Activist Elliott Takes Multibillion-Dollar Salesforce Stake (4 min read)
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Hedge fund Elliott Investment Management has taken an activist stake in Salesforce that is worth multi billion-dollars. Salesforce’s current market cap is $151 billion, down from the peak of $300 billion in 2021 due to slowing growth and over-hiring. Elliott plans on pushing for strategic changes at Salesforce, which includes boosting profits and shareholders returns after years of fast hiring and large acquisitions. Shares of Salesforce gained more than 3% after the news.

Microsoft announces new multibillion-dollar investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI (2 min read)

Microsoft announced a new multi-year investment that is speculated to be as much as $10 billion with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. ChatGPT is one of the top AI chatbots with the ability to interact in conversational dialog and responses that appear surprisingly human. The recent deal marks the third phase of the partnership following Microsoft’s previous investments in 2019 and 2021. The new investment will help both companies engage in supercomputing at scale and create new AI-powered experiences.

Stocks make gains as investors bet on smaller Fed rate rise (4 min read)
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US stocks continued to rally on Monday, which were mostly led by surging tech stocks. All sectors except for energy have closed in positive territory. The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped another 2% as investors are increasingly confident that the Fed will slow the pace of rate hikes in the coming meeting next week. The market is taking on a risk-on approach at the moment, believing in a soft landing and a more positive outlook for rates and inflation.

Oil settles mixed after hitting 7-week high on strong China outlook (3 min read)

Oil prices pulled back on Monday at the end of the session as investors took profit from the jump to a 7-week high. The latest rally was driven by optimism about a possible recovery in demand from China as the economy reopens after pandemic lockdowns. Data shows that road traffic congestion in China’s key cities so far this month is up 22% from a year ago. The concern over sanctions on Russia that could tighten supply also contributed to pushing oil prices higher.

The first ETF is 30 years old this week (4 min read)

State Street Global Advisors launched the first US-listed ETF 30 years ago that tracks the S&P 500. It is known as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), the most actively traded and largest ETF in the world with over $370 billion in assets under management. This article provides a brief history on how ETFs managed to take off during the mutual funds dominated era and become the largest growing asset in the world today.

Greatest trade ever? Citadel’s $16 billion profits smashed hedge fund records (2 min read)
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Citadel generated $16 billion in profit for clients last year, outperforming the rest of the industry and the largest annual return in history for hedge funds. The top 20 hedge fund firms collectively generated $22.4 billion in profit after fees, according to estimates by LCH Investments. But it’s a different story outside the industry giants, with hedge funds overall losing $208 billion last year as many managers found themselves on the wrong side of global market turmoil.

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Thomas

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