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Tag: amazon.com inc

  • Amazon warehouse workers in UK vote to go on strike | CNN Business

    Amazon warehouse workers in UK vote to go on strike | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Amazon warehouse workers at a facility in the United Kingdom plan to go on strike, their union confirmed to CNN on Friday, in a move that’s being billed as a first for the company’s workers in the country.

    The GMB union, which represents workers in a range of industries in the UK, said that hundreds of Amazon workers at a warehouse in Coventry overwhelmingly voted for the strike, which is expected to take place in the new year.

    The labor action stems from workers’ dissatisfaction over Amazon’s proposed pay raises, according to the union. It also comes as soaring inflation in the UK has forced households to grapple with skyrocketing food and energy costs.

    “Amazon workers in Coventry have made history – they will be the first ever in the UK to take part in a formal strike,” Amanda Gearing, GMB senior organizer, said in a statement to CNN on Friday. “The fact that they are being forced to go on strike to win a decent rate of pay from one of the world’s most valuable companies should be a badge of shame for Amazon.”

    “Amazon can afford to do better,” Gearing added, noting that it is “not too late to avoid strike action,” and urged Amazon to come to the bargaining table to “improve the pay and conditions of workers.”

    In a statement to CNN on Friday, a UK Amazon spokesperson touted the company’s pay and benefits. “We appreciate the great work our teams do throughout the year and we’re proud to offer competitive pay which starts at a minimum of between £10.50 and £11.45 per hour, depending on location.”

    “This represents a 29 per cent increase in the minimum hourly wage paid to Amazon employees since 2018,” the statement added. “On top of this, we’re pleased to have announced that full-time, part-time and seasonal frontline employees will receive an additional one-time special payment of up to £500 as an extra thank you.”

    The move from Amazon workers in the UK also comes as Amazon workers in the United States continue to organize and push for collective bargaining rights.

    Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, made history earlier this year when they voted to form the first-ever labor union at one of the company’s US facilities. Despite the landmark victory for the worker group, known as the Amazon Labor Union, the company has yet to formally recognize the union or come to the bargaining table.

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy suggested in remarks last month that the company’s legal battle with the union is “far from over,” despite the National Labor Relations Board indicating the union is on the cusp of being certified.

    Other recent attempts to unionize at Amazon warehouses in the United States have come up short.

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  • OSHA: Amazon failed to record some warehouse injuries

    OSHA: Amazon failed to record some warehouse injuries

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    NEW YORK — Amazon failed to properly record work-related injuries at warehouses located in five states, a federal agency said Friday while announcing it issued more than a dozen citations during the course of its ongoing investigation of the company.

    The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it handed out 14 citations during inspections over the summer at six Amazon warehouses in New York, Florida, Illinois, Colorado and Idaho.

    The citations were for failing to record, or misclassifying, injuries and illnesses, not recording them within the required time and not giving the agency “timely” records of such matters, OSHA said. The e-commerce giant, which earned over $33 billion last year, faces about $29,000 in penalties.

    Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a prepared statement the company invests millions in a “robust safety program” to protect workers.

    “Accurate recordkeeping is a critical element of that program and while we acknowledge there might have been a small number of administrative errors over the years, we are confident in the numbers we’ve reported to the government,” Nantel said, adding the company was pleased OSHA acknowledged “all of the alleged violations are ‘other than serious’ and involve minor infractions.”

    Seattle-based Amazon has long faced criticism over its workplace injury rates, which the company itself has acknowledged to be higher than the industry average in some cases. Earlier this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that, while the company’s data shows injury rates for its delivery and courier workers were lower than average, injury rates for its warehouse workers were higher compared to its peers.

    Labor and safety experts have criticized how the company tracks the productivity levels of workers who pack and stow packages and say the fast-paced environment of the warehouses could contribute to higher injury rates. Amazon has said it doesn’t have productivity quotas and it only evaluates its employees compared to their peers.

    The citations arise from referrals that were made to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Nicholas Biase, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York, said the civil division of the office and OHSA have been investigating potential worker safety at Amazon warehouses and “possible fraudulent conduct designed to hide injuries from OSHA and others.” The attorney’s office has been encouraging former and current Amazon workers to directly report safety issues to them.

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  • Amazon workers will go on formal strike for the first time in the UK

    Amazon workers will go on formal strike for the first time in the UK

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    Amazon packages move on a conveyer belt at a fulfillment center in England.

    Nathan Stirk | Getty Images

    Hundreds of Amazon workers will go on strike, Britain’s GMB union said Friday, marking a first for the company’s employees in the U.K.

    Employees at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse in central England voted Friday to go on strike, with the walkout likely to happen in January 2023. Roughly 1,000 people work at the Coventry facility.

    The workers are unhappy with a pay increase of 3%, or 50 pence per hour, Amazon introduced in the summer, which they say fails to match the rising cost of living. They want Amazon to pay a minimum of £15 an hour.

    Inflation has soared due to increased energy costs and supply chain disruptions, with consumer prices currently at a 41-year high. The Bank of England hiked interest rates on Thursday in an effort to slow inflation.

    Though Amazon workers in the U.K. have previously stopped working in August and on Black Friday in November in protest over the summer pay increase, these were spontaneous, unsanctioned withdrawals of labor.

    This will be the first legally mandated strike to take place in the U.K.

    Amanda Gearing, senior organizer at GMB, said the Coventry workers “should be applauded for their grit and determination.”

    “The fact that they are being forced to go on strike to win a decent rate of pay from one of the world’s most valuable companies should be a badge of shame for Amazon,” Gearing said in a statement.

    “Amazon can afford to do better. It’s not too late to avoid strike action; get round the table with GMB to improve the pay and conditions of workers.”

    Around 98% of the workers who turned out to vote opted to go on strike on a turnout of more than 63%.

    In an emailed statement to CNBC, an Amazon spokesperson said: “We appreciate the great work our teams do throughout the year and we’re proud to offer competitive pay which starts at a minimum of between £10.50 and £11.45 per hour, depending on location.”

    “This represents a 29 per cent increase in the minimum hourly wage paid to Amazon employees since 2018. Employees are also offered comprehensive benefits that are worth thousands more — including private medical insurance, life assurance, subsidised meals and an employee discount, to name a few.”

    “On top of this, we’re pleased to have announced that full-time, part-time and seasonal frontline employees will receive an additional one-time special payment of up to £500 as an extra thank you,” the spokesperson added.

    Amazon has long been criticized for labor shortcomings, with the company often accused of poor working conditions in its warehouses and delivery operations. In April, staff at the company’s Staten Island warehouse in New York became the first group in the U.S. to vote in favor of joining a union.

    The walkout will add to the wave of industrial action happening across the country. In recent weeks, upcoming strike actions have been announced by nurses, rail workers, postal workers, ambulance workers, airport staff, Border Force agents, highway workers, Eurostar staff, civil servants, bus drivers, firefighters, charity workers, meteorologists and offshore workers.

    – CNBC’s Elliot Smith contributed to this report

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  • Here are Friday’s biggest analyst calls: Apple, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, Carvana, Delta, Walmart & more

    Here are Friday’s biggest analyst calls: Apple, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, Carvana, Delta, Walmart & more

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  • CES 2023: Tech world to gather and show off gadgets

    CES 2023: Tech world to gather and show off gadgets

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    NEW YORK — CES, the annual tech industry event formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, is returning to Las Vegas this January with the hope that it looks more like it did before the coronavirus pandemic.

    The show changed its name to CES to better reflect the changing industry and the event, which had expanded beyond audio and video to include automotive, digital health, smart phones, wearables and other technologies.

    Companies and startups will showcase innovations in virtual reality, robotics and consumer tech items to the media and others in the tech industry during next month’s gadget show and organizers say their goal is to draw 100,000 attendees.

    That would be a marked contrast with the look and feel of the past two shows — the last of which saw a 70% drop in in-person attendance amid the spread of the Omicron variant. The one before that was held virtually, replacing in-person displays and meet and greets with video streams and chats.

    Even if organizers reach their goal for next month’s event, which runs from Jan. 5-8, it would still represent a 41% dip in attendance compared to the in-person show held in early 2020, before the pandemic consumed much of everyday life.

    Kinsey Fabrizio, senior vice president at the trade group Consumer Technology Association, said more than 2,800 companies have signed up to attend CES 2023.

    Exhibitors include many startups and routine visitors like Amazon and Facebook parent Meta, both of which have recently cut jobs and implemented hiring freezes after beefing up their staff during the pandemic. Other tech companies have also been tightening their belts and laying off workers amid concerns about the economic environment.

    The Associated Press spoke with Fabrizio about CES and what consumers should expect at the show. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

    ———

    Q: The tech industry has been going through a rough time in the past few months. How do you expect that to impact the show?

    A: Yeah, for the last two years, the tech industry was booming. We’re seeing a recalibration now and as part of the recalibration, there are layoffs. But in terms of CES, the companies are coming big. And they’re going to be showcasing some of these solutions that were critical during the pandemic, and a lot of the solutions that have continued to change the way consumers live and behave. The momentum and excitement we’re seeing for the show hasn’t been impacted.

    Q: Are most of the exhibitors startups?

    A: We have a lot of startups and new companies. Over 1,000 new exhibitors for CES this year, which is on par with prior years. There will be some repeat customers in Eureka Park, where our startups are primarily stationed. They can be there for up to two years. But we will also have a lot of companies who’ve been at CES for a while.

    Q: The theme for the show is human security. How did you land on that?

    A: We were approached by The World Academy of Art and Science, which has been working with the United Nations for a long time on human security. You can think of it as basic human rights — access to food, health care, etc. And they wanted CES to really use this theme because our exhibitors are showcasing how they’re solving some of these big global challenges with technology.

    Q: Historically, CES has been more focused on convenience and personal tech. So this is going to be a shift.

    A: This is the shift. We’ve talked about how tech solves challenges in the world. But we’ve never had a theme at CES before. It’s always been about innovation and great products for the consumer. But for this show, you will be able to see the theme on the show floor and other places. For example, John Deere is showcasing some of their agricultural technology that really contributes to sustainability and access to food. Another company created a secure voting technology on the blockchain, which aligns with the U.N. theme of political security.

    Q: The metaverse is going to be another big topic. A lot of companies are investing in it. What can visitors expect to see at the show?

    A: The metaverse is a key theme. We’ll have a dedicated part of the show floor for Web3 technology. There’s also going to be shared and immersive virtual experiences. Automaker Stellantis and Microsoft have a partnership to create a showroom in the metaverse. There’s a company called OVR that has created a solution where you can smell in the metaverse. People are talking about unique ways to reach their customers, and different experiences people can have there. So that will be a big theme among both big and small exhibitors.

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  • Musk’s Twitter reportedly hasn’t paid rent on its office spaces for weeks

    Musk’s Twitter reportedly hasn’t paid rent on its office spaces for weeks

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    Pedestrians walk in front of the Twitter Inc. headquarters in San Francisco, California.

    David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    In an effort to cut costs following Elon Musk’s chaotic $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, the social media company has stopped paying rent, according to a report from The New York Times.

    Twitter has not paid rent for its global offices or San Francisco headquarters in weeks, the report said, as Musk’s team has been trying to renegotiate the terms of the company’s lease. As a result, Twitter has received complaints from real estate firms like Shorenstein, which owns Twitter’s San Francisco buildings.

    Representatives for Shorenstein and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Twitter no longer has a communications department.

    Musk said Twitter suffered a “massive drop in revenue” in the days following his $44 billion acquisition of the company. Without providing any figures or evidence, he claimed in a tweet that the revenue drop was the result of activist groups putting pressure on advertisers.

    Though many companies did pause advertising on Twitter, some major advertising giants like Apple and Amazon have resumed spending on the platform.

    Musk has also revamped Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, with the hope of generating fresh revenue for the company. The service launched Monday after Musk pulled and delayed the launch in November.

    Twitter Blue costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iOS users who purchase it through Apple‘s App Store. The $3 iOS price difference reflects Musk’s recent gripes about Apple’s 30% cut of all digital sales made through apps.

    Subscribers with a verified phone number will receive a blue checkmark once their account is reviewed and approved, Twitter said in a tweet Saturday. Blue users will also be able to edit tweets and get early access to new features. The company says Blue subscribers will “soon” see fewer ads, have the option to post longer videos and will appear at the top of replies and mentions.

    Musk has been a vocal critic of Twitter’s previous system, which granted verification to notable users like politicians, executives, members of the press and organizations to signal their legitimacy. He said the new verification system will be “the great leveler” and give “power to the people.“

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  • Best stock picks for 2023: Here are Wall Street analysts’ most heavily favored choices

    Best stock picks for 2023: Here are Wall Street analysts’ most heavily favored choices

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    Following a sharp and sustained rise in interest rates, U.S. stocks have taken a broad beating this year.

    But 2023 may bring very different circumstances.

    Below are lists of analysts’ favorite stocks among the benchmark S&P 500
    SPX,
    the S&P 400 Mid Cap Index
    MID
    and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index
    SML
    that are expected to rise the most over the next year. Those lists are followed by a summary of opinions of all 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA.

    Stocks rallied on Dec. 13 when the November CPI report showed a much slower inflation pace than economists had expected. Investors were also anticipating the Federal Open Market Committee’s next monetary policy announcement on Dec. 14. The consensus among economists polled by FactSet is for the Federal Reserve to raise the federal funds rate by 0.50% to a target range of 4.50% to 4.75%.

    Read: 5 things to watch when the Fed makes its interest-rate decision

    A 0.50% increase would be a slowdown from the four previous increases of 0.75%. The rate began 2022 in a range of zero to 0.25%, where it had sat since March 2020.

    A pivot for the Fed Reserve and the possibility that the federal funds rate will reach its “terminal” rate (the highest for this cycle) in the near term could set the stage for a broad rally for stocks in 2023.

    Wall Street’s large-cap favorites

    Among the S&P 500, 92 stocks are rated “buy” or the equivalent by at least 75% of analysts working for brokerage firms. That number itself is interesting — at the end of 2021, 93 of the S&P 500 had this distinction. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has declined 16% in 2022, with all sectors down except for energy, which has risen 53%, and the utilities sector, which his risen 1% (both excluding dividends).

    Here are the 20 stocks in the S&P 500 with at least 75% “buy” or equivalent ratings that analysts expect to rise the most over the next year, based on consensus price targets:

    Company

    		 Ticker

    		 Industry

    		 Closing price – Dec. 12

    		 Consensus price target

    		 Implied 12-month upside potential

    		 Share “buy” ratings

    		 Price change – 2022 through Dec. 12
    EQT Corp.

    		 EQT Oil and Gas Production

    		 $36.91

    		 $59.70

    		 62%

    		 78%

    		 69%
    Catalent Inc.

    		 CTLT Pharmaceuticals

    		 $45.50

    		 $72.42

    		 59%

    		 75%

    		 -64%
    Amazon.com Inc.

    		 AMZN Internet Retail

    		 $90.55

    		 $136.02

    		 50%

    		 91%

    		 -46%
    Global Payments Inc.

    		 GPN Misc. Commercial Services

    		 $99.64

    		 $147.43

    		 48%

    		 75%

    		 -26%
    Signature Bank

    		 SBNY Regional Banks

    		 $122.73

    		 $180.44

    		 47%

    		 78%

    		 -62%
    Salesforce Inc.

    		 CRM Software

    		 $133.11

    		 $195.59

    		 47%

    		 80%

    		 -48%
    Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. Class A

    		 BIO Medical Specialties

    		 $418.28

    		 $591.00

    		 41%

    		 100%

    		 -45%
    Zoetis Inc. Class A

    		 ZTS Pharmaceuticals

    		 $152.86

    		 $212.80

    		 39%

    		 87%

    		 -37%
    Delta Air Lines Inc.

    		 DAL Airlines

    		 $34.77

    		 $48.31

    		 39%

    		 90%

    		 -11%
    Diamondback Energy Inc.

    		 FANG Oil and Gas Production

    		 $134.21

    		 $182.33

    		 36%

    		 84%

    		 24%
    Caesars Entertainment Inc

    		 CZR Casinos/ Gaming

    		 $50.27

    		 $67.79

    		 35%

    		 81%

    		 -46%
    Alphabet Inc. Class A

    		 GOOGL Internet Software/ Services

    		 $93.31

    		 $125.70

    		 35%

    		 92%

    		 -36%
    Halliburton Co.

    		 HAL Oilfield Services/ Equipment

    		 $34.30

    		 $45.95

    		 34%

    		 86%

    		 50%
    Alaska Air Group Inc.

    		 ALK Airlines

    		 $45.75

    		 $61.08

    		 34%

    		 93%

    		 -12%
    Targa Resources Corp.

    		 TRGP Gas Distributors

    		 $70.42

    		 $93.95

    		 33%

    		 95%

    		 35%
    Charles River Laboratories International Inc.

    		 CRL Misc. Commercial Services

    		 $201.94

    		 $269.25

    		 33%

    		 88%

    		 -46%
    ServiceNow Inc.

    		 NOW Information Technology Services

    		 $401.64

    		 $529.83

    		 32%

    		 92%

    		 -38%
    Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.

    		 TTWO Software

    		 $102.61

    		 $135.04

    		 32%

    		 79%

    		 -42%
    EOG Resources Inc.

    		 EOG Oil and Gas Production

    		 $124.06

    		 $158.24

    		 28%

    		 82%

    		 40%
    Southwest Airlines Co.

    		 LUV Airlines

    		 $38.94

    		 $49.56

    		 27%

    		 76%

    		 -9%
    Source: FactSet

    Most of the companies on the S&P 500 list expected to soar in 2023 have seen large declines in 2022. But the company at the top of the list, EQT Corp.
    EQT,
    is an exception. The stock has risen 69% in 2022 and is expected to add another 62% over the next 12 months. Analysts expect the company’s earnings per share to double during 2023 (in part from its expected acquisition of THQ), after nearly a four-fold EPS increase in 2022.

    Shares of Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN
    are expected to soar 50% over the next year, following a decline of 46% so far in 2022. If the shares were to rise 50% from here to the price target of $136.02, they would still be 18% below their closing price of 166.72 at the end of 2021.

    Read: Here’s why Amazon is Citi’s top internet stock idea

    You can see the earnings estimates and more for any stock in this article by clicking on its ticker.

    Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.

    Mid-cap stocks expected to rise the most

    The lists of favored stocks are limited to those covered by at least five analysts polled by FactSet.

    Among components of the S&P 400 Mid Cap Index, there are 84 stocks with at least 75% “buy” ratings. Here at the 20 expected to rise the most over the next year:

    Company

    		 Ticker

    		 Industry

    		 Closing price – Dec. 12

    		 Consensus price target

    		 Implied 12-month upside potential

    		 Share “buy” ratings

    		 Price change – 2022 through Dec. 12
    Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc.

    		 ARWR Biotechnology

    		 $31.85

    		 $69.69

    		 119%

    		 83%

    		 -52%
    Lantheus Holdings Inc.

    		 LNTH Medical Specialties

    		 $54.92

    		 $102.00

    		 86%

    		 100%

    		 90%
    Progyny Inc.

    		 PGNY Misc. Commercial Services

    		 $31.21

    		 $55.57

    		 78%

    		 100%

    		 -38%
    Coherent Corp.

    		 COHR Electronic Equipment/ Instruments

    		 $35.41

    		 $60.56

    		 71%

    		 84%

    		 -48%
    Exelixis Inc.

    		 EXEL Biotechnology

    		 $16.08

    		 $26.07

    		 62%

    		 81%

    		 -12%
    Darling Ingredients Inc.

    		 DAR Food: Specialty/ Candy

    		 $61.17

    		 $97.36

    		 59%

    		 93%

    		 -12%
    Perrigo Co. PLC

    		 PRGO Pharmaceuticals

    		 $31.83

    		 $49.25

    		 55%

    		 100%

    		 -18%
    Mattel Inc.

    		 MAT Recreational Products

    		 $17.39

    		 $26.58

    		 53%

    		 87%

    		 -19%
    ACI Worldwide Inc.

    		 ACIW Software

    		 $20.75

    		 $31.40

    		 51%

    		 83%

    		 -40%
    Topgolf Callaway Brands Corp.

    		 MODG Recreational Products

    		 $21.99

    		 $32.91

    		 50%

    		 83%

    		 -20%
    Dycom Industries Inc.

    		 DY Engineering and Construction

    		 $86.03

    		 $128.13

    		 49%

    		 100%

    		 -8%
    Travel + Leisure Co.

    		 TNL Hotels/ Resorts/ Cruiselines

    		 $37.98

    		 $56.00

    		 47%

    		 75%

    		 -31%
    Frontier Communications Parent Inc.

    		 FYBR Telecommunications

    		 $25.21

    		 $36.18

    		 44%

    		 82%

    		 -15%
    Manhattan Associates Inc.

    		 MANH Software

    		 $120.06

    		 $171.80

    		 43%

    		 88%

    		 -23%
    MP Materials Corp Class A

    		 MP Other Metals/ Minerals

    		 $31.39

    		 $44.79

    		 43%

    		 92%

    		 -31%
    Lumentum Holdings Inc.

    		 LITE Electrical Products

    		 $54.45

    		 $76.44

    		 40%

    		 76%

    		 -49%
    Tenet Healthcare Corp.

    		 THC Hospital/ Nursing Management

    		 $44.22

    		 $62.00

    		 40%

    		 80%

    		 -46%
    Repligen Corp.

    		 RGEN Pharmaceuticals

    		 $166.88

    		 $233.10

    		 40%

    		 82%

    		 -37%
    STAAR Surgical Co.

    		 STAA Medical Specialties

    		 $59.57

    		 $82.67

    		 39%

    		 82%

    		 -35%
    Carlisle Cos. Inc.

    		 CSL Building Products

    		 $251.99

    		 $348.33

    		 38%

    		 75%

    		 2%
    Source: FactSet
    Wall Street’s favorite small-cap names

    Among companies in the S&P Small Cap 600 Index, 91 are rated “buy” or the equivalent by at least 75% of analysts. Here are the 20 with the highest 12-month upside potential indicated by consensus price targets:

    Company

    		 Ticker

    		 Industry

    		 Closing price – Dec. 12

    		 Consensus price target

    		 Implied 12-month upside potential

    		 Share “buy” ratings

    		 Price change – 2022 through Dec. 12
    UniQure NV

    		 QURE Biotechnology

    		 $22.99

    		 $51.29

    		 123%

    		 95%

    		 11%
    Cara Therapeutics Inc.

    		 CARA Biotechnology

    		 $11.34

    		 $23.63

    		 108%

    		 88%

    		 -7%
    Vir Biotechnology Inc.

    		 VIR Biotechnology

    		 $25.50

    		 $53.00

    		 108%

    		 75%

    		 -39%
    Dynavax Technologies Corp.

    		 DVAX Biotechnology

    		 $11.22

    		 $23.20

    		 107%

    		 100%

    		 -20%
    Thryv Holdings Inc.

    		 THRY Advertising/ Marketing Services

    		 $18.40

    		 $36.75

    		 100%

    		 100%

    		 -55%
    Artivion Inc.

    		 AORT Medical Specialties

    		 $12.93

    		 $23.13

    		 79%

    		 83%

    		 -36%
    Cytokinetics Inc.

    		 CYTK Pharmaceuticals

    		 $38.33

    		 $67.43

    		 76%

    		 100%

    		 -16%
    Harsco Corp.

    		 HSC Environmental Services

    		 $7.17

    		 $12.30

    		 72%

    		 80%

    		 -57%
    Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc.

    		 LGND Pharmaceuticals

    		 $64.80

    		 $110.83

    		 71%

    		 100%

    		 -35%
    Corcept Therapeutics Inc.

    		 CORT Pharmaceuticals

    		 $20.84

    		 $34.20

    		 64%

    		 80%

    		 5%
    Payoneer Global Inc.

    		 PAYO Misc. Commercial Services

    		 $5.70

    		 $9.33

    		 64%

    		 100%

    		 -22%
    Xencor Inc.

    		 XNCR Biotechnology

    		 $28.69

    		 $46.71

    		 63%

    		 93%

    		 -28%
    Pacira Biosciences Inc.

    		 PCRX Pharmaceuticals

    		 $45.50

    		 $72.90

    		 60%

    		 80%

    		 -24%
    BioLife Solutions Inc.

    		 BLFS Chemicals

    		 $19.72

    		 $31.38

    		 59%

    		 89%

    		 -47%
    Customers Bancorp Inc.

    		 CUBI Regional Banks

    		 $30.00

    		 $47.63

    		 59%

    		 75%

    		 -54%
    ModivCare Inc.

    		 MODV Other Transportation

    		 $92.22

    		 $145.83

    		 58%

    		 100%

    		 -38%
    Stride Inc.

    		 LRN Consumer Services

    		 $32.56

    		 $51.25

    		 57%

    		 100%

    		 -2%
    Ranger Oil Corp. Class A

    		 ROCC Oil and Gas Production

    		 $36.98

    		 $58.00

    		 57%

    		 100%

    		 37%
    Outfront Media Inc.

    		 OUT Real Estate Investment Trusts

    		 $17.59

    		 $27.00

    		 53%

    		 83%

    		 -34%
    Walker & Dunlop Inc.

    		 WD Finance/ Rental/ Leasing

    		 $82.22

    		 $125.20

    		 52%

    		 100%

    		 -46%
    Source: FactSet
    The Dow

    Here are all 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average ranked by how much analysts expect their prices to rise over the next year:

    Company

    		 Ticker

    		 Industry

    		 Closing price – Dec. 12

    		 Consensus price target

    		 Implied 12-month upside potential

    		 Share “buy” ratings

    		 Price change – 2022 through Dec. 12
    Salesforce Inc.

    		 CRM Software

    		 $133.11

    		 $195.59

    		 47%

    		 80%

    		 -48%
    Walt Disney Co.

    		 DIS Movies/ Entertainment

    		 $94.66

    		 $119.60

    		 26%

    		 82%

    		 -39%
    Apple Inc.

    		 AAPL Telecommunications Equipment

    		 $144.49

    		 $173.70

    		 20%

    		 74%

    		 -19%
    Verizon Communications Inc.

    		 VZ Telecommunications

    		 $37.95

    		 $44.60

    		 18%

    		 21%

    		 -27%
    Visa Inc. Class A

    		 V Misc.s Commercial Services

    		 $214.59

    		 $249.33

    		 16%

    		 86%

    		 -1%
    Microsoft Corp.

    		 MSFT Software

    		 $252.51

    		 $293.06

    		 16%

    		 91%

    		 -25%
    Chevron Corp.

    		 CVX Integrated Oil

    		 $169.75

    		 $191.20

    		 13%

    		 54%

    		 45%
    Cisco Systems Inc.

    		 CSCO Information Technology Services

    		 $49.30

    		 $53.76

    		 9%

    		 44%

    		 -22%
    UnitedHealth Group Inc.

    		 UNH Managed Health Care

    		 $545.86

    		 $593.30

    		 9%

    		 85%

    		 9%
    Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

    		 GS Investment Banks/ Brokers

    		 $363.18

    		 $392.63

    		 8%

    		 59%

    		 -5%
    Walmart Inc.

    		 WMT Specialty Stores

    		 $148.02

    		 $159.86

    		 8%

    		 72%

    		 2%
    JPMorgan Chase & Co.

    		 JPM Banks

    		 $134.21

    		 $143.84

    		 7%

    		 59%

    		 -15%
    Home Depot Inc.

    		 HD Home Improvement Chains

    		 $327.98

    		 $346.61

    		 6%

    		 61%

    		 -21%
    American Express Co.

    		 AXP Finance/ Rental/ Leasing

    		 $157.31

    		 $164.57

    		 5%

    		 43%

    		 -4%
    McDonald’s Corp.

    		 MCD Restaurants

    		 $276.62

    		 $288.67

    		 4%

    		 72%

    		 3%
    Johnson & Johnson

    		 JNJ Pharmaceuticals

    		 $177.84

    		 $185.35

    		 4%

    		 36%

    		 4%
    Coca-Cola Co.

    		 KO Beverages: Non-Alcoholic

    		 $63.97

    		 $66.62

    		 4%

    		 73%

    		 8%
    Boeing Co.

    		 BA Aerospace and Defense

    		 $186.27

    		 $192.69

    		 3%

    		 77%

    		 -7%
    Intel Corp.

    		 INTC Semiconductors

    		 $28.69

    		 $29.54

    		 3%

    		 13%

    		 -44%
    Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.

    		 WBA Drugstore Chains

    		 $41.06

    		 $42.24

    		 3%

    		 17%

    		 -21%
    Merck & Co. Inc.

    		 MRK Pharmaceuticals

    		 $108.97

    		 $110.62

    		 2%

    		 65%

    		 42%
    Caterpillar Inc.

    		 CAT Trucks/ Construction/ Farm Machinery

    		 $233.06

    		 $236.23

    		 1%

    		 41%

    		 13%
    Honeywell International Inc.

    		 HON Aerospace and Defense

    		 $214.50

    		 $217.35

    		 1%

    		 54%

    		 3%
    Nike Inc. Class B

    		 NKE Apparel/ Footwear

    		 $112.07

    		 $112.58

    		 0%

    		 64%

    		 -33%
    3M Co.

    		 MMM Industrial Conglomerates

    		 $126.85

    		 $127.30

    		 0%

    		 5%

    		 -29%
    Procter & Gamble Co.

    		 PG Household/ Personal Care

    		 $152.47

    		 $150.22

    		 -1%

    		 59%

    		 -7%
    Travelers Companies Inc.

    		 TRV Multi-Line Insurance

    		 $187.11

    		 $184.24

    		 -2%

    		 18%

    		 20%
    Amgen Inc.

    		 AMGN Biotechnology

    		 $276.78

    		 $264.79

    		 -4%

    		 24%

    		 23%
    Dow Inc.

    		 DOW Chemicals

    		 $51.11

    		 $48.73

    		 -5%

    		 15%

    		 -10%
    International Business Machines Corp.

    		 IBM Information Technology Services

    		 $149.21

    		 $140.29

    		 -6%

    		 33%

    		 12%
    Source: FactSet

    Don’t miss: 10 Dividend Aristocrat stocks expected by analysts to rise up to 54% in 2023

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  • USA Today suspends book bestseller list; Bookforum shutters

    USA Today suspends book bestseller list; Bookforum shutters

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    NEW YORK (AP) — USA Today’s weekly chart of top-selling books is on indefinite hiatus after the newspaper’s parent company, Gannett, laid off the editor in charge of compiling the list that’s closely followed in the publishing industry.

    “USA Today’s Books list will be on hiatus for the remainder of the year,” a spokesperson told The Associated Press on Monday. “We will share further updates in 2023.”

    In a separate move, the highly regarded literary magazine Bookforum announced Monday that it was shutting down after being sold by Artforum International Magazine to the Penske Media Corporation. Bookforum began in 1994 as a literary supplement to Artforum and had featured writing by J.G. Ballard, Jennifer Egan and many lesser-known contributors.

    “Bookforum was a rare and extraordinary magazine,” the writer Moira Donegan tweeted Monday, “one of the few places where a new writer can try out ambitious projects, and a place that never asked me to make my writing simpler, less weird, or more palatable.”

    Last month, Astra magazine abruptly shut down after publishing just two issues, with contributors including U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón, novelist Ottessa Moshfegh and essayist-fiction writer Leslie Jamison. The president of parent company Astra Publishing House, Leying Jiang, said in a statement at the time that the decision was based on “unexpected challenges” in the marketplace.

    Gannett laid off hundreds of staffers earlier this month, including Mary Cadden, who had worked on the list for more than a decade.

    USA Today drew upon hardcover, paperback and e-book sales from a wide range of outlets, including independent stores and online retailers, to put together 150 bestselling books from a given week. USA Today’s list has been highly valued by authors, agents and publishers, who also look to lists from The New York Times and Amazon.com, among others.

    Sarah MacLean, a bestselling romance novelist who had noticed that USA Today did not update its list last week, said she and many of her peers valued the USA Today rankings because of their length, diversity and transparency.

    “You get a broader view of the publishing industry and what people are reading,” said MacLean, whose books — most recently, “Heartbreaker” in early September — have frequently appeared on the USA Today list. “For a genre like mine, which is often forgotten, the USA Today list was invaluable.”

    The New York Times breaks down its charts into various categories of 10 or more bestsellers, from children’s picture books to hardcover nonfiction. USA Today, on the other hand, combined everything into one list of 150.

    In early December, novels by Colleen Hoover and Jon Meacham’s biography of Abraham Lincoln appeared longside Harlan Coben’s latest thriller, romance books by Jennifer L. Armentrout and Ali Hazelwood and a boxed set of Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson” series.

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  • Microsoft taking 4% stake in London Stock Exchange

    Microsoft taking 4% stake in London Stock Exchange

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    Microsoft is taking a roughly 4% stake in the operator of the London Stock Exchange, which has agreed to spend at least $2.8 billion in cloud-computing services from the technology giant.

    That spending commitment will be spread out over 10 years, according to the terms of the deal announced Sunday by Microsoft.

    Major exchanges have recently begun partnering with tech companies to shift their technology infrastructure to the cloud. About a year ago, Nasdaq announced it would migrate its North American markets to Amazon Web Services’ platform, while commodities and futures exchange operator CME Group inked a 10-year deal with Google to move its trading systems to the cloud.

    The London Stock Exchange Group, or LSEG, is aiming to upgrade its current data infrastructure and analytics capabilities. That will involve migrating LSEG’s data platform and other technology into Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform.

    LSEG may spend more than the $2.8 billion on Microsoft’s offerings, contingent on demand for its data platform and other services, the companies said.

    Microsoft will be restricted from selling its shares in LSEG for one year from the time it completes buying the 4% stake in the company. Microsoft also is prohibited from selling more than half of its LSEG stake in the following 12 months.

    Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and artificial intelligence business, will be appointed a non-executive director of LSEG, subject to certain approvals, the company said.

    Microsoft shares rose 1.8% in midday trading Monday.

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  • Cramer: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google will fuel the next rally — but not in the usual way

    Cramer: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google will fuel the next rally — but not in the usual way

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    Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., during the company’s Ignite Spotlight event in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022. Nadella gave a keynote speech at an event hosted by the company’s Korean unit.

    SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    To build a fire — but not destroy the market by doing so.

    That’s the goal right now. It’s not as easy as in the famous Jack London short story (“To Build a Fire”) where, in the end, the survivors profit rather than freeze to death in their sleep. 

    In the early part of this decade, we saw the rise of Robinhood (HOOD) and the distribution of investments from the serious to the ephemeral. These days, Robinhood has the appearance of one gigantic bonfire of young people’s money. The gamification concept was real and the exodus of investors was noisy — culminating with the ridiculous self-immolation of GameStop (GME), AMC Entertainment (AMC) and the meme stocks. Those who fought this trend abandoned Twitter, hired bodyguards and tried to hide from the angry mob that was attempting to will stocks higher by savaging the sellers. No tinder from these clowns. 

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  • DC attorney general sues Amazon for allegedly misusing driver tips | CNN Business

    DC attorney general sues Amazon for allegedly misusing driver tips | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN Business
     — 

    Amazon faces a new lawsuit from the attorney general of Washington, D.C. that alleges the e-commerce giant used customer tips meant for delivery drivers to reduce what it owed in driver wages.

    The lawsuit by Attorney General Karl Racine further claims that Amazon covered up the practice, which allegedly began in 2016. The allegations are virtually identical to those leveled previously by the Federal Trade Commission, which announced a settlement with Amazon on the matter in 2021.

    The business practice at issue involved Amazon’s public claims that it would pay Amazon Flex delivery drivers a rate of at least $18 per hour, plus 100% of any tips that customers contributed. According to the FTC, and now Racine, Amazon in 2016 changed its payment model without notifying drivers or customers. The new model allegedly used a portion of customer tips to subsidize Amazon’s own labor costs, and tried to hide the change from drivers by reporting their tips and wages as a combined figure.

    Racine’s office said Tuesday it is bringing the new complaint because the FTC settlement, although it involved Amazon agreeing to pay drivers a total of $61.7 million to make them whole, did not impose any fines on the company.

    Amazon “has thus far escaped appropriate accountability, including any civil penalties, for consumer harm,” Racine’s office said in a release. It added that the DC lawsuit seeks civil penalties “for every violation” of DC’s consumer protection law stemming from the practice and a court order barring Amazon from such violations in the future.

    In a statement responding to Racine’s suit, Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti said the company revised its payment model for delivery drivers in 2019. In its earlier allegations, the FTC said Amazon only changed its payment model after the company learned that federal regulators were investigating the practice. (The 2019 changes, the FTC said at the time, appeared to largely revert the 2016 changes and provided more transparency to drivers about their earnings.)

    “This lawsuit involves a practice we changed three years ago and is without merit,” Boschetti said. “All of the customer tips at issue were already paid to drivers as part of a settlement last year with the FTC.”

    As part of the 2021 FTC settlement, Amazon agreed on a nationwide basis not to mislead drivers about their earnings, including tipped earnings, and to seek drivers’ explicit consent before changing how much of the customer tips they actually receive.

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  • Bahamas attorneys file emergency motion in FTX case for access to databases with client information

    Bahamas attorneys file emergency motion in FTX case for access to databases with client information

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    John Ray, chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, arrives at bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022.

    Eric Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Attorneys in the Bahamas filed an emergency motion on Friday asking a Delaware bankruptcy judge to compel U.S. leaders of failed crypto firm FTX to give them access to databases as part of the proceedings.

    The emergency motion claims that despite “many attempts to obtain access,” FTX employees and counsel have stymied Bahamian regulators in their effort to get critical financial information located in Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Portal databases.

    The lawyers, working on behalf of the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, said the U.S. bankruptcy proceedings will “suffer no harm or hardship if this relief is granted.” They’re seeking data on FTX international customers that is stored on AWS servers, including “wallet addresses, customer balances, deposit and withdrawal records, trades, and accounting data.” Google’s technology served as an analytics platform for FTX International’s data.

    “While the Joint Provisional Liquidators are happy to engage in dialogue with the U.S. Debtors, their refusal to promptly restore access has frustrated the ability of the Joint Provisional Liquidators to carry out their duties under Bahamian law and placed FTX Digital’s assets at risk of dissipation,” the filing read.

    FTX filed for bankruptcy protection last month after a liquidity crunch at the crypto exchange, which was intermingling assets with sister hedge fund Alameda Research. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who had an estimated net worth of $16 billion before the collapse, will appear before U.S. lawmakers next week.

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  • Microsoft could soon have its first union | CNN Business

    Microsoft could soon have its first union | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Some 300 quality assurance workers at Microsoft-owned gaming studio ZeniMax are in the process of voting to form what would be the first union at the tech giant, organizers confirmed to CNN Business.

    The workers are organizing with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union and have until the end of December to vote on it. Microsoft has agreed to recognize the union if a majority of the workers vote in favor of it, according to the CWA.

    “We applaud Microsoft for remaining neutral through this process and letting workers decide for themselves whether they want a union,” CWA President Christopher Shelton said in a statement to CNN Business. “Other video game and tech giants have made a conscious choice to attack, undermine, and demoralize their own employees when they join together to form a union. Microsoft has made a different choice, which other corporations would be wise to emulate for the good of their corporate culture, their workers, and their customers.”

    The organizing efforts at the gaming studio come amid a broader labor awakening that has erupted across major companies in the tech industry and beyond, including retail and warehouse workers at Amazon, Apple and Starbucks. Some companies like Amazon have so far refused to recognize workers who have voted to form a union.

    The union bid at the Microsoft subsidiary, however, stands out from some of the others because Microsoft has previously vowed to recognize the rights of workers to organize. Earlier this year, Microsoft entered into a neutrality agreement with the CWA, which is also supporting organizing efforts from workers at Activision Blizzard, the gaming giant Microsoft agreed to acquire for $68.7 billion. (The deal is pending regulatory approval.)

    Over the past year, the gaming sector has seen a larger worker-led push for improved workplace conditions after a number of controversies related to grueling work-life balance, pay inequities, poor job stability and other complaints over workplace culture at some of the country’s biggest gaming studios.

    A Microsoft spokesperson told CNN Business on Monday evening that its neutral stance toward the organizing efforts of ZeniMax employees is “an example of our labor principles in action.” The spokesperson said Microsoft remains committed “to providing employees with an opportunity to freely and fairly make choices about their workplace representation.”

    Joe Slack, an associate quality assurance tester who is part of the organizing committee for the ZeniMax union, said workers are “not starting a union to be against the company.” Instead, the effort is largely about giving workers a seat at the table as management makes decisions that will impact them.

    “We just really wanted to have a voice,” Slack told CNN Business, “and try and help with communication with management, and figuring out how we can deal with all these different things that challenge the group as a whole.” Slack said workers came together after seeing “just so much room for improvement” in their workplace.

    Slack said Microsoft has been “very accommodating” throughout the process, ever since organizers first approached the company about the union. “They understand that it’s a right and they wanted to leave it up to the workers,” Slack said.

    “There’s this perception of an adversarial relationship between the union and management, and it doesn’t have to be that way,” Slack added. “I’m happy to be part of a group that’s trying to prove that and improve everybody’s life and well-being in the process.”

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  • Google, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft awarded Pentagon cloud deal of up to $9 billion combined

    Google, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft awarded Pentagon cloud deal of up to $9 billion combined

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    The Pentagon building in Washington, D.C.

    Staff | AFP | Getty Images

    The Pentagon said Wednesday that Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle received a cloud-computing contract that can reach as high as $9 billion total through 2028.

    The outcome of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, or JWCC, effort is in line with the U.S. Defense Department’s effort to rely on multiple providers of remotely operated infrastructure technology, as opposed to relying on a single company, a strategy promoted during the Trump Administration.

    A Department of Defense spokesperson told CNBC by email that “JWCC is a multiple award procurement composed of four contracts with a shared ceiling of $9 Billion.” 

    An increasing tally of businesses have also sought to rely on more than one cloud provider. In some cases they rely on specialized capabilities on one and the majority of front-end and back-end workloads on another. At other times, they come down to cost. Having more than one cloud might make organizations more confident that they can withstand service disruptions brought on by outages.

    Originally, the Pentagon had awarded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, to Microsoft in 2019. A legal battle ensued as Amazon, the top player in the cloud infrastructure market, challenged the Pentagon’s decision. Oracle challenged the Pentagon’s pick as well.

    In 2020, the Pentagon’s watchdog conducted a review and ruled that there was no evidence to conclude that the Trump Administration had intervened in the process of awarding the contract. Months later the Pentagon announced it would stick with Microsoft for the JEDI deal.

    Last year the Pentagon changed its approach, asking for bids from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle to address cloud needs. But the General Services Administration stated at the time that only Amazon and Microsoft seemed to be able to meet the Pentagon’s requirements.

    Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC Pro

    Wednesday’s result is a boon in particular for Oracle, which analysts don’t see in the top tier of companies offering cloud-based computing services. Oracle generated $900 million in cloud infrastructure revenue in the quarter that ended Aug. 31, a small fraction of the $20.5 billion total for Amazon’s cloud subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, in the third quarter.

    All four of the technology companies have won indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity, or IDIQ, contracts, meaning that they can involve an indefinite amount of services for a specific period of time.

    “The purpose of this contract is to provide the Department of Defense with enterprise-wide globally available cloud services across all security domains and classification levels, from the strategic level to the tactical edge,” the Defense Department said.

    Correction: A prior version of this story said each company was awarded a contract of up to $9 billion, but that number represents the combined total for the four.

    WATCH: Roughly 75% of our customers use multi-cloud and data centers, says VMware CEO

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  • Amazon CEO explains thinking behind layoffs as unionized warehouse workers protest outside | CNN Business

    Amazon CEO explains thinking behind layoffs as unionized warehouse workers protest outside | CNN Business

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    CNN Business
     — 

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Wednesday said an “uncertain” economy pushed the e-commerce giant to move forward with rare and wide-ranging layoffs after having gone on a significant hiring spree for much of the pandemic.

    “We had the lens of a very uncertain economic environment, as well as our having hired very aggressively over the last several years,” Jassy said in an interview at the New York Times DealBook summit on Wednesday. “We just felt like we needed to streamline our costs.”

    The remarks came as part of Jassy’s first interview since Amazon

    (AMZN)     confirmed earlier this month it had begun laying off corporate workers, with plans for layoffs to continue into early next year. The company is reportedly planning to cut up to 10,000 employees, though it has not confirmed a figure.

    Amazon, more than most tech companies, experienced a staggering pandemic boom as more customers shifted their spending online during the health crisis. Like other tech companies, it has since changed course and begun cutting employees as it confronts a shift in demand as well as rising inflation and recession fears.

    “A lot has happened in the last few years that I’m not sure people anticipated,” Jassy said. “You just look in 2020, our retail business grew 39% year-over-year, at a $245 billion annual run rate, which is unprecedented, and it forced us to make decisions in that time to spend a lot more money and to go much faster in building infrastructure than we ever imagined we would.”

    “We built a physical fulfillment center footprint over 25 years that we doubled in 24 months,” Jassy said.

    Even so, Jassy said he thinks the team “made the right decision” regarding its infrastructure build out. Regarding the hiring spree, Jassy said he now looks at is as a “lesson for everyone.”

    “I don’t necessarily think it was the wrong thing to have been doubling down, because we were growing so well and we had so many ideas that we thought were good for customers and good for the business, but I think it’s a good lesson, I think, for everybody,” Jassy said. “When you’re hiring, even when things are going really well, that it’s good to think about if there’s some kind of sudden change, even one that you just have a little bit of a hard time imagining. Would you like the incremental headcount that you’re adding at that time, or do you want to be a little bit more conservative?”

    As Jassy spoke, Amazon warehouse workers who helped organize the company’s first-ever US labor union at a Staten Island facility gathered in the rain outside of the venue to protest their chief executive’s appearance in New York.

    Despite the landmark union victory in April, Amazon has so far refused to formally recognize the grassroots worker group known as the Amazon Labor Union, or come to the bargaining table. The company has aggressively pushed back against the workers’ victory through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

    While the NLRB battle indicates the labor union is on the cusp of being certified, Jassy suggested Amazon’s legal battle with the worker group isn’t done yet. He said there “were a lot of irregularities in that vote,” which is why the company filed objections with the NLRB. (Amazon’s objections were previously rejected by an NLRB hearing officer.)

    Jassy also emphasized that the last two Amazon union elections held resulted in workers voting not to unionize, and that Amazon prefers to have a direct relationship with fulfillment center workers rather than going through unions.

    Labor activist Chris Smalls joins members of the Amazon labor union and others for a protest outside of the New York Times DealBook Summit as Amazon's CEO, Andy Jassy, will be appearing on November 30, 2022 in New York City.

    “In my own opinion on where we are with that legal process is that we’re far from over with it,” Jassy said. “I think that it’s going to work its way through the NLRB, it’s probably unlikely the NLRB is going to rule against itself, and that has a real chance to end up in federal courts.”

    In an interview with CNN Business ahead of Jassy’s remarks, Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls slammed that Jassy “even had the audacity to feel comfortable to come to New York City knowing that we haven’t negotiated anything yet.”

    “We definitely want to take this opportunity to let him know that the workers are waiting and we are ready to negotiate our first contract,” he added of the demonstration, which he called a “welcoming party” for Jassy.

    Smalls said he’s been contacted by a few laid-off Amazon employees in corporate roles, who have since grown interested in the protections of unions. “I tell them — you may have good salary, you may have good perks, you may got good stocks and benefits, obviously better than warehouse workers, but at the end of the day, you’re still an at-will employee,” Smalls said.

    “I explained to them, the one building that can’t be touched right now by mass layoffs is JFK8 Staten Island,” he said. “I encourage them to do what they have to do, if that means form a union, so be it, we support it.”

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  • Amazon’s cloud unit faces cost-sensitive customers as economic fears mount

    Amazon’s cloud unit faces cost-sensitive customers as economic fears mount

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    Amazon Web Services has been the biggest growth engine for its parent company over much of the past decade, taking business from some of the largest tech vendors in the world.

    But as corporations face the most daunting economic environment since the 2008 financial crisis, those massive checks they’re writing to AWS for their tech infrastructure are getting greater scrutiny.

    Peter Kern, CEO of online travel company Expedia Group, sees the cloud as an area where his company can reduce its fixed costs. In recent years, Expedia has moved considerable parts of its operations to AWS from on-premises data centers.

    “We haven’t fully optimized the cloud,” Kern said during the company’s earnings call last month. “We’ve moved a lot of technology into the cloud, but we have a lot of work to do.”

    U.S. stocks are poised to close out their worst year since 2008. Central bankers have continued to lift interest rates to address rising prices, prompting skittishness about economic deterioration by consumers and businesses. Executives are in cash-preservation mode to appease Wall Street and make sure they’re in position to weather a potential recession.

    The National Football League, which uses AWS to produce statistics and schedules, is making conservative plans around costs, said Jennifer Langton, the NFL’s senior vice president of health and innovation.

    “We are not recession proof,” Langton told CNBC during an interview at AWS’ annual Reinvent customer conference in Las Vegas this week. The league is negotiating with AWS on the terms of a renewed multi-year agreement, and there are some areas her organization wants to prioritize, she said.

    Amazon knows customers are facing challenges. In some cases, Amazon cloud employees reach out to clients to see how it can help optimize spending, said David Brown, AWS’ vice president responsible for the core EC2 computing service. At other times, customers contact AWS, he said.

    AWS is coming off its slowest period of expansion since at least 2014, the year Amazon started reporting on the group’s finances. It also missed analysts’ estimates. Still, the division recorded growth of 27.5%, outpacing Amazon’s overall growth of 15%. And it generated $5.4 billion in operating income, accounting for more than 100% of profit for its parent company.

    With such a hefty cash balance, AWS can afford to accommodate customers in the short term if it means more business in the future. The company did the same thing during the pandemic in 2020, when Amazon sent some users an email with an offer of financial support.

    AWS isn’t the sole big cloud provider that’s dealing with customers’ budget constraints. In the third quarter, Microsoft’s Azure consumption growth moderated as the company helped clients optimize existing workloads, finance chief Amy Hood said in October. Amazon leads the market in cloud computing, with an estimated 39% share.

    “If you’re looking to tighten your belt, the cloud is the place to do it,” AWS CEO Adam Selipsky said during his keynote presentation in front of over 50,000 people on Tuesday. Selipsky said that moving IT jobs to the cloud could help budget-strapped organizations save money, citing customers Agco and Carrier Global.

    Not everyone agrees. Last year, investors Sarah Wang and Martìn Casado of venture firm Andreessen Horowitz published an analysis, showing that a company could trim its computing costs by half or more by bringing workloads from the cloud back to on-premises data centers.

    Amazon is trying to give customers options to reduce costs. It offers Graviton computing instances based on energy-efficient Arm-based chips, a less expensive alternative to instances using standard AMD and Intel processors.

    “Customers of every size have adopted Graviton, and they’re achieving up to 40% better price performance simply by shifting their workloads to Graviton instances,” Selipsky said. He said AT&T‘s DirecTV unit was able to eliminate 20% of computing costs by adopting current-generation Graviton chips.

    Selipsky told CNBC’s Jon Fortt in an interview that AWS teams are working with customers that are trying to become more efficient.

    “We do see some customers who are doing some belt-tightening now,” Selipsky said. One example is data analytics software maker Palantir, which said last month its operating profit in the third quarter was higher than expected primarily because of cloud and deployment efficiencies.

    Other companies are in on the trend. NetApp and VMware have acquired startups to help businesses streamline their cloud spending. On the Reinvent exhibition floor, several companies were promoting their cost-trimming capabilities.

    Zesty, which announced a $75 million funding round in September, added Sainsbury and Silicon Laboratories to its customer list in the current quarter. The company’s technology can automatically adjust the amount of storage space a company is using to avoid waste.

    CEO Maxim Melamedov said Zesty picked up a bunch of new leads at its Reivent booth, where the startup was handing out candy, socks and stuffed animals and giving visitors the chance to win AirPods.

    “Some of my guys lost their voices,” Melamedov said. “We are 15 people constantly on our feet. We’re constantly talking.”

    WATCH: AWS CEO Adam Selipsky on impact of slowing economy, cloud consumption

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  • CNBC Pro Talks: Evercore’s Mark Mahaney finds bargains in big tech and answers your questions

    CNBC Pro Talks: Evercore’s Mark Mahaney finds bargains in big tech and answers your questions

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    Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney sat down with CNBC Pro to share the tech names he is looking at going into 2022. He also breaks down what stocks he views in the travel space that could do well, even in a possible recession.

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  • Amazon touts record sales over holiday shopping weekend

    Amazon touts record sales over holiday shopping weekend

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    An Amazon worker moves a cart filled with packages at an Amazon delivery station on November 28, 2022 in Alpharetta, Georgia.

    Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

    Amazon said Wednesday it rang up record-breaking sales between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday, adding to what has been a strong showing for many retailers so far this holiday shopping season.

    The company said the holiday shopping weekend was its “biggest ever,” with consumers snapping up hundreds of millions of products during the period. Apple AirPods and Amazon-branded devices like Echo Dot smart speakers and Fire TV streaming sticks were among the top-selling items. It said Champion apparel, Nintendo Switch consoles and Hasbro Gaming Connect 4 were also hot items.

    Independent businesses selling on Amazon surpassed $1 billion in sales during the Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend, the company said.

    Amazon didn’t provide sales figures for the five-day shopping weekend, which tends to be some of its busiest days in the holiday period. The company’s fourth-quarter results, typically released in late January or early February, will give Wall Street a more complete picture of the holiday shopping season.

    Consumers spent $9.12 billion online on Black Friday, a 2.3% jump from last year, while online Cyber Monday sales rose 5.8% to $11.3 billion, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks 1 trillion visits to retail websites, and sales of 100 million products.

    Expectations for this year’s holiday shopping season had been lackluster, with many analysts projecting that consumers would be more budget conscious due to near-record inflation.

    But so far, figures from Adobe and other third parties suggest consumers are opening their wallets and searching for deals, lured by deep discounts from retailers. A survey by the National Retail Federation released Tuesday found that, on average, consumers are about halfway done with holiday shopping, indicating that more purchases could be coming in the weeks ahead.

    WATCH: Holiday shopping weekend saw 20 million more shoppers than last year, says NRF CEO Matt Shay

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  • Amazon used AWS on a satellite in orbit to speed up data analysis in ‘first-of-its kind’ experiment

    Amazon used AWS on a satellite in orbit to speed up data analysis in ‘first-of-its kind’ experiment

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    An image captured by the ION Elysian Eleonara satellite in January 2022.

    D-Orbit

    Amazon’s cloud computing division successfully ran a software suite on a satellite in orbit, in a “first-of-its-kind” experiment, the company announced Tuesday.

    AWS, or Amazon Web Services, conducted the prototype satellite software demonstration through partnerships with Italian company D-Orbit and Swedish venture Unibap. The experiment was conducted over the past 10 months in low Earth orbit, using a D-Orbit satellite as the test platform.

    The success of the AWS demo has implications across the space industry, as spacecraft – meaning anything from space stations to satellites – face a bottleneck in both data storage and communications while in orbit.

    A “downlink,” the process of transferring data from orbit, requires a spacecraft connect to a ground station, with limitations such as the speed of the connection, or the time window in which the spacecraft is above the ground station.

    AWS’ software automatically reviewed images to decide which were the most useful to send to the ground. It also reduced the size of images by up to 42%.

    “We demonstrated the capability to increase the [satellite’s] productivity,” AWS vice president Max Peterson told CNBC.

    Sign up here to receive weekly editions of CNBC’s Investing in Space newsletter.

    Peterson added that the experiment also showed that AWS can help companies perform “insight operations on the satellite, instead of having to wait until you can downlink back to Earth.”

    “We can train models to recognize practically anything … [giving] the ability to both improve the utilization of a really expensive asset in space, and be able to take huge amounts of data and get insights and translate it into action faster,” Peterson said.

    AWS has steadily built out its Aerospace and Satellite Solutions unit since its establishment in 2020, with the company providing cloud services to a variety of customers and partners across the space sector.

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  • Dow down by more than 500 points as Fed officials point to more rate hikes, China protests rattle markets

    Dow down by more than 500 points as Fed officials point to more rate hikes, China protests rattle markets

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    U.S. stocks tumbled on Monday as protests in China raised the risks to global growth and Federal Reserve policy makers said more interest-rate increases are needed to control inflation.

    How stocks are trading
    • The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 523 points, or 1.5%, at 33,824, near its session low.

    • The S&P 500
      SPX,
      -1.65%
      retreated 68 points, or 1.7%, to 3,958.

    • The Nasdaq Composite shed 195 points, or 1.7%, dropping to 11,031.

    U.S. stocks had notched weekly gains last week for the second time in three weeks. The Dow rose 1.8%, the S&P 500 advanced 1.5% and the Nasdaq gained 0.7%.

    What’s driving markets

    Wall Street started the week in a downbeat mood as traders absorbed the impact of unrest in China and assessed interest-rate commentary by a pair of Fed officials on Monday.

    St. Louis Fed President James Bullard told MarketWatch that he favors more aggressive interest-rate hikes to contain inflation, and that the central bank will likely need to keep interest rates above 5% into 2024. Meanwhile, his colleague John Williams, president of the New York Fed, said that U.S. unemployment could climb to as high as 5% next year, versus October’s rate of 3.7%, in response to the central bank’s series of rate hikes.

    Overseas, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index
    HSI,
    -1.57%
    closed down by 1.6% and most equity indexes across Asia also fell, with the exception of India’s, on concerns about unrest in China. Those concerns also spilled over into commodity markets, where West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery
    CLF23,
    +0.93%
     briefly fell to less than $74 per barrel before recovering and settling at $77.24 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Meanwhile, copper prices HG00 were off 0.9% at $3.594 per pound.

    “What people are worried about is the potential for protests in China to spread and whether the population is reaching its breaking point,” said Derek Tang, an economist at Monetary Policy Analytics in Washington. “At the same time, Fed speak is ramping up and the message is there’s more hikes to come. So investors aren’t finding relief.”

    Signs that economic activity in China will continue to be disrupted by the protests or by additional anti-COVID measures will likely continue to weigh on commodity prices, analysts said. Meanwhile, concerns about global growth helped to support government bond markets earlier on Monday, when the yield on the 10-year note
    TMUBMUSD10Y,
    3.693%
    briefly traded at its lowest level since October.

    The unprecedented waves of protest in China “have caused ripples of unease across financial markets, as worries mount about repercussions for the world’s second-largest economy,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “As demonstrations spread across the country from Beijing to Xinjiang and Shanghai, reflecting rising anger about the zero-Covid policy, a sustained recovery in demand across the vast country appears even further away.”

    But the news wasn’t all bad: Reports of strong online Black Friday sales helped boost shares of Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    +0.29%    ,
    which were up 0.6%.

    Investors can expect more information about the health of the U.S. economy in what’s shaping up to be a busy week for U.S. economic data: Later this week, investors will receive the ADP employment report followed by the November jobs report. Revised data on third-quarter gross domestic product is due on Wednesday, along with the Fed’s Beige Book report. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is set to speak publicly on Wednesday, and a closely watched gauge of inflation is due on Thursday.

    Read: ‘We see major stock markets plunging 25% from levels somewhat above today’s,’ Deutsche Bank says

    Single-stock movers

    — Jamie Chisholm contributed to this article.

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