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On March 12, U.S. Energy Secretary Wright issued a statement regarding the release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, stating that the 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency unanimously agreed to President Trumps request to coordinate the release of 400 million barrels of crude oil and refined products from their reserves to lower energy prices. As part of this action, Trump authorized the Department of Energy to release 172 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve starting next week. Based on the planned release schedule, delivery is expected to be completed in approximately 120 days. Trump also pledged to ensure U.S. energy security through the responsible management of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The U.S. has already arranged to replenish its strategic reserves by approximately 200 million barrels over the next year—20% more than planned—at no cost to taxpayers.U.S. Trade Representative Greer: We expect to initiate additional Section 301 investigations.U.S. Trade Representative Greer: Hopes to complete the Section 301 investigation before the expiration of Section 122 tariffs.U.S. Trade Representative Greer: The investigation could lead to countermeasures, including additional tariffs.1. The three major U.S. stock indexes closed mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.61% to 47,417.27 points, the S&P 500 fell 0.08% to 6,775.8 points, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.08% to 22,716.13 points. Sherwin-Williams fell more than 2%, and Home Depot fell nearly 2%, leading the decline in the Dow. The Wind U.S. Tech Big Seven Index rose 0.27%, Tesla rose more than 2%, and Nvidia rose 0.66%. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index fell 0.77%, Wanwu Xinsheng fell more than 10%, and iQiyi fell more than 4%. The market continues to focus on the development of the U.S.-Israel-Iran war and oil price trends. 2. The three major European stock indexes all closed lower. The German DAX fell 1.37% to 23,640.03 points, the French CAC40 fell 0.19% to 8,041.81 points, and the UK FTSE 100 fell 0.56% to 10,353.77 points. 3. US Treasury yields rose across the board. The 2-year Treasury yield rose 6.06 basis points to 3.651%, the 3-year Treasury yield rose 6.23 basis points to 3.675%, the 5-year Treasury yield rose 6.31 basis points to 3.804%, the 10-year Treasury yield rose 7.20 basis points to 4.230%, and the 30-year Treasury yield rose 9.03 basis points to 4.880%. 4. International precious metals futures generally closed lower. COMEX gold futures fell 1.11% to $5183.90 per ounce, and COMEX silver futures fell 4.11% to $85.91 per ounce. 5. The most active US crude oil contract closed up 5.94% at $88.41 per barrel; the most active Brent crude oil contract rose 6.64% to $93.63 per barrel. 6. Most London base metals fell, with LME aluminum up 1.50% to $3457.0/ton, LME nickel up 1.33% to $17720.0/ton, LME lead down 0.26% to $1938.5/ton, LME copper down 0.69% to $13049.0/ton, LME zinc down 0.90% to $3315.5/ton, and LME tin down 1.06% to $49905.0/ton.

Microsoft Will Lay off 10,000 Workers, Adding to IT's Excess of Layoffs

Haiden Holmes

Jan 19, 2023 10:59

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Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) stated on Wednesday that it will remove 10,000 employees and take a $1.2 billion loss against profits as cloud-computing clients rethink spending and the business prepares for a potential recession.


The layoffs are in addition to the tens of thousands that have been reported over the past few months in the IT industry, which has retreated after a period of tremendous expansion during the epidemic.


The announcement comes as the software company plans to raise expenditure on generative artificial intelligence, the emerging bright spot in the industry.


CEO Satya Nadella sought to address the varied outlooks for several business divisions in an internal message to staff.


Customers wished to "optimize their digital expenditures to do more with less" and "exercise prudence since certain sections of the world are experiencing a recession and others are expecting one," he stated. Simultaneously, AI advancements are spawning the next major wave of computing.


The layoffs, which will affect fewer than 5 percent of Microsoft's staff, will be completed by the end of March, with notification commencing on Wednesday.


Microsoft would continue to employ in "key areas," he said. AI is likely one of these disciplines. This week, Nadella introduced AI to a gathering of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland, stating that the technology will alter Microsoft's products and have a global influence.


Microsoft has contemplated raising its $1 billion bet in OpenAI, the firm behind the ChatGPT craze in Silicon Valley, which Microsoft will shortly offer as a cloud service.


The closing price for shares of the Redmond, Washington-based corporation decreased by 2% on Wednesday.


Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), a rival in the retail and cloud-computing industries, began notifying its own 18,000 employees of layoffs on Wednesday.


Amazon indicated in an internal message that impacted employees in the United States, Canada, and Costa Rica will be informed by day's end. The Chinese staff will be notified following the Chinese New Year.


Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META), the parent company of Facebook, has announced the termination of 11,000 employees, while Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Inc has announced the removal of 10% of its 80,000-person staff.


More than 97,000 job cutbacks were reported in the IT business in 2022, the highest since 131,000 layoffs were revealed in 2002, according to the outplacement agency Challenger, Gray & Christmas.


"We haven't seen this amount of activity since the dot-com disaster," said Andrew Challenger, the company's senior vice president.


According to an update on the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) page for Washington State, Microsoft will lay off 878 full-time employees at its Redmond headquarters. The legislation requires the majority of U.S. firms to report mass layoffs impacting 50 or more employees at a single site.

CLOUD GROWTH DECLINING

According to some experts, Microsoft's billion-dollar penalty would cut the company's second fiscal quarter profit by 12 cents per share and may have consequences outside the technology sector.


Brian Frank, a portfolio manager at Frank Funds who has owned Microsoft shares periodically over the past many years, stated, "This is one of the marquee growth firms with a very distinct user base indicating that economic conditions may not be as favorable as we anticipated."


According to Nadella, the charge is the result of severance fees, as well as changes to Microsoft's hardware lineup and lease consolidation to create more dense workplaces.


Microsoft declined to comment on the hardware modifications or whether any product lines will be discontinued.


In recent years, Microsoft's cloud sales have surged due to an increase in corporate demand for online data hosting and cloud computing. However, growth dropped to 35% in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, and the business forecasts further slowing. It was reported in July of last year that a few posts had been cut.

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