10 Mktx 03 -Wire

Salesforce Layoffs Over 1,000 Jobs – APAC News Network
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According to a Bloomberg News story, Salesforce plans to fire around 1,000 workers as it focuses on AI-powered products.

The US-based corporation is aggressively hiring for positions that fit with its AI expansion strategy even as it makes layoffs.

Although displaced workers will be given the chance to apply for internal jobs, it is still unknown which particular departments would be affected. Regarding the layoffs, which take place at the start of Salesforce’s new fiscal year, the company has not yet released an official comment.

 

The UK’s Kier Starmer stated his cabinet’s policies regarding Brexit include a “reset” but not a “return” to the EU. The comments came during German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ visit to the UK. He called for there to be “closer ties” between the UK and the EU.

Starmer said “I have been very clear (…) that I do want a reset of the relationship between the UK and the EU. That does not involve a return to the European Union. We had a referendum here on that, and that matter is settled… I think that is certainly in the UK’s best interest, I do believe it’s in the EU’s best interest, and already I hope that in the last seven months there has been a manifest difference in approach, tone and relationship,”

UK PM vows to ‘reset’ ties with EU but rules out rejoining the bloc – efe.com
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United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday pledged to “reset” the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union but ruled out rejoining the bloc, which the UK left in 2020.

The Federal Reserve announced plans to keep the interest rates at the current level, a move that was met by approval from President Donald Trump. When asked about the decision, Trump responded, “I’m not surprised. Holding the rates at this point was the right thing to do.”

In a switch, Trump approves Fed’s decision to hold interest rates steady– www.cnbc.com
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President Donald Trump agreed with the Federal Reserve for its decision last week to leave interest rates unchanged, an early pivot from his previous demand that the central bank ease “immediately.”

In an exchange with reporters Sunday, Trump said holding its key borrowing level in a range between 4.25%-4.5% was the correct move for the Fed.

“I’m not surprised,” he said regarding the decision, according to multiple reports. “Holding the rates at this point was the right thing to do.”

The statement stood in stark contrast to one Trump delivered when speaking remotely to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In a Jan. 23 appearance, Trump said he would “demand that interest rates drop immediately.”

Under President Donald Trump, the DOJ arrested former senior Federal Reserve advisor John Harold Rogers, 63, for allegedly stealing trade secrets from the U.S. agency that controlled China’s access to U.S. markets. He took those trade secrets and gave them to his CCP handlers.

Former Federal Reserve Adviser Arrested for Allegedly Passing US Trade Secrets to China – NTD
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Prosecutors on Jan. 31 arrested a former senior Federal Reserve advisor, accusing him of stealing trade secrets from the agency that could allow China to manipulate the U.S. market.

John Harold Rogers, 63, worked for 11 years as a senior advisor for the international finance division of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the main governing body for the U.S. central bank.

A federal indictment alleged that Rogers began working with Chinese conspirators since at least 2018. The Chinese handlers worked for the Chinese intelligence and security apparatus and posed as graduate students at a Chinese university, according to the filing.

Rogers, in the collaboration, allegedly solicited trade-secret information that included proprietary economic data sets, China tariff deliberations, and briefing books for specific board governors. He also allegedly solicited internal discussions and forthcoming announcements from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a 12-member body consisting of the seven Federal Reserve board of governors, the New York Federal Reserve Bank president, and four of the remaining 11 Reserve Bank presidents that rotate on an annual basis.

Billions of dollars in value were lost in the tech market, which also includes the Chinese tech market, after a Chinese-owned tech company released a powerful AI reasoning model called DeepSeek that is far cheaper and a little more powerful than current AI models like ChatGPT. The world’s richest 500 people lost over $100 billion after the market responded to the stunning news.

Marc Andreesen, who created Netscape Navigator, called the release “AI’s Sputnik moment,” referring to the shock in America when, in 1959, the Soviet Union successfully launched a space satellite called Sputnik at a fraction of the cost of then-current U.S. programs. Donald Trump said of the “Sputnik moment,” that it “should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing to win.”

DeepSeek AI Triggers A Collective Loss of $94 Billion In Wealth Of Tech Billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg And Jeff – Times Now
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DeepSeek AI has taken the tech industry by storm with its cost and resource-effective advanced-language model. DeepSeek engineers claim that their open-source language learning model utilises fewer and cheaper chips to perform the same tasks as any other AI model out there at a ‘shoestring cost’ of $5.6 million. This has led many investors to rethink why a significant capital investment is required to build the strongest models when a competent AI model has been developed at a fraction of development costs.
DeepSeek AI is reportedly outperforming ChatGPT in areas such as mathematics and coding, positioning itself as a new competent AI model. The Chinese AI startup quickly emerged as the no.1 free app on the iOS app store, emerging as a free alternative against ChatGPT. DeepSeek performs all the functions of an open-source AI language learning model by utilising just 2000 chips, DeepSeek engineers reported. Whereas ChatGPT required 10,000 Nvidia GPUs to process its training data.
DeepSeek AI was founded in 2023, by Liang Wenfeng. Headquartered in Hangzhou, China, this new AI model is set to revolutionise the tech industry as it has successfully developed artificial general intelligence at a comparatively low cost…
As per a report by Bloomberg, billionaires tied to artificial intelligence suffered losses. Huang’s wealth decreased by $20.1 billion, a 20% decline, while Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison’s $22.6 billion loss was greater in absolute figures, yet only accounted for 12% of his total fortune, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Michael Dell of Dell Inc. saw a $13 billion decrease in his wealth, while Binance Holdings Ltd. co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao lost $12.1 billion.

The EU will be without cheap Russian gas following a decision by Ukraine to no longer allow Russia’s gas transferal to occur on Ukraine soil. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the decision “one of Moscow’s biggest defeats.” The “Brotherhood pipeline” shutdown will allegedly cause Russian gas giant Gazprom more than $6 billion yearly.

EU on brink of gas war after Ukraine cuts off Russia’s £5bn supply | World | News– www.express.co.uk
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Ukraine will no longer allow Russian gas to pass through en route to European neighbours in a move that will hurt both the Kremlin and EU states dependent on Putin’s energy supply.

On January 1, the 2019 deal, which saw gas transit through Ukraine to states like Slovakia and Austria, expired.

President Zelensky heralded the move as “one of Moscow’s biggest defeats”, while his energy minister branded it “historic”.

The closure of the Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod, which is also known as the Brotherhood pipeline, will cost Russian gas company Gazprom around £5bn a year – a bitter blow for Putin’s creaking war economy.

However, it’s not just Russia that is reeling following the expiration of the gas deal. Several European states are heavily dependent on Russian gas transported through Ukraine.

Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, as well as Moldova, are reliant on the steady flow of energy through Ukraine. Now that that is no longer possible, the only route remaining into Europe from Russia is via the TurkStream pipeline and the BlueSteam pipeline, under the Black Sea.

President-elect Donald Trump has petitioned the Supreme Court, asking them to delay a hearing on the potential TikTok ban from America should it not be sold to an American company. The President submitted an amicus curae, or “friend of the court” brief. He only requested a delay in the hearing, nothing more.

Trump asks Supreme Court to delay hearing on TikTok injunction – The Desk
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President-elect Donald Trump has weighed in on a forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court hearing that could decide the fate of short-form social video service TikTok in the coming weeks.

Last Friday, Trump invoked a legal doctrine known as “amicus curae” to file a so-called “friend of the court” brief, during which he took no position on the case at hand but encouraged the Supreme Court to delay its hearing on whether to approve an injunction that prevents TikTok from being banned in U.S. app stores.

The banishment is rooted in a law passed earlier this summer that forces TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to divest its U.S.-based business to a stateside entity. The law was rolled into a federal appropriations bill that was mainly intended to green-light financial funding for the wars in Ukraine and Israel. President Joe Biden signed the measure into law in April, and ByteDance filed its legal challenge soon after.

The law requires ByteDance to divest its U.S.-based business by January 19; if it doesn’t, the measure requires U.S. app stores run by Google, Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Microsoft and others to pull the TikTok app, making it unavailable for download to computers, phones, tablets and smart TVs.

The law doesn’t ban Americans from using the service, and the TikTok app currently installed on devices will continue to work as long as ByteDance and the manufacturers of those devices support it. But it makes TikTok much harder to access when users buy new devices or switch from one platform to another, or if they delete the app and decide they want to reinstall it at a later time, because it won’t be available in app stores. (Android and Microsoft users will still be able to download the app beyond app stores, but Apple device users cannot download apps that aren’t available whiten the Apple App Store).