Market Bizzz

Kiran Rasiklal Mehta, Ask Realty and Developers, Sunita Agarwal, Suresh Maheshwari, Usha Maurya, Union Commodities and Sunrise Legal Advisor and Consultant were also penalised by the markets watchdog.

Oil prices are on course for their second consecutive weekly decline as US economic data and uncertainty over further interest rate rises weigh on future fuel demand. Brent crude futures for June were trading at $78.53 a barrel, up 16 cents, while the more active July contract was up 21 cents at $78.43. US West Texas intermediate crude rose 23 cents to $74.99. Brent and WTI are both set for 3.8% downturns, taking their declines for the past two weeks to 9.1% and 9.4% respectively.

Asian stocks rose on Friday buoyed by strong corporate earnings despite persistent concerns of economic weakness. The MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan increased by 0.94%. Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.51%, and the S&P/ASX 200 index in Australia rose 0.33%, while China shares slumped. Investors awaited a policy decision from the Bank of Japan, which is widely expected to maintain the short-term interest rate target of -0.1% and estimates for guiding the 10-year bond yield remain unchanged. Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by 25 basis points at its meeting next week.

Amazon.com’s CFO Brian Olsavsky has told analysts that customers using its cloud services kept trying to slim down their bills during Q2 2021, meaning the company was helping them to do so to build long-term relationships. Consequently, revenue growth rates were about 5% points lower in April than in the first quarter. The news saw the entire gain in the stock rise vanish in just minutes of after-hours trading. The company’s surprise gain and subsequent fall illustrates a potentially precarious moment for the firm, which is facing a nascent threat from Microsoft and Google, which are rolling out high-profile artificial intelligence tools.

The Windows software maker rose as much as 8% Wednesday after reporting strong quarterly results as corporate cloud-computing demand remained resilient. If the gains hold, the company will add $151 billion in market value, the most in the company’s history, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Tech giants buoyed U.S. stock futures, despite fresh jitters surrounding the world’s two biggest economies. Following higher-than-anticipated profits and $70 billion in stock buybacks announced by Microsoft and Alphabet, Nasdaq futures were up 1.4% and S&P 500 futures up 0.5%. However, the Wall Street Journal’s Nick Timiraos warned the banking crisis wasn’t over, leading to a sharp drop in U.S. markets overnight. Bond yields fell sharply and interest rate futures markets are pricing in a higher chance of Fed rate cuts later in the year.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported Q1 2023 net profit of $15bn, beating market expectations, and recording revenue of almost $70bn, a billion higher than predicted. Although Alphabet has recently had to deal with a slowdown in advertising, it appears to be regaining ground. The same quarter where it laid off 12k employees, the tech giant’s share price has made a steady recovery since the cuts were announced in January. Meanwhile, Microsoft also pleased investors with Q1 results showing the popularity of its business cloud products, even as Windows software sales declined.