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Microsoft stops using China engineers for U.S. military support, Reuters says

Microsoft stops using China engineers for U.S. military support, Reuters says

Microsoft (MSFT) plans to stop using engineers based in China to provide technical assistance to the U.S. military, Stephen Nellis of Reuters reports. This comes after a report by ProPublica sparked questions from a U.S. senator and caused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to order a review of Pentagon cloud deals.
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Invesco reports second-quarter loss hurt by buyback costs
Invesco reports second-quarter loss hurt by buyback costs

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Invesco reports second-quarter loss hurt by buyback costs

(Reuters) -Asset manager Invesco swung to a second-quarter loss on Tuesday, as expenses related to share repurchases wiped out gains in investment management fees. Shares of the company fell marginally in premarket trading. Invesco's performance fees, earned when client returns meet agreed-upon expectations, also fell over 70% in the quarter, as total net inflows slumped to $15.2 billion, compared with $28.2 billion a year ago. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT The quarter saw bouts of record volatility as a tumultuous U.S. trade policy and geopolitical tensions fueled recessionary fears and battered investor confidence. This hurt Invesco's inflows and performance fees, as investors took a more cautious approach amid macroeconomic uncertainty. BY THE NUMBERS Invesco ended the quarter with a record $2 trillion in assets under management as of June 30, jumping 16.6% from a year ago, which boosted the corresponding investment management fees. Investment management fees rose 3.3% to $1.1 billion during the reported quarter. But a $159.3 million charge related to its preferred share repurchase program led to a loss of $12.5 million, or 3 cents per share, compared with a profit of $132.2 million, or 29 cents a year ago. CONTEXT Invesco, an independent investment management firm, provides retail and institutional solutions to clients across 120 countries. Larger rival BlackRock last week reported that its assets increased to a record high value in the second quarter. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Coca-Cola to add new drink made with cane sugar after Trump's push
Coca-Cola to add new drink made with cane sugar after Trump's push

USA Today

time10 minutes ago

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Coca-Cola to add new drink made with cane sugar after Trump's push

Coca-Cola will add a new soda beverage made with real cane sugar this fall, the company says. Coca-Cola announced the development in its second-quarter report, according to a news release on Tuesday, July 22. The beverage company was reticent last week when President Donald Trump proclaimed on July 16 that Coca-Cola had agreed to use real cane sugar for its soda beverages sold in the U.S. The Atlanta-based company did not announce that switch, however, but said that this fall Coca-Cola "plans to launch an offering made with U.S. cane sugar to expand its Trademark Coca-Cola product range," according to the news release. "This addition is designed to complement the company's strong core portfolio and offer more choices across occasions and preferences." Explainer: Trump says Coca-Cola is switching it up: Explaining cane sugar vs. high-fructose corn syrup It will carry the Coke name. "Yes, as noted in the release, this will be under the Coke trademark," Coca-Cola spokesperson Scott Leith said in an email exchange with USA TODAY. Coca-Cola currently uses high fructose corn syrup to sweeten its U.S. products while cane sugar is used in other countries, including Mexico. There's been a long-running debate on whether Mexican Coke is better than Coke in the U.S. What did President Trump say about Coke? President Trump announced July 16 on Truth Social that Coca-Cola would switch from high fructose corn syrup to cane sugar. "I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so," Trump wrote. "I'd like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them – You'll see. It's just better!" After Trump's announcement on July 16, a Coke spokesperson told USA TODAY it appreciated the president's enthusiasm for its product and that it would release details on new offerings soon. Trump's announcement, in part, supports Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s efforts to change U.S. food production and consumption away from ingredients such as artificial dyes. While his Make America Healthy Again has deemed both sweeteners unhealthy, some scientists say sugar has some nutritional benefits over high fructose corn. Contributing: Anthony Robledo and Reuters Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider & msnider@ What's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day

Nvidia Stock To Crash In 2025?
Nvidia Stock To Crash In 2025?

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Nvidia Stock To Crash In 2025?

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock has risen by 23% since early January and remains up almost 80% from lows seen in April as AI driven demand remains strong. However, there are concerns. One word. Okay, two maybe. Customer concentration. In Q1 FY'26, (ended April 2025) Nvidia disclosed that one customer accounted for 16% of revenue and another for 14%, both tied to its Compute & Networking segment. That's up from 11% and 13% sales from two direct customers in the same quarter a year ago. We're worried about that. Imagine paying close to $35 billion a year to Nvidia. How long is that going to happen? Nvidia logo displayed on a phone screen and microchip and are seen in this illustration photo taken ... More in Krakow, Poland on July 19, 2023. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Although Nvidia doesn't name them, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), and Meta are widely understood to be among its largest customers. These customers are in the middle of an unprecedented AI spending spree. Amazon is expected to spend up to $105 billion on capex in 2025, while Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta are forecast to spend as much as $80 billion, $75 billion, and $72 billion respectively, much of it earmarked for AI infrastructure. A substantial portion of this will flow directly to Nvidia for GPU purchases. AI data centers also require costly land, building, electricity infrastructure, cooling, and networking systems. However, we aren't so sure these companies will keep investing the way they have on AI in the longer run. Why is that? Sketchy Returns on AI Investments The economics of the end market for AI, particularly for GPU-driven applications, remains uncertain. Most of Nvidia's customers likely aren't generating meaningful returns on their investments yet. Let's take Google, for instance. Its core search business, which generated over $170 billion in 2023 via ad sales, is being disrupted by AI-powered search tools such as Perplexity, and ChatGPT. While Google has built Gemini, a cutting edge AI search offering of its own, it does not currently offer a comparable monetization model. As shareholders eventually seek better returns on investments, we could see capital spending on GPU chips cool off, impacting the likes of Nvidia. Model Training Slowdown? Over the past two years, companies have heavily invested in AI model training, with Nvidia's GPUs emerging as the top choice on account of their performance and efficiency. AI model training is a compute-intensive process that may eventually slow. Unlike traditional cloud growth, AI model training is compute-heavy but often front-loaded making a slowdown in future GPU demand quite possible. Incremental performance gains are expected to diminish as models grow larger, and the availability of high-quality training data could become a bottleneck. As training demand declines, GPU demand could weaken. Now training these massive models is more of a one-time affair that requires considerable computing power and Nvidia has been the biggest beneficiary of this, as its GPUs are regarded as the fastest and most efficient for these tasks. Building In House AI Chips At the same time, big tech giants aren't relying solely on Nvidia - they are all actively developing their own custom AI chips. Google is building its TPU chips, while Amazon, Microsoft with Maia, and Meta too, have their own silicon developments focused on AI. While these chips have a long way to go to match Nvidia's performance in compute heavy training tasks, they could be well optimized for their respective company's AI models and code. Moreover, by building their own chips, these companies could be looking to increase bargaining power with Nvidia and create some independence from Nvidia's supply chain and pricing. Even if Nvidia maintains its technological edge, the concentration of its revenue in a handful of hyperscalers, who are both customers and emerging competitors, could be a vulnerability. Impact on Nvidia Stock NVIDIA's Revenues have surged by over 2x over the last year and are on track to grow by over 50% this year per consensus estimates. While the stock trades at above 40x estimated FY'26 earnings, this isn't too high considering the company's growth rates. That said, these projections assume hyperscaler demand continues unabated. A pullback from any major customers - whether due to internal chip development, more cautious AI returns, or overall tech spending moderation – could lead to lower pricing, lower volumes, and a sharp erosion of profitability. This is especially critical for a company like Nvidia, where such a large share of revenue is tied to a handful of customers. This could lead to a sharp contraction in valuation multiples. The risks here aren't hypothetical, either. Recent evidence from 2022 shows that NVDA stock lost over 60% of its value within just a few quarters. In fact, the stock fell by close to 35% over Q1 2025 due to concerns about tariffs. This could very well repeat itself if big customers show signs of cutting back on spending. Not too happy about the volatile nature of NVDA stock? The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio, with a collection of 30 stocks, has a track record of comfortably outperforming the S&P 500 over the last 4-year period. Why is that? As a group, HQ Portfolio stocks provided better returns with less risk versus the benchmark index; less of a roller-coaster ride, as evident in HQ Portfolio performance metrics.

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