Iran has played down expectations of direct talks with the United States over ending the war as US envoys are expected to travel to Islamabad, Pakistan — but this time without Vice President JD Vance, the lead negotiator. US Navy Retired Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan joins David Gura and Christina Ruffini on Bloomberg This Weekend to discuss. (Source: Bloomberg)
Iran has played down expectations of direct talks with the United States over ending the war as US envoys are expected to travel to Islamabad, Pakistan — but this time without Vice President JD Vance, the lead negotiator. US Navy Retired Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan joins David Gura and Christina Ruffini on Bloomberg This Weekend to discuss. (Source: Bloomberg)
Global Inflation Scare: Chinese Exporters Hike Prices As Iran War Triggers Ethane Shortage, Plastics Crunch Chinese exporters are finally passing on the pain - right as they're experiencing a major shortage of a key industrial material. After years of cutting prices amid overcapacity and cutthroat competition, manufacturers are now raising prices on everything from swimsuits and ski suits to medic...
Global Inflation Scare: Chinese Exporters Hike Prices As Iran War Triggers Ethane Shortage, Plastics Crunch Chinese exporters are finally passing on the pain - right as they're experiencing a major shortage of a key industrial material. After years of cutting prices amid overcapacity and cutthroat competition, manufacturers are now raising prices on everything from swimsuits and ski suits to medical syringes and air conditioners . The culprit: the Iran war’s energy shock, which has sent oil-linked input costs skyrocketing and is now rippling straight through to global store shelves. Customs data compiled by Trade Data Monitor and analyzed by Bloomberg reveal sharp year-on-year price jumps in March across more than a dozen categories of household goods - the first sustained reversal in a disinflationary trend that had helped keep a lid on inflation from the U.S. to Europe for nearly three years. " I held off raising prices for as long as I could in March, but in the end I had no choice ," said Pang Ling, sales manager at a Shanghai-based medical catheter maker. "I panicked watching plastic costs climb almost every single day." Products reliant on rubber, plastic, and oil-derived chemicals were hit hardest . Syringes saw prices surge as much as 20%. Synthetic-fiber goods - including swimsuits, women’s trousers, and ski suits - rose in the low- to mid-single digits as polyester and fiber suppliers hiked prices daily. Home appliances faced a double squeeze from higher metals and semiconductor costs. Even as some sectors like toys cut prices under weak demand, the broader picture is clear: the era of ultra-cheap Chinese goods is ending. The numbers tell the story. China’s export prices had been falling steadily since May 2023, shaving an estimated 0.3–0.5 percentage points off headline inflation in advanced economies, according to Capital Economics. That buffer is now vanishing. Bloomberg Economics says above-3% inflation in 2026 is "back in play" across the euro area, U...
In this article CRM PLTR SNOW Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) takes a group photo with AI company leaders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (C) and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (R) at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 19, 2026. Ludovic Marin | Afp | Getty Images Software giants are seeing their worst stock performance in years on fea...
In this article CRM PLTR SNOW Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) takes a group photo with AI company leaders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (C) and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (R) at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 19, 2026. Ludovic Marin | Afp | Getty Images Software giants are seeing their worst stock performance in years on fears of AI disruption. Now they have a new problem. Several top software executives have been poached by AI giants that are hunting for talent with sales and go-to-market experience, according to sources. Executives from Salesforce , Snowflake , and Datadog have been poached recently by OpenAI and Anthropic, lured by large compensation packages and the opportunity to bring existing corporate relationships to these AI companies, according to multiple sources. Salesforce and OpenAI declined to comment. CNBC reached out to Snowflake and Datadog for comment. One of OpenAI's splashiest software hires was Denise Dresser . Dresser is now the chief revenue officer and previously served as CEO of the communication platform Slack within Salesforce. Jennifer Majlessi also joined Salesforce last month and took a role as head of go-to-market at OpenAI, according to LinkedIn. Anthropic has also hired from Salesforce, according to a source familiar with the hires. Competing for talent isn't new in AI. Elite researchers have been the highlight of the so-called " talent war " in AI, attracting multimillion-dollar salaries and signing bonuses in the tens of millions. But the new frontier in the talent war speaks to AI giants' changing priorities. The enterprise segment has become an increasingly important growth area for OpenAI — it's a much more profitable and "sticky" part of the business. Executives from Salesforce, Snowflake and others bring a deep bench of enterprise relationships to help grow this segment. As of January, enterprise customers made up roughly 40% of OpenAI's business. But ...
Sundry Photography/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Palo Alto Networks ( PANW ) still looks strong heading into Q3 and beyond. The company keeps posting big numbers in Next-Generation Security (NGS), has made good moves with deals like CyberArk and Chronosphere, and keeps growing both recurring revenue and profit margins, with Q2 NGS ARR at $6.33 billion, up 33% year-over-year, and non-GAAP opera...
Sundry Photography/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Palo Alto Networks ( PANW ) still looks strong heading into Q3 and beyond. The company keeps posting big numbers in Next-Generation Security (NGS), has made good moves with deals like CyberArk and Chronosphere, and keeps growing both recurring revenue and profit margins, with Q2 NGS ARR at $6.33 billion, up 33% year-over-year, and non-GAAP operating margin at 30.3%. I’m giving it a Buy rating here. The growth story doesn’t look shaky, and the upside seems worth it, even if the stock isn’t cheap. Expectations are already high, but management keeps hitting targets and signaling more gains ahead, so I think that’s fair. Shares go for about 47 times expected earnings and about 12.5 times next year’s sales. Those are steep numbers for a cybersecurity company, but not totally out of line given how fast ARR is growing, how much cash the business throws off, and how much market share they keep taking. The company’s margins are also heading up, and there’s a clear path for that to continue. What stands out is that PANW keeps delivering both on sales and profits, and they’re actually making progress on those longer-term goals they keep talking about. PANW NGS Keeps Expanding PANW The NGS platform now covers more ground with CyberArk and Chronosphere on board. For Q3, they’re targeting $7.94 to $7.96 billion in NGS ARR, up 56% from last year. About $1.47 billion of that is coming from the new acquisitions, which is a big chunk, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that their NGS business was already growing fast. The numbers back that up: last quarter, NGS ARR hit $6.33 billion, up 33% year-over-year, including a $200 million contribution from Chronosphere; on an organic basis, NGS ARR was up 28% year-over-year. CyberArk is a big deal for them; identity security is getting more important, and as of December 2025, the CyberArk platform was pulling in over $1.2 billion in identity-related NGS ARR, up 30% from the year before...
The semiconductor industry is currently home to three companies worth $1 trillion or more: Nvidia designs graphics processing units (GPUs) for the data center, which are the primary chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) development. Broadcom, on the other hand, supplies an alternative called AI accelerators, which can be customized to suit specific AI workloads. Taiwan Semi is the world's lar...
The semiconductor industry is currently home to three companies worth $1 trillion or more: Nvidia designs graphics processing units (GPUs) for the data center, which are the primary chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) development. Broadcom, on the other hand, supplies an alternative called AI accelerators, which can be customized to suit specific AI workloads. Taiwan Semi is the world's largest semiconductor fabricator, and it manufactures chips on behalf of both Nvidia and Broadcom. But then there is Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) , a leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for the data center, which is increasingly important in AI workloads. The company is valued at just $540 billion as I write this, but its stock has exploded higher by almost 600% over the past year alone. Is this momentum about to catapult Micron into the exclusive $1 trillion club? Continue reading
The world's richest man may soon also be the world's first trillionaire as Elon Musk's SpaceX targets an IPO with a valuation of around $1.5 Trillion in what would be the largest IPO ever. Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed authors Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian join David Gura and Christina Ruffini on Bloomberg This Weekend to discuss "Muskism," referring to the ideology and worldview that shape...
The world's richest man may soon also be the world's first trillionaire as Elon Musk's SpaceX targets an IPO with a valuation of around $1.5 Trillion in what would be the largest IPO ever. Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed authors Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian join David Gura and Christina Ruffini on Bloomberg This Weekend to discuss "Muskism," referring to the ideology and worldview that shaped Musk. They say it is "an operating system for the 21st century." (Source: Bloomberg)
In this article BRK.B .SPX AMZN V MA STZ COF KR WMT BRK.B Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT (This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.) Berkshire Hathaway shares fell roughly 1% this week while the S&P 500 edged 0.6% higher, ending the week ...
In this article BRK.B .SPX AMZN V MA STZ COF KR WMT BRK.B Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT (This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.) Berkshire Hathaway shares fell roughly 1% this week while the S&P 500 edged 0.6% higher, ending the week at a fresh all-time high . Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards That has increased the B shares' relative underperformance versus the benchmark to 11.3 percentage points for the year so far. It was a 9.7 percentage point gap last Friday . Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards The A and B shares are now down 13% from their all-time closing highs almost a year ago in early May, just before Warren Buffett revealed he planned to step down as CEO at the end of 2025. The S&P has gained 26% over the same period. Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Berkshire's stock price drop, however, is making the shares more attractive to some. In a featured Barron's analysis , Andrew Bary writes that at the company's current price "not a lot has to go right ... to generate market beating returns -- even without Warren Buffett at the helm." Christopher Davis at Hudson Value Partners is quoted as saying investors are overlooking Berkshire when they buy " HALO " (Heavy Assets, Low Obsolescence) stocks like Caterpillar to avoid potential AI disruptions. ( The term was coined by " Halftime Report " regular Josh Brown .) "Berkshire is the ultimate HALO company, given the durability and inflation protection of the insurance business and the very-hard-to-replicate industrial operating businesses," Davis argues. He calls the stock a "coiled spring" at its current price. Stock buybacks are another potential positive. In a note to clients this week, UBS analyst Brian Meredith estimates Berkshire is trading at an 8% discount to its intrinsic value. The company's stated policy is to buy back shares when...
The Justice Department said it would end its criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, an attempt to clear the obstacle that has stalled Kevin Warsh's confirmation as his possible successor. Bloomberg News Justice Department Reporter Chris Strohm and Reporter Enda Curran join David Gura and Christina Ruffini on Bloomberg This Weekend to discuss. (Source: Bloomberg)
The Justice Department said it would end its criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, an attempt to clear the obstacle that has stalled Kevin Warsh's confirmation as his possible successor. Bloomberg News Justice Department Reporter Chris Strohm and Reporter Enda Curran join David Gura and Christina Ruffini on Bloomberg This Weekend to discuss. (Source: Bloomberg)
Every time a European leader lands in Beijing with a business delegation, the same speculation follows: is the Atlantic consensus beginning to crack? Is part of Europe drifting towards China and away from Washington? In Spain’s case, the drama expires on contact with the record. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s four visits to Beijing in four years have not produced a European pivot, a strategic visi...
Every time a European leader lands in Beijing with a business delegation, the same speculation follows: is the Atlantic consensus beginning to crack? Is part of Europe drifting towards China and away from Washington? In Spain’s case, the drama expires on contact with the record. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s four visits to Beijing in four years have not produced a European pivot, a strategic vision or a narrower trade imbalance. They have produced market access for agricultural goods. Call it...