Category: Semafor

Amazon and Intel reported worse-than-expected figures, adding to a run of underwhelming Big Tech results that have weighed on markets. Amazon’s $200 billion in third-quarter revenues were not enough to reassure investors, who have grown wary of the AI trade as surging debt and financing costs outpace revenues and push ...

China’s leadership doubled down on an anti-corruption drive that analysts say has variously sought to purge the top echelons of the Communist Party over graft and consolidate Xi Jinping’s power. The Party said it had expelled 33 officials from its senior ranks and elevated the former head of the military’s ...

The US upped the pressure on its ostensible allies as part of its push for a truce in the Russia-Ukraine war. Kyiv has paused its strikes on Russian refineries at the behest of Washington, which is trying to corral runaway fuel prices, The Wall Street Journal reported, while Reuters said ...

Microsoft has protected its AAA credit rating — one of just two left in Corporate America, alongside Johnson & Johnson’s — and is reaping the rewards for its financial discipline. Despite the spreading fears about AI-related debt, the company raised $25 billion Thursday in its first bond offering since 2017. ...

Prediction markets blew three big elections this week, a bad look for platforms pitching themselves to investors as hedges against global risk. Kalshi and Polymarket both gave Brazilian conservative Flávio Bolsonaro a 4-in-5 chance of winning; he lost to the progressive incumbent, costing anyone who traded Brazil’s currency and stocks. ...

The Next 3 Billion On Tour | Watch Live at 3:00 p.m. SAST With one of Africa’s most developed financial systems and highest rates of account ownership, South Africa offers an important case study in how established financial infrastructure can support broader economic opportunity. Through conversations on instant payments, digital ...

Canada is taking an equity stake of up to $1.1 billion in a Toronto-based AI startup, as Washington’s allies intensify efforts to reduce their technological reliance on the US. Ottawa’s push mirrors that of the UK, whose finance minister this week pledged to pursue “a distinctively British approach to AI,” ...

The US economy grew faster than expected this summer, new data showed, but the strong economic reading right before next week’s midterm elections is unlikely to cheer Americans worried about rising inflation, analysts said. “Voters don’t vote on GDP,” a Republican strategist told Bloomberg; many are still struggling with surging ...

A Chinese businesswoman close to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is suspected of passing intelligence to Beijing, The New York Times reported Thursday, rekindling fears around the security of US industrial secrets amid an intensifying global AI race. The allegations — which Nvidia dismissed Thursday as “investigated and debunked” — come ...

Alphabet’s shares fell as much as 13% Thursday, erasing more than $500 billion in market value in the worst single-day performance for the Google parent company after it reported slowing search revenue growth. Alphabet’s miss “elevates the fear around AI and agentic taking share from Search and YT and hurting ...