Reuters
Airbus Cancels A350 Aircraft Contract With Qatar Airways
- In a stunning turn in a dispute threatening World Cup preparations, Airbus SE (OTC: EADSY) has canceled all of Qatar Airways’ outstanding orders for A350 aircraft, cutting off all future jetliner business with the Gulf carrier, reported Reuters, citing industry sources.
- Six months ago, Airbus also terminated the entire deal for 50 A321neo aircraft in retribution for Qatar’s refusal to accept A350 deliveries.
- After having nearly half of its A350 aircraft grounded due to premature surface damage, Qatar Airways filed a lawsuit against Airbus for at least $1.4 billion.
- Samsung Electronics (LON:0593xq) Co, Ltd (OTC: SSNLF) curtailed production at its massive smartphone plant in Vietnam to counter rising inventory amid reduced consumer spending, Reuters reports.
- Vietnam’s northern province of Thai Nguyen, one of Samsung’s two mobile manufacturing bases in the country, accounts for half of its phone output. Samsung has invested $18 billion in the country, contributing 20% of Vietnam’s total exports.
- Samsung, which shipped ~270 million smartphones in 2021, claims the campus can make ~100 million devices annually. It overtook Intel Corp (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:INTC) as the top chip seller during the year.
- Oil prices rebounded slightly on Thursday morning in Asia trading after falling to multi-month lows earlier on the back of a sudden rise in inventories that signaled a fall in U.S. demand.
- What Happened: U.S. crude inventories rose by 4.5 million barrels to 426.6 million barrels in the week ended July 29, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Gasoline stocks also recorded a surprise build as demand faltered.
- Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub for U.S. futures increased by 926,000 barrels during the week, Reuters reported.
Wall Street Journal
Several S&P 500 Companies Step Up Capital Spending Faster Than Share Buybacks
- Big U.S. companies, including Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG), General Motors Company (NYSE: NYSE:GM), and PepsiCo Inc (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:PEP), have increased spending on real estate, equipment, and technology.
- According to the Wall Street Journal report, the move is an encouraging signal to investors amid uncertain macroeconomic trends.
- Based on results from roughly two-thirds of the companies in the S&P 500 index, capital expenditures have risen 20% from a year earlier to $149.8 billion, roughly in line with the first quarter’s growth rate. Share repurchases have climbed 10% to $160.8 billion, and dividends have increased 14% to $140.6 billion.
- Eli Lilly And Co (NYSE: LLY) plans to begin commercial sales of bebtelovimab, its COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment, to states, hospitals, and other healthcare providers beginning the week of August 15, which is before the anticipated depletion of the U.S. government’s currently available supply.
- The shift in distribution could raise financial barriers for uninsured patients. Lilly’s list price for bebtelovimab is $2,100 per dose.
- The company reported Q2 sales of $6.49 billion, down 4% Y/Y, driven by lower realized prices and the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange rates, partially offset by higher volume.
Bloomberg
Google Wins Immunity Under This Section From Being Framed For Animal Cruelty: Report
- Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shielded Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google from a lawsuit filed by an animal rights group Lady Freethinker.
- Freethinker prosecuted Google in 2021 for allegedly profiting from animal abuse videos by placing ads alongside them.
- However, the judge noted the group only listed claims involving violations of state and local laws, like the breach of contract and false advertising.
- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is seeking feedback on the dimensions of airline seats, which some claim doesn’t accommodate all body types, reported Bloomberg.
- The general public will have 90 days to comment on the minimum seat size requirements for passenger safety.
- The FAA specifically asked for feedback regarding how seat sizes impact disabled people’s safety and those over age 60 and children.
- Crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN) has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt two lawsuits filed by users of the crypto exchange.
- Coinbase said the trial court proceedings for two separate cases filed by users should be stopped until the exchange presses its appeal at the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
- The first case — Bielski v. Coinbase, 22A91 — was filed by Abraham Bielski in April after he lost $31,000 when a scammer gained access to his Coinbase account. Bielski fell victim to the scam after being contacted by an individual pretending to be a PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:PYPL) representative.
Financial Times
SoftBank Group Raises $22B Through Deals That Would Slash Its Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) Stake
- Japanese multinational conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp (OTC: SFTBY) has raised $22 billion in cash through deals that would significantly trim its stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) over the coming years, reported Financial Times.
- The group, led by billionaire Masayoshi Son, conducted the sale of about a third of its stake in Alibaba through prepaid forward contracts this year, the report stated, citing filings FT had accessed.
- These are derivative contracts that have enabled SoftBank to raise cash immediately with the possibility of retaining the shares in the firm.
Benzinga
Alibaba Sees Cloud Growth In Otherwise Slow Q1, Clocks $3.3B Free Cash Flow, CFO Talks Listing Plans
- Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) reported first-quarter FY22 flat revenue growth year-on-year to $30.69 billion, beating the consensus of $30.05 billion.
- Segments: The China commerce segment (69% of revenue) declined by 1% Y/Y to $21.19 billion. The online physical goods GMV for Taobao and Tmall, excluding unpaid orders, recorded a mid-single-digit year-over-year decline due to Covid-19.
- International commerce (7% of revenue) rose by 2% Y/Y to $2.31 billion. The combined number of orders of Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol, and Daraz declined by 4% Y/Y due to the declining orders of AliExpress due to change in the European Union’s VAT rules, depreciation of the Euro against the U.S dollar, and ongoing supply chain and logistics disruptions due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
- Cloud grew by 10% Y/Y to $1.59 billion, and Local consumer services increased by 5% Y/Y to $1.59 billion.
- Lucid Group Inc (NASDAQ: LCID) reported second-quarter financial results after the close Wednesday. Here’s a rundown of the report.
- Lucid reported second-quarter revenue of $97.3 million, which missed the estimate of $145.49 million, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Lucid said it delivered 679 vehicles in the second quarter.
- The EV company reported a quarterly earnings loss of 33 cents per share, which beat the estimate for a loss of 36 cents per share.
- Lucid revised its 2022 production volume outlook to a range of 6,000 to 7,000 vehicles after delivering 1,405 vehicles in the first half of the year.
- Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD Company Limited (OTC: BYDDF) (OTC: BYDDY) reported late Wednesday strong deliveries for July despite the engulfing uncertainties.
- BYD sold 80,991 battery EVs in July, up 224% from a year ago. Month-over-month, deliveries increased about 16.5%. Including plug-in hybrids, BYD’s July sales more than trebled to 162,214 new-energy vehicles in July.
- BYD produced 81,292 battery EVs and 81,750 plug-in hybrids in July, taking the total tally of NEV production to 163,042.
- SpaceX’s Starlink high-speed satellite internet connection is now available at a bargain, Tesla North reported, citing emails from the company sent to users shared on a Reddit thread.
- Starlink’s monthly use fee is reduced from EUR 99 ($100.64) to EUR 50, the report said. This huge reduction, however, comes with new soft data caps on bandwidth usage, as per a new fair use policy, it added.
- The fair use policy stipulates that all users will continue to have unlimited data, with priority given to users consuming 250GB data or less, the report said, citing an email sent to French customers of Starlink.
- Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:HOOD) disclosed in a filing that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been probing the company’s compliance with short selling rules since October 2021.
- Robinhood said it received additional requests from the SEC in Q2 for information related to the company’s compliance with trade reporting requirements concerning securities and fractional share lending.
- The online brokerage firm has faced several regulatory actions in recent years.
- Blockchain-based digital payments service provider PayStand has acquired Mexico-based financial automation technology startup, Yaydoo. The financial terms were not disclosed.
- The deal will facilitate and enhance a blockchain platform focused on cash flow management and liquidity solutions for businesses in the U.S. and Latin America.
- “DeFi-enabled B2B payment networks that are on-chain can unlock transformative working capital efficiencies and make financial services more fair and open, especially in developing markets like LATAM,” said PayStand CEO Jeremy Almond
- An investigation into Tuesday’s private wallet exploit within the Solana SOL/USD ecosystem revealed that Solana wallet Slope was to blame.
- The root cause of the attack was due to an accidental leak of users’ private keys from Slope wallets’ backend, Solana Status said on Wednesday.
- “There is no evidence the Solana protocol or its cryptography was compromised,” stated Solana on Twitter.
- Robinhood Markets, Inc (NASDAQ: HOOD) CEO Vlad Tenev says he loves the trading platform as a “standalone” company.
- Tenev made his comments on second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. He was asked if there was any word on being acquired by Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX or Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE: SCHW).
- “I love us as a standalone company. We’ve got a strong balance sheet. We’ve got an awesome team, and we’re delivering on our product road map, as I mentioned, at a pace that we haven’t seen before,” said Tenev.
- Twitter Inc (NYSE: NYSE:TWTR) has reportedly subpoenaed cryptocurrency exchange Binance over its role as a would-be lender to Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover bid.
- Binance was among the dozens of firms that received subpoenas from Twitter’s lawyers on Tuesday, according to a report from Yahoo Finance.
- The social media firm’s lawyers are reportedly trying to determine what happened in Musk’s private negotiations leading up to the deal. As such, these new filings have been directed at the Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO’s advisers and financial backers.
- A week after issuing a profit warning, the retail giant Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is slashing hundreds of corporate roles in a restructuring effort, reported Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.
- The restructuring, which impacts several departments, including merchandising, global technology, and real-estate teams, was disclosed to staff at the company’s Bentonville, Ark headquarters, and other corporate locations, WSJ noted.
- One of the sources stated that a total of 200 positions are being terminated, according to the WSJ.
Read at Benzinga