Microsoft overtakes Apple as most valuable company
Microsoft (MSFT:NASDAQ) ended Friday’s U.S. trading session as the most valuable publicly traded company, surpassing Apple (APPL:NASDAQ) after briefly topping the iPhone maker during intraday trading Thursday.
Shares of Microsoft climbed more than 3% for the week, bringing the company’s market cap to $2.89 trillion, while Apple’s stock dropped by over 3%, lowering its valuation to $2.87 trillion.
Following brief periods when Saudi Aramco and Microsoft held that title, Apple had been the most valuable public company for over a year.
Microsoft finished the week 5% higher
Google to layoff hundreds as big tech layoffs continue in 2024
Layoffs in tech companies are far from over. Google (GOOG:NASDAQ) has announced that it has laid off a thousand workers in its engineering and hardware division. The recent wave of layoffs also had an impact on Google Assistant’s voice-operated virtual assistant employees.
The recent wave of layoffs in the tech sector is different from what has been witnessed in the last two years. There is a corporate rebalancing as companies are now focusing on generative AI, which allows companies to do more with fewer workers.
Data shows that IT hiring in tech companies is down by thousands, a sign of a broader shift towards embedding generative AI into operations and business models
Google shares ended the week 4.6% higher
Citi to trim workforce by 10%
Citigroup (C:NYSE) said it was cutting 10% of its workforce in a bid to help boost the embattled bank’s results and stock price.
known internally by the code name “Project Bora Bora”, the plan is to let about 20,000 employees go over the “medium term.” While it wasn’t immediately clear how long that is, the bank has previously used that term to denote a three- to five-year period.
Citigroup had roughly 200,000 workers at the end of 2023, excluding Mexican operations that are in the process of being spun out.
The company has since executed several waves of layoffs, beginning with the top layers of the bank, with another round of cuts set for Jan. 22
Citi shares lost 2.5% this week.
JP Morgan’s profit declines by $2.9 billion.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM:NYSE) said that its fourth-quarter profit declined after paying a $2.9 billion fee tied to the government seizures of failed regional banks last year.
Quarterly earnings slipped 15% to $9.31 billion, or $3.04 per share, from a year earlier. Excluding the fee tied to the regional banking crisis and $743 million in investment losses, earnings would have been $3.97 per share, according to JPMorgan.
The bank said it generated nearly $50 billion of profit in 2023, $4.1 billion of which came from the First Republic. Revenue climbed 12% to $39.94 billion.
CEO Jamie Dimon said full-year results hit a record because the largest U.S. bank by assets performed better than expected on net interest income and credit quality.
JP Morgan shares lost 1.7% this week.
SEC approves Bitcoin ETF
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the first spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in a watershed moment that cryptocurrency enthusiasts are betting will draw new retail and institutional investors into the market.
The top American securities regulator cleared 11 ETFs to list, with sponsors ranging from established players such as Fidelity and Invesco to digitally focused newcomers including Grayscale and Ark Invest.
The approval comes after months of anticipation and a bitter legal battle. It also caps a wild 24 hours that saw hackers briefly seize control of the SEC’s account on the social media site X and falsely claim that the applications had already been approved, prompting sharp swings in Bitcoin’s price.
Boeing posts worst week since 2022
Boeing (BA:NYSE) investors are on edge after The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s for inspection. The latest scrutiny comes on the heels of a midflight mishap after a door plug blew out during an Alaska Airlines (ALK:NYSE) flight last week.
Shares of the airplane manufacturer have dropped 4.5 % this week as traders followed the latest updates after the detachment. United Airlines (UAL:NASDAQ) and Delta Air Lines (DAL:NYSE) saw their shares tumble by 4% and 7%, respectively.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said this week that the company has acknowledged its mistake.