Economy

Meta Platforms Inc META.O announced on Wednesday that it will lay off 13% of its workforce, or more than 11,000 workers, in one of the year’s largest layoffs, as the Facebook parent company confronts rising costs and a sluggish advertising market. The large layoffs, the first in Meta’s 18-year history, come after hundreds of layoffs at other prominent digital companies, …

United Airlines Holdings Inc has joined the list of firms banning advertising spending on Twitter, a United Airlines spokeswoman said Friday night. General Mills Inc. and Audi of America announced on Thursday that they have suspended advertising on Twitter, days after billionaire Elon Musk purchased the social media network for $44 billion. Concerns over Twitter’s new direction under new owner …

Mubadala Investment Company, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund that manages more than $284 billion in assets worldwide, and private equity firm KKR have formed an alliance in which they will co-invest in performing private credit opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region to address a lack of capital and support the long-term growth plans of businesses. As part of their “strategic relationship,” …

The New York Stock Exchange will suspend trading of Twitter shares on Friday, October 28, according to its website, as billionaire Elon Musk confronts a court-ordered October 28 deadline to conclude his $44 billion bid for the social media company. Musk, the world’s richest person, visited Twitter’s offices in San Francisco on Wednesday and updated his profile bio to “Chief …

The World Bank said on Monday, October 24 that it has disbursed an additional $500 million to assist the Ukraine in meeting its urgent expenditure requirements resulting from Russia’s invasion on February 24 and the ongoing war. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the bank’s primary lending arm, received $500 million in loan guarantees from the United Kingdom, which …

On Thursday, October 20, the dollar crossed the symbolic milestone of 150 yen for the first time since 1990, while the British pound fell in choppy trade after Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation. The Japanese yen fell quickly from an overnight trading high of 150.09 to a minute-long low of 149.63, raising concern that the Ministry of Finance …

Analysts believe that President Xi Jinping’s call for China to “win the battle” in core technologies could herald a change in Beijing’s strategy to expanding its tech industry, with greater state-led funding and intervention in response to US pressures. Xi’s comprehensive work report to kick off the once-every-five-years Communist Party Congress included four allusions of technological independence, compared to none …

CNBC reported on Monday, October 10 that JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive Jamie Dimon stated the United States and global economy could enter a recession by the middle of next year. In an interview with a business news channel, he cited runaway inflation, large interest rate hikes, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the unknown impacts of the Federal …

On Monday, October 10, this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to three economists from the United States. One of the winners, Ben Bernanke, is a former head of the Federal Reserve. Their research focused on how saving failing banks can prevent an even more severe economic disaster. Bernanke, Douglas Diamond, and Philip Dybvig were awarded the Nobel Prize …

Hong Kong beats Singapore in several aspects as an international financial centre, according to a senior official, who also revealed that a two-day global investment summit will be expanded to three days next month, coinciding with a big fintech festival in Singapore. But Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, who drew the comparison in a blog post on Sunday after a …