Demand Environment Seems Intact: Prabhudas Lilladher. Short_description: L&T Tech, Cyient, Tata Elxsi, KPIT Q4 Review - Demand Environment Seems Intact: Prabhudas Lilladher. Description: Prabhudas Lilladher Report, Broad-based pickup in engineering research and development spends and ramp up of deals won earlier in the year led to strong revenue growth for all players across the industry in Q4 FY21. , Strong demand momentum in communications and healthcare verticals resulted in higher than pre-Covid-19 level revenues in these segments in FY21. , Though transportation showed strong recovery in H2 FY22, but is still not back to pre-Covid-19 levels. , Within this segment, there is strong pickup in automotive reflected by numerous large deals won by L&T Technology Services Ltd. (two deals), Tata Elxsi Ltd. (two deals) and KPIT Technologies Ltd. (five deals) in this domain segment. . Publisher: Prabhudas Lilladher. Date Created: 06 May 2021, 2:32 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Quick EU Nod french state aid EDF ceo Sign [/INST] Technology news. Title: EDF CEO Sees No Sign of Quick EU Nod on French State Aid. Short_description: EDF CEO Sees No Sign of Quick EU Approval on French State Aid. Description: Electricite de France SA’s head said there’s no sign of a quick agreement between France and the European Commission on a reorganization of the debt-laden utility that would help shore up its finances., “These discussions are extremely difficult,” Chief Executive Officer Jean-Bernard Levy said at the company’s annual shareholders meeting Thursday. “There’s no reason to think that discussions can rapidly succeed; there’s also no reason to think that they might not succeed.”, The comments cast doubt on the outcome of the talks aimed at giving the state-controlled utility more regulated revenue from its nuclear power output to help maintain aging atomic plants that are the backbone of France’s electricity supply. The European Commission, which vets individual countries’ aid, wants to ensure that the reform won’t affect competition., EDF shares fell 2.9% in Paris Thursday, while Stoxx 600 Utilities index rose 0.1%., Time is running out for the utility and the government to get the European Commission’s approval for the reform ahead of France’s presidential and general elections next year, as the overhaul would need to be approved by parliament., EDF has long complained that the regulated price of part of its nuclear power sales to rivals is not enough to fund rising costs of reactor maintenance, and investments in renewables. A higher price for its entire atomic output would enable it to better compete in Europe as other utilities expand market-share and major oil companies invest more in clean energy., The reorganization plan includes nationalizing EDF’s nuclear and hydropower activities, and a stock-market listing of a minority stake for its wind, solar, electricity distribution and retail business. The publicly traded entity would be able to consider a “significant capital increase as soon as it’s listed” and to sell bonds to finance projects, Levy wrote to shareholders Thursday., French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said he wants the backing of at least some of EDF’s four main unions, which so far oppose the plan saying it equates to a dismantling of the group. Le Maire and Levy have said they want to maintain the group’s integrity, making that a “red line” in talks with the Commission., The timetable regarding the overhaul proposed by the minister “seems to be loosening a bit, and nothing should be decided in May,” CGT union leader Sebastien Menesplier said in a text message, after a meeting with the minister Wednesday., In a subsequent message sent Thursday, Menesplier made the assumption that the minister might give himself until the autumn to keep discussing the proposed reorganization., “I will meet unions for as long as necessary to explain to them the details of that project, to correct and adjust what needs to be adjusted, to reinforce some guarantees,” Le Maire said in a parliamentary hearing Thursday. “We have to take the necessary time to explain and convince.”, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Francois De Beaupuy. Date Created: 06 May 2021, 4:39 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Startup Funding Frenzy India [/INST] Technology news. Title: Behind India’s Startup Funding Frenzy . Short_description: India minted as many as six unicorns in a week earlier this month. What’s feeding this frenzy? . Description: When Niraj Singh was looking to raise funds for his startup this year, he received funding offers for up to thrice the amount he required., General Catalyst, which has backed used car platforms in the U.S. and Europe like Vroom and Carzoo, invested nearly $43 million in Spinny, a secondhand car platform founded by Singh. “This is definitely a one-of-its-kind funding boom that’s playing out in the ecosystem right now,” he told BloombergQuint over the phone, a day after the fundraising., “We had offers to take the round to $120-150 million. While it’s tempting, we realised there was no need to raise more than we had planned,” he said. “We also wanted to onboard the right partners that not only bring in the capital but domain expertise as well.”, Singh isn’t alone. The Indian startup ecosystem is witnessing a funding frenzy, , —or startups with a valuation of over $1 billion—over the course of a week earlier this month. And the money netted by Indian startups in the first three months of 2021 is a quarter of the total fundraise overall of 2020., Seed-stage funding rose to $323 million by the end of 2020, —the most in the last six years, data shared by Venture Intelligence showed. The trend continued in the first half of the ongoing fiscal as $62 million was raised in 42 deals, with the average ticket size also at a six-year high of $1.47 million per transaction., That frenzy seems to have trickled down to early-stage funding, too. The category is a barometer for newly founded startups getting funded. It faced a slowdown before the Covid-19 pandemic., Early-stage funding, which includes seed to series A funding, rose to $296 million in the first half of the ongoing fiscal, the highest in the last five years, Venture Intelligence data showed., “There is definitely a rise in deal flow,” Sanjay Nath, managing partner of early-stage VC-firm, Blume Ventures, said In India it’s never been a question of quantity, always quality. “The difference since 2020 is an increasing cohort of second-time founders and the availability of mentors and seasoned entrepreneurs that younger first-time founders can learn from.”, When Anirudh Damani, managing partner of Artha Venture fund, an early-stage micro-VC fund, was participating in a $2 million bridge round a month ago, the round became a Series-A round of $11 million amid a sudden influx of early-stage backers and angel investors. “We even had to scale back our commitment to accommodate others,” he said, adding it happened with three of his portfolios in 2021., That comes as the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of online technologies. Nearly 1,600 new startups were founded last year alone, taking the total count to over 12,500, according to a January report by Nasscom, the country’s technology industry trade body., Akshay Chaturvedi, the founder of ed-tech startup LeverageEdu, which raised $6.5 million last month and is witnessing interest from investors for a follow-on round, said there’s a lot of pressure to deploy money in the ecosystem., “Everybody wants to be a startup investor, but not a startup founder,” he said over the phone from his office in New Delhi, after a call with a U.S.-based venture capitalist., The ecosystem is flush with funds, according to Credit Suisse, which said in a report “dry powder” by the end of 2020 globally stood at approximately $2.1 trillion as a result of record second-half fundraising and lower deal volumes., Google has already committed $10 billion under its digitisation fund. Sequoia Capital last year announced $1.35 billion fund for India. Tiger Global, one of the most active series-A investors in the country, raised $6.65 billion for its global fund earlier this month., Three events may have led to the present situation, the first of which was the pandemic., “When Covid hit, the ecosystem was about to see a packed deal-making spree, which went into a toss when it led to a complete shutdown,” Vijay Sambamurthi, founder and managing partner of Lexygen, which specialises in advising VC/PE funds and startups, told BloombergQuint over the phone, adding the Covid-led bridge round started as the restrictions were eased., And when restrictions were eased, there was a lot of pent-up funding demand, he said. “So, a lot of them started pickup up deal making in a kind of a rapid pace.”, The second factor was disruptions caused by the pandemic itself, which forced people to stay inside their homes and led to rapid rise in digital adoption in the world’s second-largest internet economy—be it in health, education or financial segments., “Digital adoption has been a clear winner in the pandemic, that has made the use cases of so many models relevant. The huge stride startups made since Covid-19 have been a big attraction,” Damani of Artha Venture fund, said, adding a rush of initial public offerings by tech companies around the world and a line-up of IPOs in the home market has added to the sentiment that real exits are finally happening., To be sure, companies like Zomato, Flipkart, Policy Bazaar, Nykaa, Freshworks and Delhivery are among those expected to go for initial share sales in the next 12-months., An exodus from China also played a role. A global backlash against Asia’s largest economy, coupled with India’s tightening of investment guidelines from China and the country’s own clampdown on its internet behemoths like Alibaba spooked investors., “What has happened to China is a big positive to India,” Nath of Blume Ventures said. “Growth investors and LPs are now viewing the scale of India in and of itself, with India no longer having the overhang of China comparisons per se, like earlier.”, The frenzy comes with red flags., Chaturvedi of LeverageEdu said in the present environment, angel rounds are getting closed ten times faster than in normal conditions. “It took me 15-17 days to raise an angel round, today it can be done in 1.5-2 days,” he said, adding valuations have remained stable, unlike the 2015 boom., The rush is such deals are being finalised at a faster pace. Damani said 10% of the time they’re forced to say no because due diligence—which usually takes 45 days—is getting expedited., While there is deal-making frenzy, I don’t think it’s a bubble yet, said Sambamurthi. “A bubble is when entrepreneurs starts to get greedy, and investors have FOMO (fear of missing out). Thankfully, that’s not seen yet.”, Utsav Somani, a partner at Silicon Valley-based Angellist, which allows individuals to raise angel rounds, said the entire drive has been driven by a liquidity boom. “The difference between last time is that there was crazy valuation where non-profitable, only burn-based models were getting backed and that led to artificial inflation.”, One of the key differences between the present boom and the last one, according to investors and founders BloombergQuint spoke with, is exits are happening this time., Siddharth Ladsariya, an angel investor who has a portfolio of 130 startups, said he has received exit options from 20 startups this year alone. “This is indicative of a sign that there is more venture capital money available but less good opportunities. In 2015 we haven’t seen so many exits.”, Damani said the exit market is heated up. “Every third day there are secondary exits happening in the ecosystem.”, Spinny also completed a secondary transaction in its recent round in which some of its early-stage funds and angel investors exited. Dream 11’s parent raised $400 million in secondary funding in March., Damani sums up the situation: “Today if you have proven your model then there is an unimaginable amount of money available, and mindless investment isn’t seen, yet.”. Publisher: Nishant Sharma. Date Created: 22 Apr 2021, 8:02 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Driving Trucks Race Horses self Jockeys [/INST] Technology news. Title: The Race to Build Self-Driving Trucks Has Four Horses and Three Jockeys. Short_description: Some of the biggest players in the industry have joined the race to build self-driving trucks . Description: Over the last five years, as it’s become clear that self-driving cars will take longer than expected to arrive on most American streets, some of the biggest players in the industry have turned their attention to long-haul trucking. Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous vehicle unit Waymo, the , in robo-taxis, launched its trucking division Via in 2017 after a handful of start-ups, including Otto, Starsky Robotics, and TuSimple Holdings Inc., had entered the field. Aurora Innovation Inc., one of Waymo’s most formidable competitors, recently decided to focus its efforts on bringing a trucking product to market before branching into ride-hailing. The logic behind the pivot is twofold: highways are easier to navigate than city streets and cargo is less demanding than human passengers. If a robo-truck drives extra cautiously on its way to a big box store, as Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson put it when I , to him earlier this year, “the roll of toilet paper doesn’t care.”, There are also advantages on the business side. In ride hailing, robo-taxis need to outperform and undercut a large, flexible and relatively cheap pool of gig workers. Truck drivers, on the other hand, are in short supply, a problem that only promises to get worse as e-commerce , to boom. In one possible version of the autonomous future — a model known as “depot-to-depot”—robot drivers would cover the long and relatively simple stretches of interstate driving and leave the trickier surface streets to human drivers who would take over at highway off ramps. The robots could operate for hours on end without running afoul of service time rules and needing to stop only for fuel, while truckers would still have jobs and could sleep in their own beds at night. TuSimple CEO Cheng Lu , that driverless trucks running more hours on the road can reduce hauling costs by 50%., In theory, it’s a win-win, and a multibillion dollar business opportunity. The blank-check companies, naturally, have taken notice: special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Hennessy Capital Investment Corp. V is , in talks to merge with self-driving truck startup Plus. Yet there are signs that self-driving trucks are already following robo-taxis into the “, .” After a , covering ten miles on a Florida turnpike in 2019, Starsky Robotics , last year. In December, the autonomous delivery start-up Nuro , trucking start-up , , leaving its plans for that market uncertain. For all the advantages that trucking offers, it also comes with unique challenges. “Because of the heavier weight of the vehicle and the high speeds, if something goes wrong, it's catastrophic,” says Bruno Bowden, a former engineering manager for simulation at Aurora who is now an angel investor, “You don't get a small accident with a big rig truck.” To avoid these catastrophes, self-driving trucks need to see farther ahead than cars do. “The heart of the problem for driving is predicting about five seconds into the future,” says Bowden. But with trucks, he says, that magic number doubles., It’s likely that safety drivers will remain in cabs for years to come as companies hone their sensor technology and train their software for every highway scenario. It’s expensive and painstaking work that can overwhelm even the best-run start-ups. The consensus within the industry is that three contestants stand the best chance to make it to the finish line: “It's TuSimple, Aurora and Waymo,” says Grayson Brulte, co-founder of Brulte & Co., a consulting firm focused on transportation. TuSimple, a San Diego based-company that , $1.35 billion in an initial public offering in April, is in the pole position, as Brulte sees it, because of its singular focus on trucking and its partnership, begun three years ago, with Navistar International to build autonomous trucks. “They've got the head start on it,” says Brulte., Since that deal, Waymo and Aurora , , , their own (non-exclusive) agreements with truck makers, leaving the four dominant manufacturers in the U.S. market—Daimler Trucks, Volvo Group, Paccar Inc., and Navistar—tied to one of the three leaders in autonomous trucking. (See chart above.) If robots are to replace truckers on U.S. highways, these are the companies likeliest to be in the driver’s seat:, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Ira Boudway. Date Created: 01 May 2021, 3:00 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to growth Target Buyback Program Launches Dell [/INST] Technology news. Title: Dell Sets 3%-4% Growth Target, Launches Share Buyback Program. Short_description: Dell Sets 3%-4% Growth Target, Launches Share Buyback Program. Description: Dell Technologies Inc. laid out its vision for the coming years, forecasting annual revenue growth of 3% to 4% through 2026, and announced plans for a $5 billion share repurchase plan. , In a statement ahead of a meeting with analysts Thursday, the computer hardware maker said its buyback program would be effective in November on the projected completion of the VMware Inc. spinoff. At that time, Dell expects to receive an investment-grade credit rating. , The Round Rock, Texas-based company also said it plans to initiate a quarterly dividend in the fiscal 2023 first quarter, targeting an annual dividend of about $1 billion., “At Dell Technologies, our core business is growing and thriving,” said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer, in the statement., The shares jumped 4.7% at 10:45 a.m. in New York. The stock had rallied 35% this year through Wednesday., Dell is trying to provide a picture of what its business will look like once the effects of the pandemic and semiconductor shortage have played out. Last week, competitor Cisco Systems Inc. painted a more rosy outlook, predicting revenue will rise as much as 7% over the next five years. , Dell was less bullish about sales Thursday but more optimistic about its earnings-per-share outlook, which, minus certain items, will grow about 6% annually through 2026. The company reiterated an earlier forecast for its fiscal 2022 third quarter, saying it expects revenue growth in the “mid to high teens” and operating income up 1% to 2% from the previous period., Dell and its peers are trying to balance an unprecedented surge in demand for computer equipment needed to fuel working and studying from home during the lockdown against a shortage of components needed to produce that machinery. Semiconductor makers have been unable to fill all orders, forcing up prices and leading to delays., The company is committing to giving some of the proceeds of its spin off of VMware to investors. , VMware will distribute a special cash dividend of $11.5 billion to $12 billion to shareholders at the close of the deal, which is expected by the fourth quarter, Dell said in April. Dell, which owns 81% of VMware, will receive a payout of as much as , ., , ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Ian King. Date Created: 23 Sep 2021, 8:50 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to SAP Reaches Deal Iran sanction U.S. [/INST] Technology news. Title: SAP Reaches Deal With U.S. After Violating Iran Sanctions. Short_description: SAP Reaches Deal With U.S. After Violating Iran Sanctions. Description: The U.S. Justice Department said German software company SAP SE entered into a non-prosecution agreement after being the first company to come forward and voluntarily disclose that it violated export and sanctions laws related to Iran., Under the accord, the company voluntarily, ted it illegally exported thousands of software products to companies in Iran and front companies outside of Iran in violation of sanctions and agreed to help U.S. agencies conduct further investigations, the department announced Thursday., SAP -- Europe’s biggest software maker -- agreed to pay combined penalties of more than $8 million as part of a resolution with the U.S. departments of Justice, Commerce and Treasury., “This could have been far worse for SAP had we discovered this on our own,” John Demers, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, told reporters Thursday. “The message now is for other companies that may be in their shoes is to see from this case the clear benefit of coming forward and self-disclosing potential willful violations.”, The company said in a , that it welcomed a resolution of the issue., “We accept full responsibility for past conduct, and we have enhanced our internal controls to ensure compliance with applicable laws,” SAP said. “Our significant remediation efforts, combined with our full and proactive cooperation with U.S. authorities, have led to a mutually agreeable resolution of the Iran investigation without the imposition of an external monitor.”, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Chris Strohm. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 12:52 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Address Surge White House Ransomware Attacks [/INST] Technology news. Title: White House Urged to Address Surge in Ransomware Attacks. Short_description: White House Urged to Address Surge in Ransomware Attacks. Description: Cybersecurity experts, law enforcement agencies and governments urged the White House to root out safe havens for criminals engaging in ransomware and step up regulation of cryptocurrencies, the lifeblood of hackers, in the hopes of controlling a growing wave of attacks., These are two of 48 recommendations made by a task force in a report Thursday to the Biden administration aimed at fighting the continuing ransomware episodes that plague major corporations, local governments and health-care providers across the world. The task force, organized by the , , said the cyber-attacks have become a $350 million criminal industry -- a four-fold increase from the previous year. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department created its own, independent ransomware task force, signaling growing awareness inside the U.S. government of the now decade-old threat., Ransomware is a type of malicious code that typically encrypts a victim’s data or network of computers. The hackers then demand a ransom to decrypt the information. More recently, ransomware gangs have also stolen data and threatened to make it public unless the victim pays a fee., The FBI , to refuse to pay hackers, but many victims end up doing so because the costs of the attacks can outweigh the ransom demand. Ransomware attacks have forced hospitals to postpone critical treatment, energy providers to cut off power supplies and schools to stop teaching. In some instances, lives are at stake, said Kemba Walden, an attorney in the Digital Security Unit at Microsoft Corp., The report was born from months of consultations among cybersecurity experts at Palo Alto Networks Inc., researchers at Chainalysis Inc. and law enforcement agencies in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, among others. The recommendations include five priorities deemed to be ‘’foundational and urgent,” including a push to use diplomatic channels and law enforcement across the world to dissuade countries from becoming “safe havens to ransomware criminals.”, “Most ransomware criminals are based in nation-states that are unwilling or unable to prosecute this cyber crime, and because ransoms are paid through cryptocurrency, they are difficult to trace,” according to the report. “This global challenge demands an ‘all hands on deck’ approach, with support form the highest levels of government.”, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday described ransomware as a national security threat and pledged to make it a priority for the Biden administration., “The White House is developing a plan dedicated to tackling this problem,” he said., , U.S. assistant attorney general for national security, told reporters this week that ransomware as a cybercrime is no longer limited to independent cartels seeking to hold victims hostage for profit. Instead, nation-states may be using the attacks as a tool to disrupt government or private operations., Earlier this month, for instance, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Russian entities for helping to facilitate cyber-attacks and tied a Russian intelligence agency to a notorious ransomware group known as Evil Corp., The report also outlines methods to regulate and control the economic backbone of the ransomware business: cryptocurrencies. Such payments between hackers and their victims occur in the largely unregulated realm of digital currency, which is harder for experts to track in hopes of identifying the criminals. The task force calls for governments to require cryptocurrency exchanges and trading desks to enforce basic “know your customer,” anti-money laundering and financial terrorism laws., These rules could help law enforcement identify the nexus of ransomware cartels and the individuals getting rich from ransom payments, said Don Spies, director of market development for Chainalysis., “I firmly believe cryptocurrencies are a new asset class. They’re now part of the overall financial system,” Spies said. “So, too, is ransomware, and it’s not going away. But I believe these recommendations can go a long way to combating a problem that’s out of control.”, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Kartikay Mehrotra. Date Created: 29 Apr 2021, 3:30 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Commerce Strength Persists Vaccine era PayPal rise E [/INST] Technology news. Title: PayPal Rises as E-Commerce Strength Persists in Vaccine Era. Short_description: PayPal Sees Online Shopping Flurry Continue Even With Vaccines. Description: The proliferation of vaccines around the world hasn’t stopped people from shopping online with PayPal Holdings Inc., which boosted its forecasts for growth in new users and revenue for the year., Total payments volume in the first three months of the year surged a record 50% to $285 billion, topping the $265 billion average of analyst estimates, even as local governments continued to loosen restrictions throughout the quarter. The firm now expects to add as many as 55 million new users to its platform this year, an increase from earlier guidance., PayPal has benefited as consumers swarmed to online shopping over the course of the last year, spurred by pandemic-related shutdowns and orders to shelter in place as much as possible. Still, investors worried that the trend would reverse as the pandemic eased. Wednesday’s results show PayPal doesn’t believe that shift is slowing down anytime soon., “Even as stores begin to open up, as restaurants begin to open, as events begin to open, people will be paying for those things in a digital fashion,” Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman said in an interview. “We now believe the shift to consumer digital behavior is going to remain essentially unchanged in a post-Covid world.”, PayPal shares rose 4.9% to $259.55 in extended New York trading after the announcement. The stock had climbed 5.6% this year through the close of regular trading Wednesday, outpacing the 4.6% advance of the S&P 500 Information Technology Index., The payments giant now expects revenue for the full year to climb 20% to $25.75 billion, a slight increase from the 19% jump it was previously expecting. Total payments volume is likely to jump by roughly 30%., PayPal added 14.5 million new users to its platform during the first three months of the year, an increase that also topped estimates. Overall revenue surged 29% to $6.03 billion, greater than the $5.88 billion analysts were anticipating., Even the firm’s person-to-person payments service Venmo has benefited from the pandemic after the firm debuted a new credit-card for the service last year. Volumes inside Venmo rose 63% to $51 billion., PayPal has been adding new services and capabilities to its apps as part of a bigger push to become a so-called super app, which would allow consumers to shop and manage finances all inside the PayPal platform., The firm in recent months, for instance, has added the ability for consumers to split up their purchases and pay them off over time as well as the ability to buy, sell and hold certain cryptocurrencies., Payment transactions per active account -- a measure of usage on the firm’s platform -- jumped 7% to 42.2., “That’s really significant,” Schulman said. “The new products and services were putting into place like buy-now-pay-later, crypto, the Venmo credit card, those are performing well beyond our expectations.”, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Jennifer Surane. Date Created: 06 May 2021, 1:52 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Weigh Ban Credit Review Biofuel Role bank EPA [/INST] Technology news. Title: EPA Is Said to Weigh Ban on Banks' Role in Biofuel-Credit Review. Short_description: Billionaire Carl Icahn, the majority owner of CVR Energy, had complained that the program structure is “rigged”.. Description: (Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is planning to propose an overhaul of the opaque market for trading biofuel compliance credits amid complaints of hoarding and wild price swings, according to people familiar with the matter., The Environmental Protection Agency is set to lay out several options in coming weeks, including barring Wall Street banks and other outsiders from trading the credits, said the people, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations., The EPA is taking the action under orders from President Donald Trump, who last year , to pursue reforms while simultaneously lifting summertime fueling restrictions on higher-ethanol gasoline. The EPA is honing its proposal in preparation for unveiling it as soon as next month., The effort focuses on Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs, a system of credits the government initially created to give refiners and importers more flexibility in satisfying annual biofuel quotas. RINs morphed from a simple compliance tool into a financial commodity, with values swinging in concert with policy news from Washington. Some independent refiners have alleged speculation and manipulation in the RINs market, asserting that traders have abandoned some sales after negotiating them and others have placed fraudulent bids with the goal of inducing higher prices., Billionaire Carl Icahn, the majority owner of independent oil refiner CVR Energy Inc., had complained that the program structure is “rigged” and changes were needed., The EPA isn’t planning to prescribe a single option. Instead, regulators expect to outline several specific possible changes and then seek public comment on the ideas -- including the interplay between possible combinations, the people said., One option under consideration would set position limits at 120 percent of refiners’ and importers’ biofuel-blending obligations, a measure aimed at preventing companies from maintaining a hoard of credits they can sell whenever prices spike, according to three people familiar with the plan. Another would require market participants to reveal how many RINs they hold over a yet-to-be specified threshold. Another change would limit trading to “obligated parties” -- the fuel refiners and importers forced to use the credits to prove they have fulfilled biofuel quotas., The EPA also may propose capping how long companies and traders can hold RINs., The agency is also preparing a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. biofuel mandate that would establish new benchmarks for renewable fuel use through 2022., The effort divides the oil industry. The current approach benefits some fuel retailers and oil companies that make money by selling RINs they generate from mixing ethanol and other renewable fuels into gasoline and diesel. They argue that the revamps are a solution in search of a problem and that restrictive position limits may further decrease liquidity and boost volatility., Some oil refiners that lack the blending infrastructure to generate enough credits on their own insist reforms are needed to damp speculation. They argue that earlier EPA , , including monthly disclosures about RIN prices and refineries waived from biofuel quotas, haven’t gone far enough., Frank Macchiarola, a group director at the American Petroleum Institute, said the EPA’s planned rulemaking on higher ethanol E15 gasoline and RIN reform is already “critically flawed.”, “The structural RIN changes under consideration to increase transparency in the RINs market are likely to do more harm than good,” Macchiarola said. “The EPA has already enacted improvements to the program that improve transparency for market participants.”, RINs tracking 2019 ethanol compliance targets fell 3.4 percent to 21.5 cents on Wednesday, data compiled by Bloomberg show. They cost more than 90 cents when Trump was elected in November 2016., They have swung wildly in recent years, sometimes stoked by Trump administration efforts to alter the U.S. biofuel mandate. On Feb. 28, 2017, a day after Bloomberg News reported that Icahn had hashed out a deal with renewable fuels industry proponents, prices for credits tracking ethanol consumption plunged 35 percent to 30 cents. By October 2017, they more than tripled to 98 cents, only to plummet to 3 cents a year later., CME Group Inc. launched RINs futures contracts in 2013 and , them four years later because of a lack of liquidity., ©2019 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Jennifer A. Dlouhy &. Date Created: 21 Feb 2019, 12:45 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Uncollected Revenue Texas storm NextEra [/INST] Technology news. Title: Texas Storm Cost NextEra $180 Million in Uncollected Revenue. Short_description: Texas Storm Cost NextEra $180 Million in Uncollected Revenue. Description: NextEra Energy Inc., the world’s biggest investor-owned generator of wind and solar power, said it wasn’t able to collect $180 million in revenue following the Texas energy crisis that left the state’s power market -- and many of its power providers -- in financial distress., Subsidiary NextEra Energy Resources LLC said in a first-quarter filing Friday that the revenue related to “reimbursable expenses from a counterparty that are deemed not probable of collection.” The company didn’t identify the counterparty., The deep freeze that gripped Texas in February knocked nearly half of Texas’s generation offline, pushed many companies to the brink of bankruptcy and left the state’s power market facing a nearly $3 billion financial shortfall. During the storm, NextEra faced some of the biggest outages, losing more than 11.7 gigawatts of electricity generation, according to data from the grid operator., Read more: , Still, financial losses from the storm appeared negligible, with NextEra posting $1.66 billion in net income in the first quarter. NextEra Energy Partners, the company’s renewable unit that’s separately traded, said in another financial filing that it saw pipeline services revenue increase by $30 million in the first quarter because of the storm., Separately, NextEra reported about $152 million of bad debt expense also related to the February storm., A NextEra representative didn’t respond to messages seeking comment., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Josh Saul &. Date Created: 24 Apr 2021, 5:33 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Stuff Price [/INST] Technology news. Title: The Price of the Stuff That Makes Everything Is Surging. Short_description: Prices of raw materials used to make almost everything are skyrocketing, and the upward trajectory looks set to continue.. Description: (Bloomberg) -- The prices of raw materials used to make almost everything are skyrocketing, and the upward trajectory looks set to continue as the world economy roars back to life., From steel and copper to corn and lumber, commodities started 2021 with a bang, surging to levels not seen for years. The rally threatens to raise the cost of goods from the lunchtime sandwich to gleaming skyscrapers. It’s also lit the fuse on the , that’s gripped markets this year and pushed up inflation expectations. With the U.S. economy pumped up on fiscal stimulus, and Europe’s economy starting to reopen as its vaccination rollout gets into gear, there’s little reason to expect a change in direction., JPMorgan Chase & Co. said this week it sees a continued rally in commodities and that the “reflation and reopening trade will continue.” On top of that, the Federal Reserve and other central banks seem calm about inflation, meaning economies could be left to run hot, which will rev up demand even more., “The most important drivers supporting commodity prices are the global economic recovery and acceleration in the reopening phase,” said Giovanni Staunovo, commodity analyst at UBS Group AG. The bank expects commodities as a whole to rise about 10% in the next year., China, a crucial source of supply and demand for raw materials, is playing a big role, particularly as the government tries to , of key metals like steel and aluminum. It’s also buying up massive amounts of grains. Food prices are also being affected as poor weather in key growing nations like Brazil and France hits harvests., As just about every basic material gets rapidly more expensive, here’s some ways the rally is rippling across the globe to create winners and losers., Copper has enjoyed an unstoppable rally for more than a year thanks to pledges by governments to boost renewable energy and electric vehicle use. That’ll make all the various forms of green technology that rely on it a , Bigger power grids is one such case. About 1.9 million tons of copper was used to build electricity networks in 2020, according to BloombergNEF, and the price of the red metal is up more than 90% in the past year. Usage will almost double by 2050, BNEF forecasts, while demand from other low carbon technologies like electric vehicles and solar panels will also balloon., For countries, the impact of the commodity rally depends on whether they’re an exporter or importer. For those relying heavily on exporting raw materials, the huge upswings can only be good news for public finances, especially when they’ve just been stricken by a once-in-a-century pandemic. The likes of Australia (iron ore), Chile (copper) and Indonesia (palm oil) all make huge sums from commodities., Meanwhile, countries looking to rebuild infrastructure may find their budgets buy less than they used to. President Joe Biden’s , is one such case. Electricity grids, railways and refurbishing buildings are among the items on the shopping list that will use large amounts of metal., Consultancy CRU Group estimates the program will add 5 million tons of steel to the 80 million the U.S. uses each year, with similar boosts to aluminum and copper demand., It’s been a tough year to be in the meat business, from devastating Covid outbreaks to the deadly pig disease that hit Germany and is roaring back in China., And as crop prices surge, farmers rearing , , pigs and cattle are among the first to get squeezed by the eye-watering run-up in grains. Costs for corn fed to livestock have doubled in the past year, and soybean meal is more than 40% higher. While there’s a delay before that hits the burger chain or steakhouse, there are already signs of prices , ., Steel producers in Europe and America have suffered for years from low prices caused by global overcapacity. Plants struggled to make money and job security became a growing worry. Over 85,000 steel jobs were lost in the European Union between 2008 and 2019, according to industry association , ., That’s all changed dramatically thanks to booming steel prices. Futures in China, by far the biggest producer, have smashed records — even outpacing gains in key ingredient iron ore — as the government , to curb output. That’s supercharged rallies of benchmark prices in Europe and America, where mills were already running at maximum capacity as they try to meet unexpectedly high demand., Whether you prefer latte or espresso, sweetened or plain, the key ingredients of a cup of coffee have surged. Arabica coffee futures have risen about 33% in the past year, while raw sugar has also advanced. Fancy a slice of toast? Benchmark wheat prices have hit the highest since 2013., Of course, rising commodities don’t immediately show up on grocery shelves and cafe menus. They make up just a part of the costs for retailers, which often absorb the initial increase to keep customers coming back. But there’s a limit to that margin hit, and high prices could ultimately feed through to consumers., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Edward Spence &. Date Created: 01 May 2021, 9:30 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Oversight Board rule trump remain Facebook [/INST] Technology news. Title: Trump Remains Banned on Facebook, Oversight Board Rules. Short_description: Donald Trump remains banned from posting on Facebook.. Description: Donald Trump remains banned from posting on Facebook for now, the company’s independent content oversight board ruled, leaving the former U.S. president without his most powerful tools for fundraising, rallying supporters and venting grievances., The board’s decision announced Wednesday is binding, but it also recommended that Facebook review its ban within six months. Trump remains banned on Twitter Inc., “As we stated in January, we believe our decision was necessary and right, and we’re pleased the board has recognized that the unprecedented circumstances justified the exceptional measure we took,” Facebook said in a blog post., Trump called the move “a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country.”, “Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth,” he said in a statement. “These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate out Electoral Process.”, Other key conservatives and a Democratic U.S. House committee chairman said the equivocal decision to keep Trump off the platform for now while leaving open the possibility of returning shows the need for legislative action to rein in giant technology companies., Facebook Inc. suspended Trump’s account after he encouraged his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in what became a deadly attempt to stop the counting of Electoral College votes for President Joe Biden. The ban was originally temporary, but was changed to an indefinite suspension the following day., The Facebook Oversight Board argued Wednesday that Trump’s repeated claims of voter fraud created an environment “where a serious risk of violence was possible.”, “At the time of Mr. Trump’s posts, there was a clear, immediate risk of harm and his words of support for those involved in the riots legitimized their violent actions,” the board wrote. “As president, Mr. Trump had a high level of influence.”, Facebook must act within their existing rules and either restore Trump’s account, ban him permanently, or put a time limit on his suspension, Michael McConnell, co-chairman of the oversight board, said on a call with reporters. The board recommended that within six months, Facebook review its conduct and make a clear decision, he said., Facebook’s own policies do not authorize an indefinite suspension, and users must not be left in a “state of uncertainty” about whether their accounts will be restored, McConnell said., Trump had appealed Facebook’s original suspension. Eli Sugarman, the oversight board’s content supervisor said in a , that the appeal itself was riddled with the kinds of falsehoods that triggered the ban., Trump’s “user statement” was “replete w/falsehoods e.g. the attack on the Capitol was clearly ‘influenced, and most probably ignited by outside forces,’” Sugarman tweeted., House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy , that Facebook “is more interested in acting like a Democratic” super PAC than “a platform for free speech and open debate,” echoing conservatives’ concerns over what they see as a liberal bias coming from Silicon Valley., Democratic U.S. Representative Frank Pallone, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, criticized the oversight board for not having the proper structure to address Facebook’s problems with spreading misinformation., “It’s clear that real accountability will only come with legislative action,” he said in a , ., The board ruled that even though Facebook was justified in suspending Trump’s account given the seriousness of the violations with his Jan. 6 posts before the insurrection, it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose an “indefinite” suspension., “It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored,” the board said., The board said that when the company reviews his suspension next, it should balance the penalty against the prospect of future harm and any decision must be consistent with Facebook’s own rules., “In applying a vague, standardless penalty and then referring this case to the Board to resolve, Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities,” the board said, adding that it “insists that Facebook apply and justify a defined penalty.”, The decision comes at a time when social-media platforms are facing increasing scrutiny over their handling of political content and disinformation, which has prompted lawmakers from both parties to take aim at a prized liability shield that protects the tech giants from lawsuits over content posted by users., McCarthy said that if Republicans take control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, they will “rein in big tech power over our speech.”, The measure -- just 26 words known as Section 230 -- now faces its biggest reckoning since it was included in the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Calls to revise it grew in the months before the November election and , after the deadly attack on Congress by Trump loyalists., Trump was also banned from Twitter in January, a move that the company has said is permanent. He was also blocked on Snapchat, YouTube and Twitch, among other networks, following the Capitol riots., Losing access to social media is a blow for Trump politically -- especially from Twitter, which was his favorite means of communicating and where he had 89 million followers -- because it meant he was largely silent in the weeks after he left office on Jan. 20., A return to social media, even Facebook’s more contained universe of users, would have given Trump a broader platform as he plots his political future., Trump said in an April 29 interview on Fox Business that he was “100%” considering running again in 2024 and that he’s “very, very strongly –- times ten –- considering to do what everybody wants me to do.” He also said on the Don Bongino Show podcast released on April 28 that he’ll announce his decision “most likely right after” the 2022 midterm elections., In the meantime, Trump is raising money for his political operation through the leadership political action committee Save America and already has amassed more than $85 million, a Trump adviser has said., The former president has also said he wants to create his own social-media platform that will prevent him from being removed or censured but hasn’t provided any details., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Mark Niquette, . Date Created: 05 May 2021, 6:32 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Bezos Sells Signals Amazon [/INST] Technology news. Title: Bezos Sells $2.5 Billion of Amazon and Signals More Coming. Short_description: This is Jeff Bezos' first big disposal this year after offloading more than $10 billion worth of shares in 2020.. Description: Jeff Bezos sold about $2.5 billion of Amazon.com Inc. stock, his first big disposal this year after offloading more than $10 billion worth of shares in 2020., Bezos sold around 739,000 shares this week under a pre-arranged trading plan, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. He plans to sell as many as 2 million shares, according to a separate filing., The world’s richest person continues to hold more than 10% of Amazon.com, the primary source of his $191.3 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index., In the 15 years after Amazon.com went public in 1997, Bezos sold about a fifth of the online retailer for roughly $2 billion. The value of his stake has ballooned in recent years to such an extent that he can now sell relatively small amounts for billions of dollars., Amazon stock is little changed this year after rallying 76% in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic kept people away from physical stores and encouraged online shopping., The Amazon founder has used stock sales to fund rocket company Blue Origin, while he’s committed $10 billion to the “Bezos Earth Fund” to help counter the effects of climate change., The rocket maker said Wednesday it has set July 20 for its first mission carrying people to space and plans to auction off one seat on its New Shepard rocket., Bezos would be far richer if it weren’t for his divorce from MacKenzie Scott. She received a 4% stake in Amazon as part of the split and quickly became one of the world’s most important philanthropists., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Tom Maloney. Date Created: 06 May 2021, 3:02 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Supreme Court ruling FTC Suit Facebook [/INST] Technology news. Title: Facebook Says Supreme Court Ruling Requires Tossing FTC Suit. Short_description: Facebook Says Supreme Court Ruling Requires Tossing FTC Suit. Description: Facebook Inc. said a U.S. Supreme Court decision last week on the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to recover money for consumers means the agency’s monopoly lawsuit against the company must be dismissed., Facebook argued in a court filing Tuesday that the Supreme Court , bolsters its position that the FTC can’t pursue the antitrust lawsuit in federal court., The FTC sued Facebook in December, accusing the social media company of abusing its dominance to thwart competition in violation of antitrust laws. The agency is asking for a court order requiring Facebook to unwind its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp., “The Supreme Court’s decision and its reasoning support Facebook’s argument that the FTC’s suit improperly circumvents limits on its authority,” Facebook said in the filing in Washington federal court., The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision was centered on a provision in federal law that the FTC has used to recover money for defrauded consumers. The agency says the ruling puts at risk $2.4 billion that the FTC is seeking to recover for consumers in 24 pending lawsuits., Although the FTC’s case focuses on competition and does not seek monetary relief for consumers, the complaint relies on the same authority at issue in the Supreme Court decision, section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The FTC also can sue companies in its in-house administrative court but chose to file the Facebook case in federal court where a group of states also sued the company., Facebook filed a motion in March to dismiss the lawsuit. The judge overseeing the case, James Boasberg, hasn’t ruled on the request., The case is FTC v. Facebook, 20-cv-03590, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington)., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: David McLaughlin. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 11:36 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Pandemic Reopenings Match Group Dating Recovery [/INST] Technology news. Title: Match Group Rises as Pandemic Reopenings Drive Dating Recovery. Short_description: Match Group Revenue Beats Estimates, Delivers Positive Outlook. Description: Match Group Inc. shares rose after the company reported a better-than expected forecast for revenue growth in the current period, driven by strong demand in markets emerging from Covid-19 restrictions and higher vaccination rates., The Dallas-based owner of Tinder and other dating apps said it expects second-quarter revenue of $680 million to $690 million. That’s higher than the average analyst estimate of $678.6 million. Match forecast adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $255 million to $260 million as it continues to spend more on sales and marketing. Analysts had expected $267.3 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg., “Exiting the first quarter we are seeing improving trends across the portfolio,” Chief Executive Officer Shar Dubey said in a letter to shareholders accompanying quarterly earnings. “We are pleased with the way 2021 has begun and are optimistic that the rest of the year will continue this momentum.”, Match shares gained as much as 10% in New York Wednesday and were up about 6% at 10:51 a.m. The stock has advanced about 40% since July 2020, when the company completed its spinoff from IAC/InterActiveCorp., Match commands a majority of the dating-app market share in the U.S. as the parent company of Hinge, OkCupid and Match.com. As cities and businesses begin reopening and in-person socializing returns, dating apps are vying to keep users interested. Tinder , George Felix as chief marketing officer in April as part of an effort to attract new, younger users to maintain growth., “People have been cooped up and we’re seeing a path for them to get back out there,” said Chief Financial Officer, Gary Swidler on a call with analysts. Swidler added the company will spend an additional $40 million on sales and marketing compared with last year to capture more users amid the post-pandemic momentum., The company also announced Joey Levin will resign as executive chairman effective May 31, citing time constraints relating to outside business activities. Board member Thomas McInerney will replace Levin in that role., Revenue in the three months ended March 31 rose 23% from a year earlier to $668 million, surpassing the average analyst estimate of $650.8 million. The company reported earnings per share of 57 cents, well ahead of Wall Street’s expected 40 cents., The company reported a seasonal spike in first-time subscribers at the beginning of the year that the business has been able to maintain. Revenue growth was driven by Tinder -- Match’s biggest contributor -- which accelerated direct revenue by 18% while non-Tinder brands grew 30% during the quarter., “While we are clearly not out of the woods, we are increasingly optimistic about our business momentum,” Dubey said., Subscriptions in international markets and North America grew by 15% and 9%, respectively, in the first quarter. Though reopenings in the U.S. have boosted performance across brands, Match , worsening Covid-19 trends in India, Brazil, Japan and certain European markets means a post-pandemic recovery will “take some time to play out.”, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Jacqueline Davalos. Date Created: 05 May 2021, 1:48 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Tech Giants Finance arm China Reins Ant [/INST] Technology news. Title: China Reins In Tech Giants’ Finance Arms After Hobbling Ant. Short_description: China Orders Tencent, ByteDance to Rectify Financial Operations. Description: Chinese regulators imposed wide-ranging restrictions on the fast-growing financial divisions of 13 companies including Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd., leveling many of the same curbs employed against Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co. in a crackdown on the tech sector., Units of JD.com Inc., Meituan and Didi Chuxing were also among firms summoned to a meeting with several watchdogs including the central bank, which spelled out a raft of requirements including stricter compliance when listing abroad and curbs on information monopolies and the gathering of personal data. Companies must restructure their financial wings into holding companies as part of a broad effort to subject themselves to more rigorous supervision, and sever “improper links” between their existing payments services and financial products, according to a joint statement Thursday from the central bank, banking and insurance regulator, securities watchdog and the forex overseer., Shares in Tencent, Meituan and JD fell between 1% and 3% early Friday in Hong Kong. Representatives for Tencent, ByteDance, JD, Meituan and Didi didn’t respond to requests for comment., China has waged a campaign to rein in its internet titans as the government grew increasingly concerned over their growing influence over every aspect of Chinese life as well as the vast amounts of data they’ve amassed through providing services like online shopping, chatting and ride-hailing. The crackdown has already forced Ma’s Ant to scrap its initial public offering while regulators have levied a record fine against affiliate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., “Nobody can escape the tough regulatory crackdown on fintech,” said , , a Beijing-based analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “While the requirements are broadly in line with those imposed on Ant, those who are considering listing need to wait till they rectify all the problems.”, Analysts Cautious After Beijing Summons Tech Titans: Street Wrap, It’s unclear how long the companies have to enact changes, or how it would affect their core operations. Companies like Meituan, JD and Tencent rely on their payments operations to drive their core operations in e-commerce, gaming and social media. Some, like , and , , are said to be exploring overseas initial public offerings and the new regulations may impose a stricter oversight of the process., The firms were also ordered to break up their information monopoly and to conduct personal credit reporting services through licensed agencies. They should strengthen their capital structure and compliance, strictly implement regulatory requirements and step up consumer protection mechanisms, according to the statement. Baidu Inc., Trip.com Group Ltd. and Lufax Holding Ltd. were among others summoned to the meeting., Read more: , “Good days have gone,” wrote Shujin Chen, an analyst with Jefferies. “We reiterate that China has shifted from encouraging personal consumption lending to curbing rapid increases in residential leverage.”, The changes will likely hit profits and growth on several fronts, the analyst wrote. They’ll have to set up holding companies, which will require more capital; their payment and shopping apps will have to cut links with other financial products; and fintech firms will find it more difficult to get listed, including overseas and secondary listings., “Regulators will keep close communication with platforms and check on their rectification progress at an appropriate time,” the watchdog agencies said in their statement. “Those failing to rectify as requested or defying rules will face severe punishment.”, Regulators have pledged to curb the “reckless push” of technology firms into finance and this month outlined an overhaul of Ant, which will drastically revamp its business and be supervised more like a bank. The overhaul meant Ant will have to cut off any improper linking of payments with other financial products including its Jiebei and Huabei lending services., Ant said it will fold those units into its consumer finance arm, apply for a license for personal credit reporting, and improve consumer data protection., Read more: , Earlier this year, China proposed measures to curb market concentration in online payments, which Ant and Tencent have transformed with their ubiquitous mobile apps that are used by a combined 1 billion people. The central bank said in draft rules that any non-bank payment company with half of the market in online transactions or two entities with a combined two-thirds share could be subject to antitrust probes., If a monopoly is confirmed, the central bank can suggest that the cabinet impose restrictive measures including breaking up the entity by its business type., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Bloomberg News. Date Created: 29 Apr 2021, 5:28 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Gas Force Majeures Texas Blackouts Vistra [/INST] Technology news. Title: Vistra Says 70% of Gas Force Majeures Preceded Texas Blackouts. Short_description: Vistra Says 70% of Gas Force Majeures Preceded Texas Blackouts. Description: Vistra Corp. pushed back on the widespread narrative that power outages fueled natural-gas supply disruptions during the Texas energy crisis, saying that most of their suppliers cut off deliveries before blackouts even began., About 70% of force majeure claims Vistra received from gas providers occurred before Texas’s grid operator began ordering power outages on Feb. 15, Chief Executive Officer Curt Morgan said during a conference call with analysts Monday. He added that some suppliers voluntarily curtailed electricity consumption during the storm and resold that power so they could capitalize on elevated prices., The company’s claims run counter to those of Texas’s top energy regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission, whose chair , in February that two-thirds of gas curtailments were caused by the blackouts. The gas industry has largely escaped scrutiny from state leaders working to uncover the root causes of the catastrophe, even as some suppliers reaped unprecedented profits from the event. Kinder Morgan Inc. last week reported a , ., Meanwhile, power providers have incurred huge losses related to the crisis. Vistra on Monday raised its estimated losses to $1.6 billion from $1.3 billion. The biggest driver was sky-high natural gas costs after suppliers reneged on deliveries, the company said in a statement., Vistra fell as much as 4.9% and has lost 20% of its market value since the February storm., “What is frustrating is that a confluence of events during the storm changed our risk position without any ability to defend against these events,” Morgan said during the call., Vistra reiterated its estimate for full-year 2021 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of $1.457 billion to $1.875 billion., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Naureen S Malik. Date Created: 26 Apr 2021, 11:31 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Blue Octagon Amazon Copies Ring ADT brazen [/INST] Technology news. Title: ADT Sues Amazon’s Ring Over ‘Brazen’ Copies of Blue Octagon. Short_description: ADT Sues Amazon’s Ring Over ‘Brazen’ Copies of Blue Octagon Sign. Description: ADT Inc., the largest home-security company in the U.S., filed a lawsuit accusing Amazon.com Inc.’s Ring service of copying its trademarked blue octagon symbol “to tout a reputation for trust to potential customers that it has not earned.”, ADT said it’s been using the blue octagon in lawn signs and window stickers for decades, and that they are displayed by some 6.5 million customers as a sort of “keep out” warning to burglars. The company wants a federal judge in Florida to order Ring to cease using what it says are look-alike signs, and pay unspecified cash compensation., Amazon had worked with ADT in the past but the Boca Raton-based company is now , with Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Google bought a $450 million stake in ADT last year to get its Nest smart-home products in front of new customers., The companies are vying for a greater share of the growing market for connected-home security. ADT is the leader of the $18 billion U.S. residential monitoring market, though its dominance is being challenged by new entrants, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eshan Toorabally. One in five U.S. single-family homes are professionally monitored., The competition in the smart-home market has led to an increase in litigation over things like thermostats and water monitoring. Vivint Inc., a rival maker of home security, filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against ADT in February over security inventions., The latest suit came after years of friction between ADT, which, according to its website, began with “a telegraph-based ‘call-box’ in 1874,” and Ring, which was founded in 2013., In a 2016 agreement, Ring pledged that it wouldn’t use any trademarks that would be confusingly similar to ADT and yet began using a lighted yard sign in a blue octagon, according to the complaint filed in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida. After ADT told Ring to stop copying the blue octagon, Ring changed the coloring to remove most of the blue but kept the eight-sided logo., Then, in a “brazen move” in late March, Ring began using a solid blue octagon to promote its Ring Alarm Outdoor Siren, according to the complaint., “Ring believes that when the public sees a solid blue octagon on a home, they will think of ADT,” the lawsuit contends. Ring is using the blue octagon “under the assumption that people will believe that Ring is providing a security service on part with ADT – or, worse, that Ring is providing its security service in partnership with ADT.”, ADT said it owns 12 registered trademarks, including ones from the 1990s, for the shape, color and look of the signs, and has “invested substantial resources and promoting its security offerings under the blue octagon mark.” In addition to trademark-infringement, ADT accused Ring of unfair competition and diluting the value of the ADT trademarks., “Great brands like ADT don’t become universally recognized overnight,” said ADT’s lawyer, Trent Webb of Shook, Hardy & Bacon in Kansas City, Missouri., Representatives of Amazon and Ring didn’t respond to requests for comment., In 2017, ADT filed a lawsuit accusing Ring of stealing trade secrets by obtaining an unauthorized copy of source code and documentation for a home security and automation platform. The companies settled early 2018, around the same time Amazon , Ring for $839 million., The case is ADT LLC v Ring LLC, 21-80762, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (West Palm Beach)., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Susan Decker. Date Created: 27 Apr 2021, 7:07 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to User Growth analyst sale estimate Snap [/INST] Technology news. Title: Snap Rises After Sales, User Growth Top Analysts’ Estimates. Short_description: Snap Reports Sales, User Growth That Top Analysts’ Projections. Description: Snap Inc. reported quarterly revenue and daily active users that topped analysts’ estimates, boosted by digital advertising campaigns and consumers turning to the company’s Snapchat app for social connection and entertainment during the pandemic. Shares gained about 5% in extended trading., Sales jumped 66% to $770 million in the period ended March 31, the Santa Monica, California-based social media company said Thursday in a statement. Analysts, on average, projected $744 million. Snapchat, the mobile app for sending disappearing photos and videos, reported 280 million daily active users in the quarter, a 22% gain from a year earlier, and higher than the 275.4 million average projection of analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg., The results are likely to bolster Snapchat’s argument that its investments in augmented reality, new advertiser tools, supporting high-quality creators and recruiting users outside North America will , to revenue growth of more than 50% for several years., “When you parse though the results it was a very good” first quarter, Mandeep Singh, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said in an interview. Still, “I think they are spending more on on the content side. They are basically buying some content to engage their daily active users.”, Last November, Snap launched Spotlight, a tool to promote popular videos. The company said it will , $1 million a day to creators of the top-performing posts as part of the program., Nazmul Islam, an analyst at EMarketer, said Spotlight had 125 million users, which helped increase engagement and attracted advertisers., “We anticipate that Snap will have another good performance in Q2 riding the momentum of their innovative products, which they are continuing to release in more countries,” Islam said., Snap Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said more people made new friends, used Snapchat’s mapping tool and posted stories, which are ephemeral videos and photos, as the economy started to open up in the first months of the year., “We designed Snapchat to be a useful complement to real-life friendships, and are excited about these optimistic trends developing with our audience,” Spiegel said., Snap shares closed at $57.05 in New York. The stock has gained 14% this year after tripling in 2020., The company projected revenue in the current quarter of $820 million to $840 million compared with analysts’ average estimate of $823.9 million. Snap said daily active users will increase 22% year-over-year to reach 290 million in the period., Second-quarter Ebitda, a measure of profitability, will be from break even to a loss of $20 million. Analysts projected a loss of $1.3 million., Long-term, the company is betting that augmented reality will continue to drive more user engagement as they play with a diversifying array of lenses, or animated overlays on photos and videos. As the e-commerce market boomed during the pandemic, more advertisers experimented with augmented-reality shopping experiences, such as features that allow Snapchat users to try on beauty products, according to the company., The number of Snapchat users engaging daily with augmented reality lenses grew more than 40% year-over-year in the first quarter, the company said., “During the pandemic advertisers accelerated their adoption of our augmented-reality products to enable product sampling and try-on when they were forced to find alternatives to traditional methods,” Chief Business Officer Jeremi Gorman said in prepared remarks., Snapchat said it’s uncertain how an upcoming software , to Apple’s iPhones could affect its momentum. The update will include a requirement that developers get explicit permission to collect certain data and track users’ activity across apps and websites., “It is not clear yet what the longer term impact of the iOS platform changes may be for the topline momentum of our business, and this may not be clear until several months or more after the changes are implemented,” Chief Financial Officer Derek Andersen said in prepared remarks., “Until then, we remain focused on helping our partners navigate these changes while optimizing return on ad spend across our advertising products and platform,” Andersen said., The company said, however, that for the first time the majority of its Snapchat users were running the app on smartphones with the Android operating system., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Naomi Nix. Date Created: 23 Apr 2021, 1:52 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to JPMorgan Joins Temasek Blockchain Payments platform DBS [/INST] Technology news. Title: JPMorgan Joins Temasek, DBS in Blockchain Payments Platform. Short_description: JPMorgan is teaming up with Temasek and DBS Group to create a new blockchain-based platform for payments.. Description: JPMorgan Chase & Co. is teaming up with Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte. and DBS Group Holdings Ltd. to create a new blockchain-based platform for payments, trade and foreign exchange settlement., The company, which will be named Partior, will leverage blockchain technology and digitize M1 commercial bank money, with the aim of reducing current frictions and latency for cross-border payments, trade and currency settlements, the firms said in a statement Wednesday., Partior, which means “to distribute and share” in Latin, is also expected to develop wholesale payment rails based on digitized commercial bank money to enable “atomic” -- or instantaneous -- settlement of payments for various types of financial transactions, according to the statement. That would help banks overcome challenges presented by the current standard sequential method of processing global payments., “The launch of Partior is a global watershed moment for digital currencies, marking a move from pilots and experimentations toward commercialization and live adoption,” said Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, in the statement., Partior will target some of the most promising use cases for blockchain technology. Processes like cross-border payments can often be slow and cumbersome even in the digital era, so there’s plenty of room for improvement., Partior will focus initially on facilitating flows primarily between Singapore-based banks in both U.S. dollars and Singapore dollars, with the intent to expand service offerings to other markets and currencies. It will engage banks to join the platform to establish the scale required to benefit the industry. Partior’s platform will also be designed to complement ongoing central bank digital currencies initiatives and use cases., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Joanna Ossinger. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 10:46 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Steve Jobs Rival Hard Times Remarkable Comeback [/INST] Technology news. Title: A Steve Jobs Rival Who Hit Hard Times Makes Remarkable Comeback. Short_description: Wong Hoo had also gone to war with Apple’s Jobs over their portable music players.. Description: (Bloomberg) -- On Oct. 11, 2011, as tributes to Steve Jobs continued to pour in across the world, one man took out a $16,000 full-page newspaper ad in Singapore to pay his respects to the Apple Inc. co-founder who had passed away. It said:, “Thank you for the great lessons. , Thank you for the great products. , Thank you for bringing a bit of us to the whole world.’’, It was signed: “Sim Wong Hoo, Chairman & CEO, Creative Technology Ltd.’’, It was intriguing to many who picked up the paper that morning. Sim had been a household name in Singapore for his Sound Blaster cards that brought audio to more than 400 million personal computers. He had also gone to war with Jobs over their portable music players. As hostility escalated in 2006, he sued Apple for patent infringements over the iPod. Negotiations with Jobs were tense, Sim recalls, and his American adversary did most of the talking. In the end, Sim walked away with a $100 million settlement. “Creative is very fortunate to have been granted this early patent,’’ Jobs said in a statement at the time., Since then, the fortunes of the two companies have diverged dramatically. As the iPod became part of a remarkable , , it killed Sim’s MP3 player, which was created in 1999, two years before Apple’s device. It also marked the beginning of Creative’s downfall. Shares traded on the Singapore exchange fell from a record of S$64 ($47) in March 2000 to hover around S$1 in 2017. The company voluntarily delisted its shares from the Nasdaq stock exchange in 2007., Now, after many years and more than $100 million of investment, Sim is finally back -- with a new piece of audio technology called the Super X-Fi that he thinks will be a game changer., The technology, which is available in headphones or as a headphone amplifier, makes sound appear like it’s coming from multiple speakers placed at a distance around the listener, rather than from the headphone itself. Creative calls it “holographic audio.”, Users take a picture of their face and ear shape on the Super X-Fi app to create a tailored listening experience. Creative researched how thousands of different people perceived sound -- by, among other things, putting microphones in the subjects’ ears in a studio -- and fed the results into an artificial intelligence engine that then predicts how others will hear sounds., Creative’s SXFI AMP , amplifier is sold at $150 and the SXFI AIR Bluetooth headphones retail at $160., “I have never been so excited in my life,’’ Sim, now 63, said in an interview. “I’m literally breathless, evangelizing what we have.’’, Shares of the company rose sevenfold in seven days from Feb. 22 to March 5, boosted by news that Super X-Fi technology won the Best of CES Award 2018 in Las Vegas and positive analyst reports. The stock has since given up some of those gains, but the company’s market value has stabilized at about S$365 million, up from about S$80 million in 2017., “It could be the next big thing,’’ said Justin Tang, head of Asian research at United First Partners, which specializes in event-driven research. The company can explore licensing opportunities with phone makers, gaming companies and even carmakers in order to monetize it, he said., Marc Tan, an analyst at KGI Securities in Singapore, said that while 3D audio is a “huge untapped market,’’ Sim has many competitors, including Samsung Electronics Co.’s Harman. “Creative will need to build up a large user base quickly in order to establish itself as the market leader,’’ he said., Sim said he’s targeting 50 million Super X-Fi customers in two years, including free users. The company has struck partnerships, including with iVideoSmart, a Singapore-based video publishing platform with 75 million , ., Creative is exploring ways to increase usage and make money from its invention. Last month, it said it’s ready to work with original equipment manufacturers to incorporate its headphone technology into their products. “My goal is to have every headphone user enjoy Super X-Fi,’’ Sim said., Still, Super X-Fi products aren’t expected to contribute significantly to overall revenue in the current quarter ending March 31, the company said last week. The net loss for the three months ended December 31 widened to $4.9 million from $4.2 million a year ago. Shares tumbled 11 percent on Friday., Sim was born in Singapore in 1955, the same year Jobs was born in San Francisco. When Sim was about 10, he took his eldest brother’s harmonica and began learning to play it by himself. That led to to his lifelong passion for music. He attended Ngee Ann Polytechnic and earned an electrical and electronics engineering diploma in 1975. He never got a university degree., In 1981, Sim founded Creative Technology as a computer shop with his school friend Ng Kai Wa and $6,000. They did whatever it took to keep the business going -- computer classes, hardware repair and software development. Later, Creative began to build PC add-on boards, which included a graphics card that could display Chinese characters in 1982. In 1986, the company developed the world’s first multimedia, multilingual computer, the Cubic CT. Its audio interface led to the development of the Sound Blaster., Creative debuted Sound Blasters at a computer trade show in Las Vegas in November 1989. Sim still recalls vividly the moment Michael Jackson, while on a tour of the exhibition, walked into his booth because it was the only one buzzing with sound. (In those days, PCs were quiet.) Fascinated to hear audio coming out of a PC, the King of Pop stayed for half an hour. “It was a good omen,’’ Sim said., In 1992, Creative became the first Singaporean company to list shares on Nasdaq. It applied for a dual listing in Singapore two years later. The Singapore initial public offering was oversubscribed and the shares surged as much as 16 percent on their debut. By 2000, Sim was Singapore’s youngest billionaire. Creative dominated the PC audio market until the 2000s before it lost ground to OEM PCs that were built with integrated sound cards., In the following decade, Creative’s business couldn’t keep pace with giants like Apple. Sim mostly dropped out of public view. “During the darkest period of Creative, I became enlightened. I decided that nothing is ever going to hurt me,” he said. “Ever since, I thrive on adversities.” He started running regularly since 2007, a habit that he says has made him fitter, helped him focus and overcome mental blocks., Sim remained a bachelor all his life, and advises aspiring young entrepreneurs to steer clear of commitments like marriage and mortgages if they want to build a serious business. He’s not against marriage, he says, but it’s a distraction and the financial burden would make it harder to take risks., “We rarely see entrepreneurs like Sim who have the tenacity and determination to stay with their ideas against all odds,’’ said Chua Kee Lock, managing partner at Vertex Ventures, an early investor in Creative Technology. “Can he pull off a comeback with the Super X-Fi? He has a decent chance.’’, ©2019 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Yoolim Lee &. Date Created: 20 Feb 2019, 9:30 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Sales Opportunity Browser Cookie Death Adobe [/INST] Technology news. Title: Adobe Sees Sales Opportunity in the Death of the Browser Cookie. Short_description: Adobe Sees Sales Opportunity in the Death of the Browser Cookie. Description: Adobe Inc. unveiled updated software to help brands target customers with advertising and offers, replacing third-party cookies that are being eliminated in the name of consumer privacy after tracking users across the internet for more than two decades. , A new version of Adobe’s Real-time Customer Data Platform is designed to use brands’ own data, rather than insight from third-party cookies, which are already blocked by several web browsers and are soon to be nixed by Google Chrome. The Adobe product introduced Tuesday will let clients ask consumers for permission to use their information, said Amit Ahuja, vice president, experience cloud products and strategy. , The cookie has been the foundation of personalized web experiences since the mid-1990s when Netscape first started using the tracking technology in its browser, putting a little piece of data on a user’s computer while they were scanning the internet in order to remember them. Amid privacy regulations, ad-blocking software and the decision by browsers to get rid of them, cookies placed by third-parties that provide advertising and tracking services to websites and brands are disappearing. To reach customers and respect their privacy wishes, Adobe’s customers will have to look for new options, including using data they collect directly, Ahuja said., With the new Adobe software, consumers browsing on a site should expect that it will be much clearer how the site is using their data and why they are being shown certain personalized experiences, he said., “Your expectations for a brand understanding you and knowing you and giving you a personalized experience are really getting higher and at the same time, the counteracting balance is that consumers are correctly placing more value on their privacy,” he said. , Another factor in the demise of traditional tracking: companies that collect massive volumes of data in their own services — think Facebook or Google — have been less generous about what they’re sharing with others who want to use that data, said , , principal analyst at Forrester. , “It’s really forcing brands, and specifically chief marketing officers, to go back to the basics of marketing and advertising,” she said. “For a long time, marketers got real slap-happy with using cookie-based level data to personalize.” , Google is , cookies with another approach, called Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC, although it, too, is attracting ire from privacy advocates. Adobe said it’s examining Google’s system, although generally Adobe’s software integrates with all major platforms and services that customers want to use. , More than half of the clients that Adobe surveyed aren’t using the full breadth of the data they collect to personalize their approach to customers — often they don’t know what they have and information is stored in disparate systems, Ahuja said. , The new Adobe software is being tested by clients such as FedEx Corp., T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. It will bring together all sorts of first-party data and events to get more complete insight on customers and will let the companies combine that data with information from apps and media websites that use browsers. Adobe’s Target software also uses machine learning to provide real-time predictions of what information or offer to show users next as they move through a brand’s website. , One new feature allows clients to find new customers who are similar to their existing best-known users. The software will also let brands share non-sensitive data with each other to better personalize what products they pitch — for example an apparel company can combine with a jewelry company, giving them data on what types of dresses a certain group of customers are buying so the second firm can suggest appropriate necklaces or earrings. , Using these kinds of technologies in combination will be more complex than just signing up to buy information gleaned from third-party cookies, Moffett said, but it’s good for user privacy and brands don’t have much choice. , “The future of data-driven marketing is going to be more fragmented,” she said. “But it’s better than using the third-party cookie.” , ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Dina Bass. Date Created: 27 Apr 2021, 5:30 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Launch Program Covid-19 shot employee apple [/INST] Technology news. Title: Apple to Launch Program for Employees to Get Covid-19 Shots. Short_description: Apple to Launch Program for Employees to Get Covid-19 Shots. Description: Apple Inc. is launching a program to help employees get vaccinated against Covid-19, according to people with knowledge of the matter., The company is working with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. to give workers the shots at Apple offices. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant is rolling out a website for staff to sign up for appointments. The company previously told staff that, as a private company, it didn’t have access to Covid-19 vaccines for staff members. However, vaccine availability in California has expanded considerably and all residents in the state are now eligible to receive shots., Apple previously , employees to get vaccines, offering sick leave for days missed when taking the shot and to recover from symptoms. This new voluntary program may encourage more staff members to return to Apple’s offices in the coming months. Still, the company has not yet asked employees to return, nor is an imminent return required for signing up for a shot through the program, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing private matters. An Apple spokeswoman confirmed the initiative. , Apple isn’t the first major corporation to help employees get shots. Amazon.com Inc. has been vaccinating frontline workers. Other technology giants like Facebook Inc. and Google have been supporting vaccine distribution for the general public, especially in underserved communities. Apple recently added a button in its Maps app to help users find vaccination centers. , Unlike some rivals, Apple hasn’t publicly said when employees will be expected to return to offices, but Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has told staff he anticipates a larger number of employees will start , in June., “There’s no replacement for face-to-face collaboration, but we have also learned a great deal about how we can get our work done outside of the office without sacrificing productivity or results,” he told staff last year. Apple has had some mission-critical staff working in the office since the beginning of the pandemic. Some engineers have also been back for months working for a limited number of hours per week., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Mark Gurman. Date Created: 23 Apr 2021, 11:20 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Hong Kong Firm result day dozen AWOL [/INST] Technology news. Title: 28 Days Later: Dozens of Hong Kong Firm Results Are Still AWOL. Short_description: Reporting Deadline Looms for Scores of Hong Kong-Listed Firms. Description: The clock is ticking for scores of Hong Kong-listed companies that could miss a deadline to post their 2020 earnings reports in coming days., Mainland solar power maker GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. and Hainan Meilan International Airport Co., which operates an airport in China’s southernmost Hainan province, are among the more-than-40 Hong Kong-listed companies that are just days away from missing final deadlines to report their 2020 results., These companies have a combined market value of HK$146.8 billion ($18.9 billion), although most of them, apart from GCL and embattled state-owned debt-clearing agency China Huarong Asset Management Co Ltd., are small-caps., If they fail to meet the April 30 deadline, several of these 44 companies risk losing index membership status, according to analysts., Huarong is a member of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index as well as the Hang Seng Composite Index, which also includes GCL and Asia Cement China Holdings Corp., At the very least, these late-to-report Chinese companies will raise investor concerns about their financial health. They are already part of a slew suspended when they missed an earlier March 31 deadline for preliminary earnings., “Of course, investors in these stocks are worried about their financial situation,” said Louis Tse, Hong Kong-based managing director at VC Asset Management Ltd. “It’s difficult for their auditors to get enough information to form an opinion,” he added, saying the pandemic made it tough for auditors to travel and verify information in person, for instance., Unpaid debt or weak corporate governance could also be blamed for delayed audit reports, he said., Of the more, that missed the March 31 deadline for preliminary reporting, just seven have ended up releasing reports. Among them, mobile technology firm China Baoli Technologies Holdings Ltd. has halved since it resumed trading, while computer hardware firm Jiangsu Nandasoft Technology Co is down 24%., GCL-Poly Energy, Hainan Meilan International Airport and Asia Cement were suspended from trading on April 1, the day they disclosed in filings to the stock exchange that their auditors needed more time to sign off on results. The firms did not respond to Bloomberg emails and calls seeking comment on their plans to release earnings., China Huarong, which recently faced a , , said on , its 2020 earnings results would be delayed past April 30, because its auditors needed more time to finalize an unspecified transaction before it can publish its earnings., In each of the past four years, no more than 10 companies have delayed their annual earnings reports. Numbers were small for delays even last year, when the pandemic disrupted business activities and in 2019 -- a year of , in Hong Kong., Long-term trading suspensions by companies that fail to report their earnings on time have exposed problematic companies in the past. China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd., once one of the nation’s biggest juice companies, had been suspended from trading from April 2018 after it failed to submit its 2017 results on time. The company was delisted in January this year., Kenny Wen, strategist at Everbright Sun Hung Kai Co., said there is a risk that some index compilers might review and remove shares that have been suspended for too long., “If index compilers remove stocks like Huarong from their indexes when these companies are suspended, there could be selling pressure when they resume trading,” Wen said., The Hong Kong stock exchange delists companies that have been suspended from trading for 18 months, although the firm can appeal in that period and actual delistings tend to be rare., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Jeanny Yu. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 7:32 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Epic Expert App Store margin Apple [/INST] Technology news. Title: Apple’s App Store Had 78% Margin in 2019, Epic Expert Says. Short_description: Apple Inc.’s App Store had operating margins of almost 78% in fiscal year 2019, according to testimony. Description: Apple Inc.’s App Store had operating margins of almost 78% in fiscal year 2019, according to testimony from an Epic Games Inc. expert witness based on documents obtained from the iPhone maker., The figure comes from Ned Barnes, a financial and economics researcher, who said he obtained documents “prepared by Apple’s Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis group and produced from the files of Apple CEO Tim Cook.”, Apple is disputing the accuracy of Barnes’s calculations -- and urging a judge to restrict public discussion of App Store profit -- as the companies head into a high-stakes trial Monday in Oakland, California., Epic, maker of the blockbuster game Fortnite, is trying to show that the App Store is run like a monopoly with its commission on developers of as much as 30%, while Apple insists it doesn’t abuse its market power., Epic is also suing Apple in the U.K. and Australia while Apple faces scrutiny from antitrust regulators in the U.S. and abroad., The companies are relying heavily on dueling economists as they make their case to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is conducting the three-week trial without a jury., As part of the pretrial information-sharing process, Barnes said that an Apple employee told him that the numbers from the company’s internal documents don’t show the full picture. Barnes said he then made additional calculations, which resulted in higher margin estimates of 79.6% for both 2018 and 2019. , In a statement Saturday, the Cupertino, California-based technology giant said Epic experts’ “calculations of the operating margins for the App Store are simply wrong and we look forward to refuting them in court.”, Barnes said he also obtained documents prepared inside Apple that show profit and loss estimates for fiscal year 2020. He said Apple had been tracking App Store profits for years and that he also obtained such statements for 2013 through 2015., Apple generates revenue from the App Store by charging either a 15% or 30% commission to developers for paid app downloads, in-app-purchases and subscriptions., Read more: , Analysts believe that Apple’s margins on the App Store may have grown since 2019. Sensor Tower estimates the App Store generated $22 billion in commissions last year for Apple, while Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi believes Apple will run the App Store this year with a gross profit of 88%., Apple executives have said the company doesn’t track such profit and loss statements for individual business units., “When we look at the App Store, it’s not a separate standalone business for us,” Kyle Andeer, Apple’s chief compliance officer, said at a congressional hearing last month. “It’s an integrated feature of our devices.”, Cook said the same in his pretrial testimony. “Apple’s business is not structured that way that allows a person to push a button and obtain an App Store” profit and loss statement, he said., Apple says it doesn’t allocate costs for the App Store, and that internal documents discussing revenue for the marketplace typically don’t include expenses. That means, according to the company, any margins or profits don’t show the entire picture., In an expert witness testimony on behalf of Apple, Richard Schmalensee, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics expert, said that Barnes’s “estimate of the App Store’s operating margin is unreliable because it looks in isolation at one segment of the iOS ecosystem in a way that artificially boosts the apparent operating margin of that segment.” He added that “any accounting measure of the App Store’s stand-alone profitability is also arbitrary and thus unreliable as an indicator of anything.”, In a request to the judge to bar Epic from referring to App Store financial data in open court, Apple said the information may “unduly confuse the securities markets and participants in those markets, including the many pension funds, mutual funds, and other ordinary investors who own Apple stock.”, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Mark Gurman. Date Created: 01 May 2021, 10:12 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Dassault Rafale DeQoded Expert view Aircraft offer [/INST] Technology news. Title: Dassault Rafale DeQoded: Expert View on What the Aircraft Offers. Short_description: Read an expert view on how the Dassault Rafale adds value to India’s air power. . Description: The ‘mother of all deals’ seems to be coming full circle – only that the circle has been drawn with an unsteady hand. After a well publicised, absolutely professionally executed evaluation of six top fighter aircraft of the world, the IAF shortlisted the Eurofighter and Rafale to meet its operational requirements of a Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA); in the event, the Rafale was declared a winner in 2012 due to its lower commercial quote., The past three years have seen torturous negotiations reaching a logjam – as Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar stated in an interview to Doordarshan on 13 April – forcing the government to go the Government to Government (G2G) route for the Rafale., In a way though, the action has just begun as the negotiations on this new route are not going to be any easier. The aircraft will come in cheaper due to the fact that there would be no transfer of technology involved and that the HAL workforce is costlier due to its inefficiency. They would also be delivered within an earlier time frame as the Marcel Dassault facilities are up and running in France., So, what is this aircraft that has raised so much heat and dust in the past few years? It is worth taking a look at the Rafale’s operational specifics – in simple non-technical terms., The Rafale has been evaluated by a crack flight testing team from the IAF’s Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment – there is no one better than them in the business. Our countrymen and women can rest assured that the tax payer’s money would be well spent on an aircraft that meets the needs of the nation.. Publisher: Manmohan Bahadur. Date Created: 14 Apr 2015, 6:45 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to New Galaxy S10 iPhone XS Max Samsung [/INST] Technology news. Title: How Samsung’s New Galaxy S10 Compares to the iPhone XS Max. Short_description: We break down some of the most significant ways Samsung and Apple are differentiating their competing phones.. Description: (Bloomberg) -- The Samsung Galaxy S10 is actually four separate phones: the S10e (the “e” stands for “essential,”) the S10, the S10+, and the S10 5G. The first three go on sale in March, and the S10+ is the flagship of the trio. , Having a family of three devices has become a trend, and in many ways the S10e, S10, and S10+ are Samsung’s answers to , respectively. Despite the similar naming convention (Galaxy “S ten” versus iPhone “ten S” ), there are some significant differences between how the two flagships compete for consumers’ wallets. , We’ll break down some of the most significant ways Samsung and Apple are differentiating their competing phones., Great pictures are essential for any top-end phone. Samsung has equipped the S10+ with three rear-facing cameras—one for close-ups, one for standard shots, and an ultra-wide one for expansive scenes. The iPhone has two lenses, however, which on paper seems to put it at a disadvantage. The truth is that lenses alone don’t determine the quality of the picture, and Apple has always preferred a “quality before quantity” approach to features, but having three lenses to play with instead of two should win over creatives for the sheer versatility., The S10+ has a massive 6.4-inch screen, but the iPhone XS Max’s is slightly bigger at 6.5 inches. However, the industry standard “notch” atop the iPhone’s display is not something Samsung adopted. Instead, the S10+ has an unusual “hole punch” design for its front-facing cameras. This gives the display an asymmetrical profile, but it also increases the usable space., One of the reasons Apple includes a larger notch in its design is because it houses advanced facial-recognition features for keeping its devices secure; the FaceID technology requires multiple sensors to function, and currently that means it needs to eat into more of the display., Samsung hasn’t ignored security, though—it’s baked a fingerprint reader underneath the screen itself. It uses ultrasound to detect the gaps between the ridges on a user’s finger, which Samsung said makes it more secure than a traditional sensor., The trade-off is clear: you’re happy using fingerprints if it means you get more screen real estate, or you’re content to forgo a few extra pixels in order to make your face your sole method of authentication. , The iPhone XS Max and Galaxy S10+ can both be charged wirelessly, but Samsung gave its phone a bonus perk: it can charge other products wirelessly, too. Theoretically you could charge your colleague’s iPhone by placing it on top of your S10+, but Samsung said it sees the feature mostly being used to charge accessories like headphones and smartwatches., Samsung also takes the crown for offering the most storage for digital media. The S10+ comes with up to a terabyte of internal capacity, which is double the 512GB maximum offered by the iPhone XS Max. But the S10+ also supports microSD cards up to 512GB in capacity as well, meaning it’s possible to have triple the space compared to Apple’s flagship. (In fact, that 1.5TB total is higher than all but the most expensive of Apple’s MacBook Pro laptops.), Until the phone gets released for review it’s impossible to say how well the S10+ will perform compared to the iPhone. Apple’s device uses its own A12 Bionic chip, which has six processing cores, while Samsung uses an eight-core processor. But historically Apple’s custom-designed silicon, its integration with the iOS software it powers, together with the rest of the hardware in the phone, has given it the edge over competitors whose numbers, on paper, appear greater. What’s safe to say is that both phones should handle anything realistically thrown at them., These phones are among the most expensive flagships either has made within their categories, and on paper they’re undeniably the pinnacle of each company’s design prowess. Buying either is to buy one of the best phones on the planet., As for the customer on the fence over whether to defect from one manufacturer to another, it’ll be a trade-off between display notch versus display hole punch, advanced facial recognition versus fingerprint reader, and tight hardware-software integration versus expandability. And iOS versus Android, of course—the ecosystem of apps and subscription services are playing an increasing part in keeping customers loyal., Consumers looking to buy a significantly different type of phone could look to , , which can work as a 4.6-inch handset or, when unfolded, a 7.3-inch tablet., ©2019 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Nate Lanxon. Date Created: 21 Feb 2019, 1:00 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to dirty Polluters ESG Rally Leg Green [/INST] Technology news. Title: Dirty Polluters Going Green Could Lead Next Leg of ESG Rally. Short_description: Dirty Polluters Going Green Could Lead Next Leg of ESG Rally. Description: Polluters trying to go green have been tipped by analysts and fund managers as the next companies that could attract billions of dollars worth of ESG inflows., Bank of America believes the best prospects include reforming firms that are currently high carbon-dioxide emitters in the energy, metals and mining industries. Newton Investment Management favors companies looking to dispose of coal assets and switch to sustainable energy., The Biden administration’s commitment to the environment and the European Union’s , are spurring demand for more responsible investing as the world recovers from the Covid pandemic. About 86% of investors say climate change will be at the center of their policy or a major factor in the next two years, up from 33% two years ago, a Robeco survey has found., The surge in ESG assets in the past year has pushed valuations into the , . The MSCI World ESG Leaders Index, which tracks more than 700 stocks screened for high environmental, social and governance criteria, has jumped about 80% from its March 2020 low to a series of record highs. Its price-to-earnings ratio is , 30.4, from just 14 in March last year., The Bloomberg Barclays MSCI Global Green Bond Index, which is based on more than 600 ESG-compliant bonds, has jumped 11% in the past year, defying a selloff in global debt markets., “Over the last 12 months, market returns have been very, very compelling,” said Arian Neiron, managing director and head of Asia Pacific in Sydney at VanEck, which oversees $50 billion globally. “They’ve tapered off a bit with the technology complex and with the long end of the curve going off. We think it’s an entry point, particularly in clean energy. ESG is going to be standard.”, VanEck favors companies that offer home-energy solutions such as Enphase Energy Inc., wind-turbine manufacturers like Vestas Wind Systems A/S, and Verbund AG, a producer of hydropower. The money manager began a clean energy exchange-traded fund in Australia in March to take advantage of increasing demand., Bank of America also sees potential in firms moving toward climate improvement in the chemical, fertilizer and paint industries., Companies that have set near-term emission reduction targets are more appealing because they have an action plan and are undergoing change now, said Sameer Chopra, head of Asia ESG research at Bank of America in Sydney., Chopra said concerns about expensive valuations are premature. “Is it a bubble? No, not really. It seems like a lot because it’s come off a very small base, you are doing big numbers off a small base, but it’s very early and we think this is another decade of opportunity to grow.”, Other money managers are more wary following the run up in prices., “As ESG demand grows, investors may need to be more mindful of the potential clustering risk around the ESG trade,” said Guillaume Mascotto, head of ESG and investment stewardship at American Century Investments in New York. “While these ESG-friendly assets have significant potential in the longer term, we believe caution is warranted.”, The Newton Sustainable Global Equity Fund favors companies that have a clear plan to transition their businesses to accommodate the changing world, even if they are not necessarily at the vanguard of ESG., These may include utilities that are trying to get rid of coal assets and shift to renewables, as well as air-conditioning companies that are developing technologies to produce more efficient units, said Yuko Takano, who manages the fund in London., “We want to dig a little bit deeper into the less obvious areas where there is some element of technology innovation going that is not necessarily a focal area for most investors but we find to be quite interesting,” Takano said., The surge in ESG assets is not just moving stocks, it is also being , in fixed income., Issuance of so-called green bonds, which raise funds for projects that deliver environmental benefits, jumped to $111 billion in the first quarter, nearly three times a year earlier, according to Calvert Research and Management in Washington., “The pandemic has heightened the awareness of environmental, social and governance factors as drivers of social responsibility and impact, as well as financial performance -- turning 2020 into a pivotal year for responsible investing, especially in fixed income,” Brian S. Ellis, fixed-income portfolio manager and Henry Mason, ESG research associate, wrote in a note., In the first quarter, Calvert invested in a U.S. electric-power producer whose parent company is the first U.S. utility to commit to being carbon neutral by 2050. It also bought a holding in a semiconductor producer whose parent has become the first South Korean company to commit to transitioning to 100% renewable energy., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Andreea Papuc. Date Created: 05 May 2021, 6:29 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to EOH Founders Quit Board Shake Scrutiny Intensifies [/INST] Technology news. Title: EOH Founders Quit in Board Shake-Up as Scrutiny Intensifies. Short_description: EOH Founders Quit in Board Shake-Up as Scrutiny Intensifies. Description: (Bloomberg) -- EOH Holdings Ltd. said two of its founders resigned in a board shake-up as Chief Executive Officer Stephen van Coller races against time to restructure the South African technology firm and calm investors and lenders., The exodus, which saw four of EOH’s seven directors quit, comes on the day the members were up for re-election at the Johannesburg-based company’s annual general meeting. It also comes after an anonymous complaint prompted Microsoft Corp. to abruptly cancel a contract, causing the shares to plummet. , Chairman Asher Bohbot, the firm’s CEO for 19 years, will step down at the end of this month and remain on as an adviser until July 31, EOH said in a statement. The other departures include Rob Sporen, also a founding member of EOH, Tshilidzi Marwala, a non-executive director who has served on the board for 11 years, and Tebogo Maenetja, the human resources executive director, who will leave at the end of April., “EOH is refreshing the board,” spokeswoman Debbie Millar said by phone. “The board members that are leaving have been there for many years” and new directors will be appointed by the end of March., The stock slid as much as 11 percent before paring losses to trade 4.2 percent down by 9:28 a.m. local time Wednesday. That extends losses this year to 55 percent, the biggest slump in the 164-member South African all-share index., Van Coller, a former executive at Absa Group Ltd. and MTN Group Ltd., was brought in last year to turn the troubled business around. He plans to break the company into different parts, to ensure investors see the full value of EOH, that consists of more than 270 companies. , EOH said in July it would split the company into two independent units, with its information, communications and technology business operating under EOH and the new NEXTEC brand focusing on industries such as technology for renewable energy, health and water sanitation., The banker is aligning the firm closer to a code of good governance known as , , which recommends term limits for directors and that a former CEO shouldn’t serve as chairman until after a three-year cooling-off period. Bohbot returned as chairman when Sandile Zungu resigned after more than four years in the position in March last year., EOH shares have plunged since Microsoft ended its association with the South African company. Johannesburg’s TechCentral website reported that a whistle blower’s allegations about a South African government software deal were behind the U.S. software giant’s decision., ©2019 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Loni Prinsloo &. Date Created: 20 Feb 2019, 1:05 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Best Picture Oscar Rare Victory nomadland Disney [/INST] Technology news. Title: ‘Nomadland’ Wins Best Picture Oscar in a Rare Victory for Disney. Short_description: ‘Promising Young Woman,’ ‘Father’ Win Early Oscars. Description: “Nomadland,” a film about a grief-struck woman traveling through the American West, won the Academy Award for best picture, delivering a major victory for Walt Disney Co. and ending an almost 20-year drought for Hollywood’s biggest studio., , who made “Nomadland,” was crowned best director, becoming the first woman of color to win that award and contributing to an Oscars ceremony that was among the most inclusive in the academy’s history. The acting prizes also honored a diverse pool of talent -- including a Black man and an Asian woman -- six years after the #OscarsSoWhite movement used social media to cast a light on bias in Hollywood., While the broadening pool of winners was welcome, the Oscars faced challenges. The ceremony had to be pared down because of the coronavirus pandemic, which meant fewer than 200 people attended in person at Union Station in Los Angeles. It was delayed by about two months, and there were no blockbusters among the films competing for the top prizes. That suggests Sunday’s broadcast on ABC may be even smaller than last year’s record-low audience., This year’s ceremony was run without a host. But in opening remarks, actress-director Regina King touched on the losses from the pandemic, while paying tribute to Hollywood’s never-ending ability to entertain and distract., “Tonight we are here to celebrate,” she said. “This was indeed a hard year for everyone, but our love of movies helped to get us through. It made us , less isolated and connected us when we were apart.”, Though the past year was mostly marked by the rising popularity of streaming services, with theaters closed through much of 2020, traditional studios still picked up plenty of awards, including five for Disney. Frances McDormand, the star of “Nomadland,” picked up the prize for best actress, while Anthony Hopkins won the best actor award for “The Father,” a Sony film about a man battling dementia., Emerald Fennell won the best original screenplay award for “Promising Young Woman,” a Universal-Focus Features film about a woman seeking revenge for the rape of her friend. , won best supporting actor for his part in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” about the FBI’s attempts to infiltrate the Black Panthers. The film was distributed by Warner Bros. and debuted at the Sundance Film Festival., Still, streaming services held their own, with Netflix Inc. grabbing seven awards. For the first time, movies that debuted online were eligible to win Hollywood’s top honor. Netflix, which got a boost during the pandemic lockdown, had the most nominations and two chances to win best picture in “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “Mank.” It has never won a best picture award, despite repeated nominations., The streaming company did win for best documentary feature, picking up the award for the film “My Octopus Teacher,” and took home the prize for best animated short for “If Anything Happens I Love You.” It also won two prizes for “Mank,” including best production design and best cinematography., Disney has recently posed more of a challenge to Netflix, drawing in tens of millions of new users to Disney+, and the best picture award may give it another bump. The studio picked up “Nomadland” from Searchlight Pictures as part of its acquisition of 20th Century Fox. It last won best picture in 2003, when the musical “Chicago” won the prize., ABC, another Disney unit, won the night in a different way, by selling out ads for the evening’s ceremony. Despite weak viewership projections, a single ad went for about $2 million, one of the most expensive slots in TV. The network promoted the show heavily in a bid to narrow the viewer losses from last year’s record-low audience of about 24 million., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Kelly Gilblom. Date Created: 26 Apr 2021, 6:03 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Slower EV Uptake Emissions help VW Europe [/INST] Technology news. Title: VW Gets Emissions Help Due to Slower EV Uptake Outside Europe. Short_description: VW Gets Emissions Help Due to Slower EV Uptake Outside Europe. Description: Volkswagen AG has reached “minor” deals with other carmakers for help meeting emissions rules in China and the U.S., where its electric vehicles aren’t yet selling as quickly, its chief executive said., Speaking on an earnings call Thursday, VW’s Herbert Diess didn’t specifically address whether the German automaker has agreed to buy credits from Tesla Inc. to help meet environmental rules. Reuters , last month that VW’s joint venture with state-owned China FAW Group had formed a pact with Tesla, citing people briefed on the matter., “In Europe, we are confident that we will comply with the fleet targets,” Diess said. The credit-purchasing deals VW has for China and the U.S. “are declining with the ramp-up of our EV strategy, and they should come down to zero within the next two or three years.”, While VW has made more progress , on EVs than any other incumbent carmaker, its massive sales of combustion-engine cars complicate emissions-reduction efforts. The company also has been heavily reliant on Europe for its EV traction -- more than 70% of the battery-electric cars VW sold in the first quarter went to its home region., Diess’s comments suggest VW may make up for Tesla losing a key source of revenue from emissions credits that have been pivotal to the Model 3 maker’s recent run of quarterly profits. Stellantis NV, the automaker formed through the merger of PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler, , it is exiting a European emissions-credit agreement with Tesla because it expects to be able to comply with standards on its own., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Craig Trudell. Date Created: 06 May 2021, 2:50 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to cd Projekt Hot Stock cyberpunk Europe bad [/INST] Technology news. Title: How Cyberpunk Took CD Projekt From Hot Stock to Europe’s Worst. Short_description: This time last year, CD Projekt was among Europe’s hottest stocks. Fast forward 12 months, it’s is the region’s worst performer.. Description: This time last year, CD Projekt SA was among Europe’s hottest stocks, riding the wave of pandemic gaming demand and on the way to a record high ahead of the release of the studio’s much-anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 game., Fast forward 12 months, the stock is the region’s worst performer of 2021, down 63% from its August record, with the company facing questions about how it plans to fix problems with the botched release of the bug-ridden game., It’s those difficulties that will be in focus on Thursday when CD Projekt reports on a year that included the buildup, release and , of the beleaguered title. While preliminary data showed profit surging on initial sales of Cyberpunk, the main attention will be on any trading update for this year and comments on how the studio will address the catalog of glitches that turned a potential blockbuster into the cause of a share price meltdown., “There is still more risk than reward for CD Projekt’s holders, as without visible improvement of gamers’ ratings the studio won’t be able to provide strong sales for this year,” Ipopema Securities SA analyst Michal Wojciechowski said by phone. “While some traders may seek some tactical upside, we still don’t know whether the studio will be able to improve its key franchise fast, and the next games are scheduled far in the future.”, Starring Keanu Reeves, Cyberpunk 2077 is a complex futuristic role playing game that , to take the gaming world by storm when it was launched on Dec. 10. But it wasn’t long before players were reporting multiple glitches, causing negative reviews and triggering Sony Corp.’s unprecedented , to remove the title from its PlayStation store., A , at the end of last month failed to address concern over how the Polish company will effect a turnaround, showing only that Cyberpunk wasn’t yet ready for the full, player version that could restore its popularity. It also left questions unanswered over when CD Projekt will be ready with an updated version for next-generation consoles., Thursday’s results, expected after markets close, should shed more light on a 9% revenue miss, reported by the company in preliminary figures late last week. A key number for analysts will be how many copies of Cyberpunk were sold last year, and whether this contributed to the miss. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg is 14.5 million units, reflecting strong pre-orders that enabled CD Projekt to report quarterly net income on a scale comparable to its combined profit of the last five years., The profit increase may see the company sweeten the blow to shareholders of recent months by proposing a dividend, something it used to avoid. Estimates indicate a potential payout of 5 zloty a share, equal to a dividend yield of 2.7%., But that’s likely to be as good as it gets. Reflecting the current uncertainty, estimates for Cyberpunk sales in 2021 range widely from 4 million units to 17 million units, with the average projection being for a drop to 10.8 million copies. Those calculations depend on how quickly the game can be restored to the Sony PlayStation store and made available for next-generation platforms., “Any new data on how Cyberpunk is being sold this year would be helpful to get more clarity, as we all know that first-quarter sales are disappointing,” Wood & Co. analyst Maria Mickiewicz said by email., CD Projekt declined to comment ahead of the results., Analysts are mixed on the prospect of a recovery in the stock, with more recommending to sell than to buy, according to data compiled by Bloomberg., “It would take a serious positive movement in the unit sales for Cyberpunk 2077, and a return of engagement from current owners” for faith to be restored, said Matti Littunen, an analyst at Bernstein. “In other words, hard data proof that there’s major franchise value left.”, Here’s a look at the flashpoints in CD Projekt’s wild year:, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Konrad Krasuski. Date Created: 22 Apr 2021, 9:30 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Solar Energy Project Test Ground israeli farm [/INST] Technology news. Title: Israeli Farms Become Test Ground for Solar Energy Project. Short_description: Israeli Farms Become Test Ground for Solar Energy Project. Description: , Sun-kissed Israel is testing solar collectors in agricultural fields as part of its goal to produce 30% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030., Photo-voltaic panels will be erected in farmlands in the first project of its kind in land-poor and densely populated Israel, according to the Energy Ministry’s acting chief scientist, Gideon Friedmann. , “In a small country like Israel that is also an energy and food island, we need to be very efficient in our utilization of land,” said Yossi Abramowitz, one of the founders of Israel’s solar industry. “Agro-voltaic is very promising.”, Israel started harnessing solar energy almost 70 years ago with panels that warm water, yet it has been slow to move to solar-generated electricity. It’s been hindered in part by a lack of energy storage technology, and by technical adjustments it must make to its existing power infrastructure., The agro-voltaic solution mitigates some of the issues by bringing the power generation closer to population centers. Crops also benefit because the collectors can be adjusted to optimize the plants’ needs., The state will fund 10 million shekels ($3.08 million) of agricultural research, and ease bureaucracy for installation permits. It wants the private sector to take over from there., The pilot stage is expected to take , four years., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Gwen Ackerman. Date Created: 03 May 2021, 7:05 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to U.K. Cybersecurity Chief Huawei Ban decision [/INST] Technology news. Title: U.K. Cybersecurity Chief Says No Decision Made on Huawei Ban. Short_description: U.K. Cybersecurity Chief Says No Decision Taken on Huawei Ban. Description: (Bloomberg) -- No decision has been taken by security officials on whether to recommend to the U.K. government it should ban Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co, according to the country’s cyber security chief., The National Cyber Security Centre Chief Executive Officer Ciaran Martin said at a cybersecurity conference in Brussels Wednesday that “everything is on the table,” adding that the U.K. “will not compromise on the improvements we need to see from Huawei.”, A report on the resilience and security of Britain’s telecoms supply chains is due to conclude in March. Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright will use it to make recommendations to the National Security Council, as the country introduces its fifth-generation telecom networks. Huawei faces bans in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. over fears the Chinese government could use its systems to spy on other countries., “5G security is not a simple, binary choice,” Martin said. “It is about complex technical functions, a complex global threat environment, and a complex global market. One thing is clear: the way that market works has to change. Security must be a bigger consideration in market decisions in the future than it has been to date.”, Over the last two years the government has attributed state-sponsored malicious cyber activity against the U.K. to Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Last year some U.K. networks -- including telecommunication systems -- were attacked by Russia, Martin said., “As far as we know, those networks didn’t have any Russian kit in them, anywhere," he said. "The techniques the Russians used to target those networks were looking for weaknesses.", The annual report by the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre Oversight Board into how the company conducts its U.K. operations is expected to criticize its failure to act on shortcomings outlined in the previous report, a person familiar with its conclusions , “These problems are about the standard of cyber security; they are not indicators of hostile activity by China,” he said. “Should the supplier market consolidate to such an extent that there are only a tiny number of viable options, that will not make for good cyber security, whether those options are Western, Chinese, or from anywhere else.", ©2019 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Kitty Donaldson. Date Created: 20 Feb 2019, 6:45 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Hydrogen Heating Sights Low U.K. Homes [/INST] Technology news. Title: U.K. Setting Its Sights Too Low for Hydrogen Heating in Homes. Short_description: U.K. Setting Its Sights Too Low for Hydrogen Heating in Homes. Description: The U.K. should move faster to replace gas with hydrogen in domestic heating, as the country’s pipes will be ready to make the switch in just two years, according to the head of a pilot project., While the pipes will be ready, what’s missing is the hydrogen that will run through them. The government has committed to developing 5 gigawatts of production capacity for the fuel and the first town heated entirely by it by 2030. Tim Harwood, who is running a pilot project near Carlisle, northern England, says much more is possible by then., “We should be more ambitious,” said Harwood, project director at H21, a series of test projects that aim to prove the gas grid can be converted to hydrogen. “We’ll be ready to roll this out to multiple towns by the end of the decade.”, The tests are being carried out on a wild hillside at a Royal Air Force base. It’s where gas was tested when the U.K. switched from coal in the 1960s, and the project’s stakeholders , a transition to hydrogen will have the same success., The gas industry wants to start blending methane with 20% hydrogen from 2023, as a quick way to reduce some of the emissions in heating. The main logistical obstacle is available hydrogen supply. The government is due to publish its strategy for hydrogen in the next few weeks. The industry is hoping it will include subsidies to get production underway., But not everyone is sure it’s the right approach. Richard Lowes, a research fellow at the University of Exeter said he’s “unconvinced” that having any hydrogen in pipes in people’s homes is a good idea right now., “The biggest question is where does the hydrogen come from,” he said. “Because it’s much more energy-intensive to produce than electricity so systemically it looks quite poor, because it’s just so inefficient.”, Green hydrogen is created using renewable electricity, but it’s a long way off being at the scale needed for industry. Blue hydrogen, made from natural gas with the carbon emissions buried under ground, is a step ahead in terms of development., “We need the hydrogen strategy,” said Antony Green, project director for hydrogen at National Grid Plc. “Private investment is waiting to see what business model the government comes up with and then they’ll make their decisions” on where to invest., BP Plc is studying a project to build the U.K.’s largest blue-hydrogen plant. The H2Teesside facility in northeast England could produce 1 gigawatt of hydrogen -- a fifth of the U.K. government’s target -- by 2030, and would capture and store 2 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. BP didn’t disclose cost estimates or sources of financing., At the pilot site in Spadeadam, 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Newcastle, northern England, a row of three terraces houses are kitted out with hydrogen heating systems and connected to a network to assess how the fuel behaves when it’s in pipelines. This will then be connected to a test transmission grid to replicate the network used for gas., One of the key benefits in swapping to hydrogen from gas is that it involves very little disruption to consumers and uses infrastructure already in place, Harwood said. About 80% of local gas grids have already been replaced with plastic that is suitable for use with hydrogen., Buildings account for a third of the U.K.’s greenhouse gas emissions. With more than 23 million properties connected to its gas network, making the sector greener is critical to tackling climate change., Heat pumps, which use electricity, are another potentially cheaper option. The government wants to install 600,000 of them annually by 2028., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Rachel Morison. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 2:21 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Data Center Sales Slump Intel fall month [/INST] Technology news. Title: Intel Falls Most in Three Months on Data Center Sales Slump. Short_description: Intel Reports 20% Drop in Data Center Sales; Gross Margin Falls. Description: Intel Corp., the biggest chipmaker, fell the most in three months after reporting a drop in data center revenue and a steep decline in gross profit margin, a sign it’s losing market share to rivals and customers who are designing their own components., The PC business performed better on continued demand for laptops that run Intel processors. But the company’s Data Center Group generated first-quarter sales that fell 20% from a year earlier and missed Wall Street estimates. The unit is Intel’s most profitable businesses, so the lower revenue dented overall margins., New Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger inherited a company that’s struggling with production technology that was once the foundation of its industry dominance. Delays have allowed other chip companies to catch up and tempted customers to design their own components. Intel argued the server business is going through a temporary slump caused by too much inventory. The first quarter was the bottom and growth has returned, executives said., That didn’t diffuse questions from analysts on a conference call focused on whether Intel is losing market share and when profitability will start to expand. Gelsinger said Intel is now in “investment mode” during a critical period for its return to leadership, and promised he’ll deliver products that are again the best in the industry., “The days of Intel having a stranglehold on this business have gone,” said Logan Purk, an analyst at Edward D Jones & Co. “The competitive landscape has shifted and it’s shifted quickly. That is going to weigh on this business.”, Intel said its gross margin, the percentage of revenue remaining after deducting the cost of production, was 55.2%, down more than five percentage points from the same period in 2020. This is a key indicator of the strength of its manufacturing and product pricing. Intel has historically delivered margins above 60%., The shares fell as much as 7.5% to $57.90 as trading opened Friday in New York. It was the biggest drop since Jan. 22. Investors had been optimistic about Gelsinger’s recovery plan, pushing the stock up 26% this year through Thursday, after it declined 17% in 2020 and lagged far behind its rivals., The Santa Clara, California-based company raised its full-year sales forecast slightly to $72.5 billion. While that’s down from last year’s record $77.87 billion, the company still gets multiple billions of dollars more in sales than faster-growing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. Those companies though, have passed Intel in manufacturing technology and are spending heavily to maintain the gap with budgets the U.S. company will struggle to match, according to Purk of Edward D Jones., Amazon.com Inc. and other big cloud providers are designing more chips in-house for their data centers. These businesses have been major Intel customers for years, so the trend is a concern for the company and investors. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has also rolled out more competitive data center processors recently., Intel said sales of chips to cloud service providers fell 29% from the same period a year earlier. That huge drop, according to Intel, was caused by “digestion” -- customers pausing orders while they work through unused stockpiles of chips., While this has happened before and rebounds have followed, investors are increasingly concerned that delays in new Intel products have led this crucial group of customers to shop elsewhere and they won’t come back., Gelsinger’s revival plan is getting a boost from the PC market, though. The Covid-19 pandemic forced millions of people to work and study from home, driving a surge in purchases of laptops and other computer gear., Intel’s PC chip division had first-quarter revenue of $10.6 billion, up 8% from a year earlier. Analysts projected $10 billion., Gelsinger said there’s no sign of a slowdown in PC demand. The company’s 2021 forecast is constrained by supply shortages, while profitability is being squeezed as costs increase and the company competes aggressively to win market share, he added., “We are here to win and we’re going to be very competitive in our approach to gain market share,” he said., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Ian King. Date Created: 23 Apr 2021, 1:51 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Aston Martin Revenue Tops Estimates SUV Volumes [/INST] Technology news. Title: Aston Martin Revenue Tops Estimates as SUV Drives Volumes. Short_description: Aston Martin Revenue Tops Estimates as SUV Exceeds Half of Sales. Description: , Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc reported better-than-expected sales for the first quarter as the British luxury-, gets a significant boost from its first-ever SUV., Revenue soared 153% to 244.4 million pounds ($340 million), beating analysts’ average estimate for 196.7 million pounds. The DBX sport utility vehicle accounted for 55% of the vehicles sold to dealers in the first three months of the year., Aston Martin racked up significant losses after going public in 2018 and has spent the last year restructuring itself after a , by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll. The 61-year-old fashion mogul has injected much-needed cash and , closer ties with Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz to ensure the company survives tumultuous times for the auto industry., Soon after taking over as chairman last year, Stroll shook up Aston Martin’s management and brought in Tobias Moers, who previously led Daimler AG’s Mercedes-AMG performance division, as chief executive officer. He also set a target to earn 500 million pounds on 2 billion pounds of revenue by 2025., “On both our short and medium targets, we remain more confident every day,” Stroll said in a phone interview Thursday. “It’s the first true, clean quarter that we have had as the new management team running the business and very indicative of what’s to come.”, Aston Martin plans to expand its portfolio of SUVs as well as introduce hybrid and electric powertrains. Moers said the first derivative model on the DBX platform will launch in the third quarter, with another variant planned for next year., “These are strong results, and while this should have been expected by the market we believe this should support shares as the management turnaround plan continues to gather traction,” Angus Tweedie, an analyst at Citigroup, wrote in a note to clients., Aston Martin’s shares rose as much as 4.7% and were up 2.6% at 8:50 a.m. in London. The stock has almost doubled in the past year., , Aston Martin reached an agreement for Mercedes to supply hybrid and electric components to the U.K. company, building on an engine tie-up that started in 2013. Mercedes will boost its stake in the carmaker from 2.6% to as much as 20% over three years. Aston Martin plans to introduce its first plug-in hybrid model in 2023, Moers said., Deliveries of the 158,000-pound , began midway through last year. Average vehicle selling prices improved significantly in the first quarter, driven by strong demand from China and de-stocking of older models. The company expects as much as 40% of volume to come from the U.S. and China in the future, Moers said., Aston Martin will begin shipping the new Valkyrie hypercar in the second half of the year., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Siddharth Vikram Philip. Date Created: 06 May 2021, 11:44 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Silent E hog Harley [/INST] Technology news. Title: Harley Unleashes the Silent E-Hogs. Short_description: Harley Unleashes the Silent E-Hogs. Description: Picture an open-minded, climate-concerned Harley-Davidson fan. She can now travel about 100 miles on an almost-silent hog, the company’s new all-electric LiveWire motorcycle. , The LiveWire, however, costs $29,799. Its gas-powered proxy, the Iron 883, can be had for about one-third the price and still gets more than 50 miles to a gallon. It would take our progressive road warrior some 360,000 miles of fuel to cover the spread in sticker price—and to many, she won’t sound nearly as cool while doing it., To be sure, electric motorcycles still require some tricky financial gearing, both for manufacturers and consumers. Nevertheless, the battery-powered Harley is here, along with , of quiet new bikes from rival brands. Indeed, two-wheeled machines are going electric more quickly than four-wheeled rigs. Last year , was battery-powered, though most of that share comes from e-bicycles and scooters—the Uber Eats effect, if you will., Harley says its seminal electric bike is what's known as a “halo product” — an advanced model that drives sales for less expensive machines. The company doesn’t expect to sell many LiveWires — what’s more critical, Harley says, is that the electric machine is getting , and has emerged as a leader in an increasingly , ; that includes by sales, although the company hasn’t divulged how many have been bought., An Instagram , for #LiveWire doesn’t produce a scroll of happy customers taking delivery. Rather, many of the results are pictures of Mötley Crüe, which had a hit song of the same name in 1981. Morningstar’s Harley-Davidson model estimates the company will sell only a few hundred of the bikes annually in the coming decade. Analyst Jaime Katz describes the bike as “a bit expensive for the market.”, Still, Harley no doubt has more battery-powered models in the works, most likely with better price-to-range ratios. The company has a new logo for its electric bikes and hired a “chief EV officer”—, —about a month ago. “The creation of a separate division will allow full autonomy to EV development, freeing the business units to behave with the same agility and speed as a tech startup,” Chief Executive Officer Jochen Zeitz told analysts in February. This week Harley-Davidson reiterated its goal to “lead the electric motorcycle market,” a pillar of its five-year strategic plan. The news came in a , that pushed shares up 19% by Friday’s close. Wedbush Securities called it the company’s best quarter in a half-decade, “hands down.”, The battery blitz comes at a curious time for Harley-Davidson. With sales sliding for years, the company swapped its CEO for Zeitz in February 2020 and promptly slowed down its push into international markets and scaled back its starter bike program. Its coup last quarter came largely from selling a greater share of big, expensive motorcycles, the kind with the fattest profit margins. With Harley focusing on its base, electric is one of the company’s few remaining efforts to lure first-time riders and beat scrappy startups., The LiveWire is also a clever fix for a perennial Harley problem: Its bikes are too good. In its 118 years, the company has made a lot of motorcycles, and a shocking number of them are still on the road, or at least ready to roar to life out of the dusty recesses of the garage. Even with spark plugs and oil filters, they are easy to maintain, fix, and modify; as such, Harley has long struggled to persuade its customers to upgrade—call it the iPhone challenge. , Savvy riders, realizing as much, are increasingly skipping the dealership altogether. Typically, one out of four motorcycles sold in the U.S. are used, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council. Last year that increased to one out of three. Harley still gets something out of the preowned market, by selling parts and financing purchases, but not as much as it would by moving a slick new bike. , This is where the LiveWire and its silent siblings may really shine. It’s a step change in technology, arguably the newest “new” Harley in more than a century. It’s the strongest answer yet to this question: “Should I buy a second bike?” Or a third or fourth, for that matter. , ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Kyle Stock. Date Created: 24 Apr 2021, 3:00 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Food Autonomy Hope Strawberries Quebec [/INST] Technology news. Title: ‘Made in Quebec’ Strawberries Offer Hope for Food Autonomy. Short_description: ‘Made in Quebec’ Strawberries Offer Hope for Food Autonomy. Description: The pandemic, with its broken supply lines and closed borders, has been a worrying reminder of Quebec’s dependence on imported food. Roughly 75% of its fresh fruits and vegetables, in fact, come from elsewhere., Inside a windowless metal cube in a building on the outskirts of the province’s largest city, Montreal, Yves Daoust is trying to make a dent in those numbers., The cube houses some 3,800 strawberry plants arranged in vertical gardens, pollinated by bumble bees and brushed by morning dew. The carefully controlled environment is tracked by sensors and attempts to mimic ideal summer conditions year-round in a city where the average outdoor temperature in January is 13.6 degrees Fahrenheit (-10.2 degrees Celsius) and the winter cold doesn’t let up until May., When Daoust’s company, Ferme d’hiver -- the name is French for “winter farm” -- started selling batches at C$5.99 ($4.80) a pack at nearby supermarkets in December, the pesticide-free berries were snatched by customers accustomed to Mexican or U.S. produce that often costs a bit less. Now it’s signing up farmers to install the technology and make Quebec winter strawberries viable, helped by C$1.5 million in financing from the government., Quebec’s history -- it harbors a strong nationalist movement -- has long , a preference for homegrown businesses, but after the pandemic disrupted labor migration and prompted some countries to restrict exports, local sourcing became an urgent matter for the government., “The pandemic made Quebeckers a lot more sensitive to the importance of supporting local companies,” Agriculture Minister , said in an interview. “Every time we increase consumption of Quebec food products by a notch, it has considerable effects on the Quebec economy.”, The government earmarked C$157 million in November to boost food autonomy. In addition, its investment arm, Investissement Quebec, supports individual projects like Ferme d’hiver’s. Two recent projects it financed were greenhouse expansions that together received C$60 million., The initiative aligns with themes dear to Premier Francois Legault, who was elected in 2018 on a nationalist platform. Quebec, a majority French-speaking province, is protective of its culture and businesses and considers any goods that come from outside Quebec, even from other Canadian provinces, to be “imported.”, Fruits and vegetables aren’t the only problem. Only about , of the all wholesale food purchased by grocers and hospitality companies is grown or transformed locally. To improve that ratio, Quebec is banking on greenhouse production, which it wants to double over five years with C$112 million in aid programs., Another weapon is state-owned Hydro-Quebec’s cheap and abundant electricity, a key incentive for an industry that requires large amounts of artificial lighting during dark winter days., In Compton, a town two hours east of Montreal, organic vegetable farmer Frederic Jobin-Lawler is modernizing his 36,000 square feet of greenhouse space with a geothermal heating system, a dehumidifying unit and artificial lighting. After subsidies and other aid, he’ll pay only about 40% of the upgrade costs., Success or failure of the food autonomy effort will depend on whether small farms like Jobin-Lawler’s can overcome grocers’ general preference for large suppliers or whether they can get institutions like hospitals to buy their produce, he said., “If we produce more in winter, will our local markets be able to take it in?” he said. “We don’t want to do this to export, we want to do this to sell locally.”, In theory, the province produces enough to supply two-thirds of its fresh and transformed greens, but consumption and production don’t match up perfectly. Quebec grows enough cabbage to cover twice over what it eats, so it exports some. But it , only 17% of its population’s demand for spinach, and 44% for strawberries., Climate and seasonality have a lot to do with it. As a country, Canada imports the most vegetables and fruits between March and June, followed by the December to February months., Daoust, the founder of Ferme d’hiver, said he offers a tastier substitute. “It’s not that imported products aren’t good originally, but they are treated to be transported for days,” said Daoust, an engineer by training who grew up on a farm but spent most of his , in the tech industry., Not everyone in Quebec is persuaded by the government’s push. , , a professor at Laval University in Quebec City, says a rush to produce more fruits and vegetables risks increasing demand for other imports, chiefly farm labor., “The massive production model is totally dependent on labor,” said Mundler, who published a , on food autonomy last year. “Workers come from Mexico, Guatemala -- I have a hard time accepting we use our electricity to produce cucumbers in heated tunnels rather than buy them from Mexico or Guatemala directly, where they grew in the sun.”, If small farmers manage to get their goods onto grocery shelves where a few giant producers dominate, a big question remains whether consumers will get into the habit of buying local., “The consumer has the last word,” said Catherine Brodeur, a vice president of economic studies at Groupe Ageco, a consultancy in Quebec City. “The share of consumers who want to buy locally and are ready to pay more grows over time. But a lot of consumers buy the product that’s 5 cents cheaper.”, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Sandrine Rastello. Date Created: 24 Apr 2021, 6:30 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Tighter Pollution rule Carbon Hits Record euro [/INST] Technology news. Title: Carbon Hits Record 50 Euros on Tighter Pollution Rules. Short_description: Carbon Hits Record 50 Euros on Tighter Pollution Rules. Description: The cost of pollution in Europe has surged more than 50% this year, signaling that the region’s tougher climate policies are starting to make a difference., Futures in the region’s carbon market, the world’s biggest, exceeded 50 euros ($60) per metric ton for the first time on Tuesday. Rising prices make it more expensive to release carbon dioxide into the air and force industry to look for cleaner ways to stoke their furnaces and keep the lights on., And the rally has further to go, according to Ulf Ek, chief investment officer at London hedge fund Northlander Commodity , LLP. He expects futures to trade as high as 75 euros by the end of the year., “The 50 euro-mark has some significance since it has been a target price for some investors for a number of years by now,” Ek said by email. “Fundamentally, we believe prices can go higher than that, but also expect some tough political discussions on our way to 100+ prices which may turn sentiment at some point.”, The permits rose as much as 1.3% on Tuesday to trade as high as 50.05 euros on ICE Futures Europe, before trading little changed from Monday., Options traders are anticipating even higher prices. Calls to buy European Union emission permits at 60 euros per ton, or about 20% above the prevailing market rate, now have the highest open interest on the ICE Futures Europe exchange., Last spring, carbon futures slumped with the rest of the global economy as the pandemic struck, trading below 15 euros in late March 2020 as the lockdowns crimped industrial activity., But as leaders in Brussels moved to make the economic recovery a green one, it became clear that any disruption in the carbon market would be temporary. In July, futures surged above 30 euros for the first time in more than a decade, just days before the EU, its 500 billion-euro Green Deal., At the same time, financial players have continued to buy the permits, seeing an arbitrage opportunity between the current price and higher levels needed to achieve the climate plans., The rally in prices and concerns by the industry over its competitiveness are poised to add further tensions to the political discussions about implementing the Green Deal, aimed at reaching climate neutrality by 2050 and toughening the 2030 emissions-reduction goal., Some technologies to cut emissions, like hydrogen made without emissions, are still too expensive for steel and chemicals producers to use today. But further price gains could change that., “If industry can’t decarbonize, it could just mean higher compliance bills for a while” said Emily Jackson, analyst at BloombergNEF. “They will likely start being more strategic about their purchasing and could start hedging in the way that the power sector do now.”, But the multibillion-euro price tag that the EU plans to pay for its climate goals will also be eased by the soaring carbon price. Governments auction permits and earmark at least 50% of the proceeds for climate initiatives. As the cost soars, it means EU countries are brining in more money from those auctions., EU leaders are due to debate enacting the stricter pollution target for the next decade at an extraordinary summit in Brussels on May 23. National governments are divided over issues ranging from the pace at which the EU ETS should be tightened in the coming years to applying carbon trading to new sectors, such as housing and road transport., The European Commission is set to propose on July 14 a package of regulations to enact the new 2030 target of cutting greenhouse gases by at least 55% from 1990 levels. The rules will need consent from national governments and the European Parliament to become binding., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Will Mathis. Date Created: 04 May 2021, 1:40 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Modular LG G5 Dual Camera Battery Swap India [/INST] Technology news. Title: Modular LG G5 With Dual Camera & Swap Out Battery Now in India. Short_description: The ability to add an extra layer of battery or even add a camera unit makes the phone truly modular.. Description: LG has finally made it to the flagship smartphone space in India with the LG G5 which will be available in the coming days. Priced at Rs 52,999, it’s worth noting that the phone is no slouch on the hardware side things., The ‘swap out, swap in’ battery case is integral to LG G5’s modular promise, making the Korean brand the first to enter the evolving modular smartphone segment. , With the LG G5 you get a 5.3-inch Quad-HD 2560x1440 pixels display, packed with a Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB RAM. The battery is removable, which is a rare sight on flagship smartphone these days. , The ability to add an extra layer of battery or even add a camera unit makes the phone truly modular. In addition, one can also equip the phone with a hi-fi audio layer made by Bang & Olufsen., LG has played its cards well, but we wonder how the G5 will fare in comparison with phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 or the HTC 10.. Publisher: S Aadeetya. Date Created: 22 Feb 2016, 2:19 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to climate Fund choice investor [/INST] Technology news. Title: Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying. Short_description: Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying. Description: , It’s been almost a week since nearly every major world leader—even Vladimir Putin—gathered virtually to focus on the global climate crisis., And now it seems even the banks are starting to get on the bandwagon. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., two of the world’s biggest providers of financing to the fossil-fuel industry, have increased their , . Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley announced similar plans., Meanwhile, record amounts of cash , designed for climate-aware investors. The global assets under management of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds with climate change as a key theme almost tripled last year to $177 billion, according to analysts at Morningstar Inc., In all, 76 new , were introduced in 2020, bringing the worldwide total to about 400 offerings. Europe remains much further along, accounting for about three-fourths of the overall market with 282 offerings (as of Dec. 31), compared with only 42 in the U.S., With so many choices, where does that leave the average investor? Chicago-based Morningstar published , trying to answer that question. The research firm breaks the market into five groups: low carbon, climate conscious, climate solutions, green bond and clean energy/tech., Other funds that might make sense for investors with an environmental bent are Hartford Climate Opportunities, Pimco Climate Bond and New Alternatives in the U.S., and Impact Environmental Leaders in Europe, said Elizabeth Stuart, a London-based analyst at Morningstar. These funds have above-average sustainability and carbon-risk scores, receive positive analyst recommendations, and hold four- or five-star Morningstar ratings., New Alternatives Fund’s class A shares rose at an annual rate of 20.3% during the past five years, and the Hartford Climate Opportunities Fund’s class A shares climbed at an annual clip of 16.9% in the same period, compared with the 17.1% advance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (including reinvested dividends)., These are funds that are “good for the climate and the wallet,” Stuart said., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Tim Quinson. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 3:30 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Loving Texans Pile Home Solar battery gas Freeze [/INST] Technology news. Title: Gas-Loving Texans Pile Into Home Solar, Batteries After Freeze. Short_description: Gas-Loving Texans Pile Into Home Solar, Batteries After Freeze. Description: When blackouts hit Houston last February, Rob and Robin Dickehuth’s home became a port in the storm for neighbors, thanks to a $35,000 solar and battery system that kept windows aglow and devices fully charged., “We were pretty much the only home on the block with light,” Rob said. “I think this was a hard lesson for a lot of people in Texas.”, Three months after the energy crisis that left millions without power, heat and water for days, demand for back-up electricity systems like the Dickehuth’s is skyrocketing. Freedom Solar, which installs home solar and storage, has seen sales of Tesla Powerwall batteries jump 16-fold, while Greater Texas Solar saw a 25% jump in sales after the freeze., “During the freeze, people lost faith in the grid and they lost faith in low electricity prices,” said Freedom Solar Chief Executive Officer Bret Biggart. “How do you hedge against that type of uncertainty? With solar and battery technology.”, The clamor for solar and storage strikes an odd chord in fossil fuel-loving Texas, where politicians were quick to blame the blackouts on the intermittency of renewables. Even as it became clear that shuttered gas plants and fuel shortages drove the outages, lawmakers have continued to , in their efforts to reform the state’s power system. But Texans looking for insurance against the next crisis are decidedly apolitical when it comes to keeping the lights on., “It speaks to the fact that people don’t have confidence in the state,” said Adrian Shelley, director of consumer advocate Public Citizen’s Texas office. “That’s a very Texan way of looking at the problem – I’m going to build my own grid.”, Greater Texas Solar is capitalizing on that by promoting a solar and battery storage system that’s backed up with propane-fired generators – a uniquely Texan solution. During a power failure, part of the electricity created by the propane generator can also be used to charge the battery system for later use. Those with the system can run on “island mode” for days, if needed, said co-owner Bill Skinner., “It’s fairly new to have batteries and generators paired together,” said Skinner. “They’re trying to merge all these technologies together to create independence from the grid. And that’s what everyone is after -- autonomy.”, Natural gas isn’t being left out of the trend, either. Enchanted Rock, which manages gas-fired microgrid systems for businesses and commercial buildings, saw a 300% increase in inquiries after the crisis. Although the company’s system are typically used during hurricanes or floods, they withstood the freeze well, keeping power flowing for more than 140 customers, said Chief Commercial Officer Allan Schurr., Investing in back-up power is a common reaction to disasters. Homeowners affected by wildfire-related blackouts in California have built , while those hit by Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast piled into diesel generators., But doing so can be expensive, stoking concerns among watchdog groups that the cost of these back-up systems widens inequality without addressing broader concerns about electric reliability. To address that, consumer advocates including the Smart Electric Power Alliance call for using public funds to strategically install microgrids at police stations, fire stations, schools or community centers, which can become shelters during disasters with prolonged outages., And although the proliferation of these standalone power systems is not expected to harm the state’s grid or prices, they could require upgrades at the neighborhood level where electricity distribution lines are often designed for one-way flows at limited levels, said Jared Leader, SEPA’s senior manager of research and industry strategy., “Utilities will need to enhance demand-and supply-side planning as more homeowners and businesses go out and purchase more locally-sited resources,” Leader said. “That’s an issue that utility companies are facing across the nation.”, ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Sergio Chapa. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 8:37 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Google Business Booms share Soar Covid Reopening Record [/INST] Technology news. Title: Google Business Booms on Covid Reopening; Shares Soar to Record. Short_description: Google’s results have offered a glimpse of online spending in a post-pandemic world.. Description: Google’s results, showing a surge in ad sales related to travel and retail, offered a glimpse of online spending in a post-pandemic world: Businesses are boosting digital marketing to capture a public eager to resume something resembling normal life again., Google parent Alphabet Inc. said first-quarter revenue, excluding payments to distribution partners, came in at $45.6 billion, pummeling Wall Street estimates. The company also unveiled a big new share buyback, sending the stock up as much as 5.5% to an intraday record high of $2,416.98., Covid-19 restrictions have limited travel and trips to physical stores, two key areas of Google’s search business. However, Alphabet shares are up more than 30% this year on optimism vaccinations in the U.S. are reviving these activities. The company is also pushing further into e-commerce, but still lags behind rival Amazon.com Inc., While most major tech companies thrived during the pandemic, Alphabet’s performance was uneven. YouTube ad revenue boomed as people were stuck at home looking to relieve boredom by watching videos online. Google’s cloud-computing business also grew quickly on a spike in demand for internet-based services from remote workers. However, the online search engine dwarfs these other operations and it suffered from a slump in commercial queries for things like flights and hotels., Now, with more than 1 billion Covid-19 vaccine shots given, according to Bloomberg’s , , consumers have started to venture out to restaurants, shops and even vacation destinations -- and they often interact with Google services and ads before they do., Ruth Porat, chief financial officer, said the results “reflect elevated consumer activity online and broad based growth in advertiser revenue.”, During a conference call with analysts, Porat said it’s unclear how “durable” the recent change in consumer behavior will be, because it will depend on the global pace of the Covid-19 recovery., Barclays , Alphabet’s search and Youtube segments saw a significant share shift from other advertising channels, dampening concerns about Google’s high penetration within the advertising market., The Alphabet board authorized the company to repurchase , an additional $50 billion of its Class C capital stock. , Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is trying to expand beyond the advertising engine that generates most of Alphabet’s revenue, while contending with a regulatory backlash that includes three government antitrust suits targeting different parts of its business in the U.S. He’s also preparing to bring employees back to the office in September., Search and other related businesses generated sales of $31.9 billion in the first quarter. Wall Street estimated $29.9 billion., YouTube ad revenue surged 49% to $6 billion. Analysts were looking for $5.7 billion. YouTube Shorts, its competitor to TikTok, logged 6.5 billion daily views as of March, up from 3.5 billion at the end of 2020., The company’s cloud division, led by Thomas Kurian, is wooing corporations and other large customers in a bid to catch market leaders Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Google Cloud revenue jumped to $4 billion, in line with Wall Street expectations., Executives said the Google Play store, YouTube’s non-ad revenue and consumer hardware were the top drivers of growth in the “Google Other” category., Alphabet’s Other Bets, such as autonomous vehicles and delivery drones, generated revenue of $198 million. That division lost $1.15 billion., Alphabet overall generated $17.9 billion of net income, or $26.29 a share, in the most recent quarter, compared with $6.8 billion, or $9.87 a share, a year earlier., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Nico Grant. Date Created: 28 Apr 2021, 1:45 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Chevron Preach Prudence Cash Waterfall return Exxon [/INST] Technology news. Title: Exxon, Chevron Preach Prudence Even as Cash Waterfall Returns. Short_description: Chevron Posts Bumper Cash Flow After Oil Rally Meets Cuts. Description: Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. added momentum to a nascent recovery in the U.S. oil industry as they reported bumper cash flow, a dramatic improvement after a torrid 2020., The energy giants generated enough cash to cover dividends, debt payments and project spending in the first quarter, the first time they’ve managed to do that in more than a year., The results are especially significant for Exxon because they signal a turnaround from its most difficult period in at least four decades. The gains provides breathing room for Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods as he seeks to persuade skeptical shareholders that his fossil fuel-based strategy can profitably navigate the energy transition., Chevron foreshadowed strong cash flow earlier in the week when it raised dividends above pre-pandemic levels, beating all its rivals. But investors signaled on Friday that they won’t be satisfied until the explorer also restores share buybacks, something Chief Financial Officer Pierre Breber was loathe to predict., Noteworthy was the absence of a perennial feature of oil-price rallies: Plans to ramp up crude output. Instead, the biggest U.S. drillers held firm to austerity measures adopted during the darkest days of last year’s market crisis, easing concerns that gushing cash flow would spark another cycle of disastrous production growth., “It’s really is a 180-degree turnaround from a year ago,” said Neal Dingmann, an analyst at Truist Securities. “What still resonates from both of these companies is the capital discipline.”, Exxon’s free cash flow, a key metric watched by Big Oil analysts, reached the highest since 2018, allowing the Texas oil titan not only to fund the S&P 500’s third-largest dividend but also invest in key projects in Guyana and the Permian Basin., The explorer also reduced debt by 6% in just three months. It was a stark contrast to the prior two years during which Exxon’s cash generation fell short of payouts and expenditures, forcing it to borrow heavily., All the supermajors are making money again after crude’s 30% year-to-date rally to more than $65 a barrel, buoyed by rising energy demand as economies emerge from the pandemic and OPEC holds the line on big supply increases. The difference this time is that they’ve all drastically cut costs: Exxon’s capital spending was down 56% from a year earlier while Chevron’s was 43% lower., But shareholders shouldn’t expect to be showered with cash just yet. Exxon CEO Darren Woods stressed that any windfall will go toward paying down debt, which ballooned 44% last year., “If margins and prices stay higher than planned, we’ll deleverage faster, rebuilding the balance sheet,” he said during a conference call with analysts., READ: Big Oil Revives Pre-Pandemic Levels of Cash Flow and Profit , Chevron’s Breber was pressed repeatedly by analysts on when the California-based company would begin share buybacks. He declined to give a timeframe., “Folks want a formula or a trigger and some of our competitors have those numbers,” he said. “We’re going to use judgment and we’re going to consider what we see in front of us.”, Expectations were high after BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SE all preceded their U.S. peers with bigger-than-expected profits. As such, Exxon and Chevron traded down 2.2% and 3.3%, respectively, at 2:07 p.m. in New York. International crude prices dipped 1.9% on the day. , Chevron continues to make progress in restoring its balance sheet and may be in a position to restart share buybacks by 2H, if oil prices remain near current levels., -- Fernando Valle, BI analyst, Read the full report here., Exxon’s reversal of last year’s fiasco couldn’t be more timely. CEO Woods goes into a potentially awkward annual meeting within weeks where shareholders will consider activist shareholder Engine No. 1’s proposed boardroom shake-up., Woods said the first-quarter results were a manifestation of ambitious and oft-criticized spending decisions he made during the past few years., “We’ve never lost sight of the long term fundamentals of our business,” Woods said. “We knew economies would recover, populations and living standards would continue to grow, ultimately driving demand for our products and an industry recovery.”, Exxon earned 64 cents a share in the first quarter, beating the 61-cent average estimate from analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The oil giant’s production division drove most of the gains but it also received a substantial tailwind from higher chemicals prices, which spurred that division to its highest profit since at least 2014., Demand for plastics and consumer packaging should remain strong for the rest of this year as the economic recovery continues, particularly in the U.S., Woods said., Chevron’s earnings matched the average of analysts’ forecasts but refining suffered a 99% drop in profits due to lower-than-normal fuel demand. The company’s large refineries on the West Coast were particularly hurt by the drop-off in jet fuel consumption because of their proximity to international airports, Breber said., As such, prudence is now the mantra for Big Oil. With the trauma of the calamitous 2020 and 2014-2016 downturns still fresh, the supermajors aren’t taking their newfound cash for granted., “We didn’t see the virtue in investing capital to add short-term production in a world that was going to be oversupplied for some time period,” Breber said., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Kevin Crowley. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 4:13 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Tesla Production Forecast Elon Musk Dials hour [/INST] Technology news. Title: Elon Musk Dials Back Tesla Production Forecast, Hours After Making It. Short_description: The electric-vehicle maker kicked off this year on a dull note, with fourth-quarter deliveries slightly lagging expectations.. Description: (Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk corrected a prediction for how many cars Tesla Inc. would make in 2019, just hours after tweeting that production would reach about 500,000 vehicles this year., The electric-car pioneer, who has a track record of snafus on Twitter, said he intended to tweet that Tesla expects to be making cars at an annual rate of about 500,000 by the end of 2019. Musk said Tesla still forecasts deliveries of about 400,000 vehicles this year., Musk’s earlier tweet that Tesla would make about 500,000 cars in 2019 was difficult to gauge -- given his proclivity for setting , -- and was greeted with some skepticism on the social media platform. The number he put in the posting late Tuesday was roughly in line with his previous comments, but that depends on which figure investors paid attention to when Tesla reported earnings Jan. 30., In a , to shareholders, Chief Executive Officer Musk and his chief financial officer forecast as many as 400,000 total vehicle deliveries this year. Within hours, the CEO told an analyst on Tesla’s earnings call to expect sales for just the Model 3 to reach as many as 500,000 units in 2019., Musk’s tweeting has been a source of confusion for investors before. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission moved to punish Tesla and Musk last year because it alleged he committed fraud by tweeting in August that he had the “funding secured” to take the company private at $420 a share. The agency said this and other claims the CEO made on Aug. 7 were false and misleading and affected Tesla’s stock. Both he and the company agreed to pay $20 million penalties, and Tesla said it would implement controls to oversee the tweeting and other communications of its outspoken chief., In October, Musk tweeted that he had , all references to the titles he held at Tesla, then joked that in doing so, he may have confused “the authorities.” The same month, Musk trolled the SEC by calling it the “Shortseller Enrichment Commission” and ranted about short selling over the course of more than 20 hours, calling for it to be banned., To Musk’s credit, Tesla did make substantial progress in mass-manufacturing electric vehicles last year, after overcoming the , he predicted the company would go through starting in the fall of 2017. Total deliveries more than tripled last year., Still, making 500,000 vehicles in 2019 would be difficult based on the guidance Musk and CFO Deepak Ahuja gave late last month: that Tesla may need until the end of this year to reach a weekly production rate of 7,000 Model 3s., ©2019 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Angus Whitley. Date Created: 20 Feb 2019, 6:02 AM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to TikTok Names ByteDance New CEO Pappas COO Chew [/INST] Technology news. Title: TikTok Names ByteDance’s Chew as New CEO; Pappas COO. Short_description: TikTok Names ByteDance’s Chew as New CEO; Pappas Named COO. Description: TikTok, the popular short-video app, named ByteDance Ltd. Chief Financial Officer Shouzi Chew as chief executive officer, filling the top leadership position after the departure of Kevin Mayer last year. Vanessa Pappas, who has served as interim head, was named chief operating officer., Chew, who joined TikTok parent ByteDance last month, will remain in his post at the Chinese company, according to a , Friday. Previously, Chew spent several years as CFO and international business president of Xiaomi Corp., where he took the gadget maker public in one of the largest-ever Chinese tech listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange., Chew, who hails from Singapore, is fluent in English and Chinese. He’s experienced in navigating the halls of Chinese tech companies and the boardrooms of banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc., where he spent time in its investment banking unit. He also previously worked for Yuri Milner’s DST Global. The move to hire Chew is a sign ByteDance is moving toward an , ., TikTok is still enjoying explosive popularity, but Chew will have to navigate the political tensions between the U.S. and China as well as increasing concerns about data privacy, especially involving children who populate the app., “The leadership team of Shou and Vanessa sets the stage for sustained growth,” ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming said in the statement. “Shou brings deep knowledge of the company and industry, having led a team that was among our earliest investors, and having worked in the technology sector for a decade. He will add depth to the team, focusing on areas including corporate governance and long-term business initiatives.”, Pappas will maintain her current responsibilities, including managing TikTok’s key operations, the company said., :, Mayer had left one of the top jobs at Walt Disney Co. last year to lead TikTok, which has become one of the world’s hottest apps with more than 100 million users in the U.S. alone. He , only a few months later after former U.S. President Donald Trump ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok in the U.S. or face a ban, citing national security concerns over its Chinese ownership., Zhang had discussed deals with a number of U.S. tech giants, including Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. but ultimately decided to wait out the crisis, anticipating less hostility after the presidential election. TikTok never signed a final agreement, and the deal remains stuck in limbo while the Biden administration , . There is no indication ByteDance will be forced to go through with the sale., TikTok’s success is driven by a , that predicts what people want to see next. The app goes beyond even the systems used by Facebook Inc. or Snapchat. TikTok studies usage closely and considers hundreds of data points including what websites people browse and how they type, down to keystroke rhythms and patterns., It’s this mountain of data, collected from a largely young user base, that underpinned the Trump administration’s concerns over what might happen if the information fell into the hands of the Chinese government, something TikTok has said it would never hand over., In 2019, ByteDance was fined $5.7 million by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to settle allegations that Musical.ly, which ByteDance bought and folded into TikTok, illegally collected information from minors. It was the largest FTC penalty in a children’s privacy case at the time. This month, a , on behalf of millions of children in the U.K. and Europe over privacy concerns., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Molly Schuetz &. Date Created: 30 Apr 2021, 8:20 PM IST </s> |
<s>[INST] Tell me news related to Automated Checkout Size Supermarkets Amazon [/INST] Technology news. Title: Amazon’s Automated Checkout Is Coming to Full-Size Supermarkets. Short_description: Amazon’s Automated Checkout Is Coming to Full-Size Supermarkets. Description: Amazon.com Inc. is poised to bring its automated checkout technology to full-size supermarkets, a significant milestone in the race to revolutionize how people buy their groceries., Planning documents for a store under construction in Brookfield, Connecticut, contain all the hallmarks of an Amazon Fresh grocery store: a two-word logo on dark gray panels above the store’s entrance, online order pickup counter and such full-service departments as a butcher. The plans also identify a dozen entry and exit gates as well as ceiling-mounted racks to run wiring to camera arrays, a setup that until now has only appeared in Amazon Go convenience stores., Shoppers enter those locations by swiping a smartphone at the entry gate. Inside, they’re tracked by cameras, software algorithms and shelf sensors—then charged for what they take when exiting through the designated gates., Amazon appears to have solved a significant technical challenge, creating a grab-and-go system that can handle scores of shoppers at once and cover large supermarkets without being prohibitively expensive to build and operate. The breakthrough, if it works, would catapult Amazon ahead of rivals, which are testing similar camera-based technology developed by various startups. Executives at these companies have acknowledged that they are perhaps a year or two away from installing cashierless systems in full-sized supermarkets., Widespread adoption of automated checkouts will likely fuel critiques from labor unions that have accused Amazon of seeking to eliminate cashiers, one of the most common jobs in the U.S. The company has said the goal of its Just Walk Out program is shopper convenience, not cutting labor costs. Amazon says it has created thousands of grocery jobs since the launch of the first Fresh store last year., The company declined to comment for this article. Raymour & Flanigan Real Estate, which owns the strip mall, and Norr LLC, the architect, also declined to comment., Since launching the Fresh chain in southern California, Amazon has , , with 37 more in development across the U.S., according to a Bloomberg tally based on permits, state licensing records and news reports. But apart from a test at a Fresh store in suburban Chicago, the new chain doesn’t feature Go-style automated checkout—prompting surprise from industry watchers anticipating a less traditional approach., Instead, Amazon developed the Dash smart cart, whose sensors and cameras add up purchases as shoppers cruise the aisles. The carts stop short of a seamless, Go shopping experience. They hold only a couple of bags of food, and shoppers can’t take them outside, forcing them to transfer bags to a low-tech cart or lug their food to the parking lot. , Tracking dozens of people across a big store is technically challenging, but, cost has also slowed the, adoption of cashierless technology. Equipping a 2,000-square-foot convenience store with cameras can be done with a few dozen devices. Covering a much larger full-service supermarket, which in the U.S. tend to range from 30,000 square feet to 50,000 or more, can require exponentially more cameras and servers to process and store video. That can quickly chew through the benefits of employing fewer cashiers or luring more people into the store with the promise of a seamless checkout., Amazon has been working for years to streamline its Just Walk Out system, making the gear more cost effective for its own stores as well as appeal to other companies that might license the technology. Even when Amazon was exclusively opening small convenience stores, the company’s engineers were asked to build a version of the technology that would be viable in stores larger of 30,000 square feet or more, according to one person briefed on the plans., Last year, the company also introduced Amazon One, which lets shoppers use their palms to pay at its convenience, book and 4-Star stores in the Seattle area. Amazon on Wednesday said thousands of customers had signed up and that it had introduced the service to a Whole Foods Market store in the city and planned to roll it out in other locations., The Connecticut store under construction is about 34,000 square feet, including stockrooms, back office space and an ample staging area for online orders. The sales floor—the area that would need to be policed by camera arrays—is about 20,000 square feet., That’s almost three times the size of the retail floor at the largest stores currently using Just Walk Out technology. Amazon operates two Go Grocery-branded stores in the Seattle area. Both have about 7,000 square feet of retail space., The Connecticut location also has 320 square feet of space split between two rooms for server racks and other electrical equipment, a feature that doesn’t appear in plans for some other already open Amazon Fresh stores. The plans also show a set of conventional checkout counters., Amazon isn’t identified by name in the , , but the similarities between the documents and others the company has filed around the country leave little doubt as to its tenant. The strip mall’s owners described the firm behind the grocery store as an “extremely secretive” technology company in a city planning meeting in October, that was , by the News-Times newspaper of nearby Danbury, Connecticut. The owners said the store operator would have 50 or 60 locations by the time the Brookfield store opened, if permitting was approved on time, which lines up with the Amazon Fresh expansion., The documents don’t make clear what role, if any, Dash smart carts will have in the Brookfield store. Nor is it clear how quickly Amazon will bring Go technology to other Fresh locations, although former employees of an Amazon grocery store that has yet to open in Virginia , the Washington Business Journal that elements of Amazon Go technology would be included in that location., ©2021 Bloomberg L.P.. Publisher: Matthew Day. Date Created: 22 Apr 2021, 3:30 PM IST </s> |
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