By Tyler Clifford

NEW YORK (Reuters) -The New York Police Department has called for “elevated vigilance” ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, warning that extremists could target political events and polling sites, the agency said in an internal bulletin obtained by Reuters.

Poll workers, people at rallies and political candidates face heightened risk of attack in the run-up to the Nov. 8 elections, according to an alert issued by the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau on Wednesday.

The bulletin stressed it was drawing attention to the risk of attacks or threats even though there were no credible threats known by police at this time.

Rising crime rates have become a top election issue for voters in New York and across the country. Public safety took center stage this week at a debate between New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, and U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, her Republican challenger.

In July, Zeldin was giving a campaign speech when a man climbed on stage and tried to stab him. Zeldin was not harmed in the incident and the attacker was arrested.

(Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Deepa Babington)

By Deena Beasley

(Reuters) – Gilead Sciences Inc on Thursday posted a higher-than-expected third-quarter profit on the back of strong demand for its HIV and cancer drugs, which helped offset lower sales of its COVID-19 antiviral drug and acquisition expenses.

The U.S. biotech company also increased its forecast for full-year revenue and earnings, sending its shares up 4% to $73 in after-hours trade.

Quarterly revenue fell 5% to $7 billion, but was still ahead of the average Wall Street estimate of $6.12 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Sales of COVID treatment remdesivir, sold under the brand name Veklury, fell 52% from a year earlier to $925 million. But that was still well ahead of analysts’ estimates of $328 million.

“What you’ve seen is an over performance … both on Veklury, but also, I think, very importantly on our base business,” Gilead Chief Executive Daniel O’Day told Reuters.

The company said adjusted quarterly profit fell 28% to $1.90 per share, which also beat Wall Street expectations of $1.43 per share. Net income fell to $1.42 per share from $2.05 per share.

The CEO said Gilead expects demand for Veklury, an intravenous drug given to hospitalized patients, to continue to slow, but “like the rest of the world, we’ve had to struggle to look into the crystal ball and know exactly where the pandemic can go.”

Gilead is also developing an oral COVID antiviral and expects to launch a Phase 3 trial of that drug within the next several months.

Gilead’s HIV product sales increased 7% to $4.5 billion in the quarter, driven by higher prices and demand.

Sales of cancer drug Trodelvy rose 78% to $180 million, while sales of Gilead’s cancer cell therapies jumped 79% to $398 million.

HIV and oncology sales were ahead of expectations, which “is notable across the portfolio and important as they go forward as a key area of growth,” Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said in an email.

Gilead expects to hear from the Food and Drug Administration in December on its application for long-acting HIV treatment lenacapavir and in February on a filing to expand use of Trodelvy for breast cancer patients.

The FDA declined to approve Gilead’s application for Hepcludex, a hepatitis D treatment, due to concerns about manufacturing and administration, the company said.

For the full year, Gilead said it now expects product sales of $25.9 billion to $26.2 billion, up from a previous forecast of $24.5 billion to $25 billion.

The company also raised its outlook for 2022 adjusted earnings to between $3.35 and $3.55 per share from a previous range of $2.90 to $3.30.

“The increased guidance is also strong in this environment of heightened uncertainty across the global macro and points to the defensive nature and attractive business at names like Gilead in biotech,” Yee said.

(Reporting by Deena Beasley; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Deepa Babington)

By Eva Mathews

(Reuters) -T-Mobile US Inc on Thursday raised its annual forecast for monthly bill-paying wireless subscriber additions for a third time, as more Americans pick its superior 5G services and cheaper plans compared to rivals AT&T and Verizon.

Shares in T-Mobile rose 3% in extended trading after the company also beat third-quarter estimates for wireless phone customer additions, helped by discounts on smartphones and plans at industry-low prices.

It also has an edge in the 5G game, owing to the chunky 2.5Ghz mid-band spectrum it won through its $23 billion buyout of rival Sprint in 2020, while Verizon and AT&T are building up the mid-band that provides a good balance of capacity and coverage.

So, while other telcos bear huge costs on 5G deployments, T-Mobile’s roll-out has been less expensive and helpful in managing costs, CFRA analyst Keith Snyder said.

T-Mobile executives told Reuters a rebound in international travel, strong demand for its priciest $85 Magenta Max plan that is bundled with streaming services such as Apple TV+, pushed up subscriber additions and helped raise forecast across wireless additions, core adjusted earnings and free cash flow.

“T-Mobile has done a very good job of making the pricier plans more valuable to justify the cost,” said Anshel Sag, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

The company added 854,000 monthly bill-paying phone subscribers in the third quarter, above FactSet estimates of 724,800, and 578,000 high-speed internet customers.

In comparison, AT&T added 708,000 postpaid phone subscribers and Verizon, the largest U.S. carrier by subscribers, added only 8,000 customers in the same period.

T-Mobile expects to add between 6.2 million and 6.4 million net monthly-bill paying subscribers in 2022, up from a prior forecast of 6 million to 6.3 million.

(Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

By Rajesh Kumar Singh

CHICAGO (Reuters) – American Airlines has offered a 19% pay increase to its pilots over two years in a new contract, according to a draft agreement.

American pilots will get a 12% raise on the date the contract is signed, with another 5% hike after a year and another 2% after two years.

The latest proposal compares with the company’s June offer to hike base pay by about 17% through 2024, which was estimated would cost American more than $2 billion.

The draft agreement, however, is yet to be reviewed and approved by the board of American’s pilot union. If approved, it is widely expected to act as a benchmark for contract negotiations at rivals United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.

American has also offered another up to 3% increase in pay rates to match any salary increases at United and Delta.

The offer comes at a time when the airline industry is grappling with staffing shortages after letting go of thousands of pilots during the coronavirus pandemic.

An industry-wide pilot shortage has made it tougher for carriers to ramp up capacity and capitalize on a booming travel demand.

Last week, American said it expects to operate next year at 95%-100% of the pre-pandemic capacity. Delta expects to restore its 2019 capacity only by summer next year.

(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; Editing by Chris Reese and Deepa Babington)

(Reuters) -U.S. shale producer Pioneer Natural Resources Co on Thursday posted a better-than-expected profit for the third quarter as crude prices hovered near multi-year highs following sanctions on Russia, a leading producer of oil and gas.

Crude prices have recently cooled from 14-year peaks touched earlier in 2022, but were still more than 30% higher year-over-year during the quarter, benefiting producers such as Pioneer.

The company saw average realized prices of $94.23 per barrel of oil in the quarter, up 36% from a year earlier.

Pioneer also said it expects to return $7.5 billion in cash flow to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. It declared a base-plus-variable quarterly cash dividend of $5.71, down from $8.57 in the previous quarter.

Separately, the company said it was working to develop two renewable energy projects totaling 300 megawatts (MW) to provide electricity for its operations.

The projects, being developed with a unit of NextEra Energy Inc, will power a part of Pioneer’s field operations, as well as its Midland Basin natural gas processing infrastructure, jointly owned with Targa Resources Corp.

    Pioneer’s total average production was 657,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in the July-September quarter, including 354,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd).

The Dallas, Texas-based firm forecast fourth-quarter oil production in the range of 346,500 to 361,500 bopd, the midpoint of which was flat compared with the third quarter.

Net income attributable to common stockholders stood at $1.98 billion, or $7.93 a share, in the three months ended Sept. 30, up 90% from $1.05 billion, or $4.07 per share, a year ago.

Excluding items, the company earned $7.48 per share, beating Wall Street consensus of $7.44, according to Refinitiv data.

Shares of the company were up 1.9% at $270.50 in extended trading.

(Reporting by Ruhi Soni in Bengaluru and Liz Hampton in Denver; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Devika Syamnath)

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc shares skidded as much as 21% after hours on Thursday after it forecast costs might eviscerate its profit for the current quarter, as early holiday marketing does little to boost sales growth and as labor and delivery expenses continue to swell.

The news followed similarly huge slide in META Platform shares on Thursday, after the Facebook parent reported late Wednesday costly metaverse bets and the impact of soaring inflation on ad spending, which spooked investors. But Apple earnings on Thursday were a bright spot, with higher than expected revenue leaving its shares only slightly lower.

Amazon’s net sales were $127.1 billion in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, lower than analysts’ expectations of $127.46 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. For the holiday quarter, the world’s biggest online retailer forecast net sales of between $140 billion and $148 billion versus expectations for $155.15 billion.

COMMENTS:

DANIEL MORGAN, PORTFOLIO MANAGER, SYNOVUS TRUST, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

    “The Amazon and Apple reports showed divergence in terms of the overall health of the consumer. Amazon is down because of their fourth quarter revenue outlook. But then we look at the Apple report and they reported strong growth in a lot of their consumer categories. Their iPhones, Macs, wearables, and services all had positive growth rates. So it seems to me that Apple is in a better position in regards to weathering this slowdown in consumer spending.”

    “Amazon came out and reported that they expect fourth quarter revenues to be below expectations and only grow 2% to 8% in this upcoming Christmas season. Going into the holiday season you would expect the consumer to really ramp up so that I see a big divergence between Apple and Amazon.”

    “That is a huge black cloud on Amazon stock, which gives you the impression they’re not as well positioned.”

     “Apple is a different model than Amazon. It creates its own products and has a very loyal user base. Amazon is just a conduit for other merchants.”

    “Intel was all just cost cutting. Their client computing, PC unit was better than expected. That was good.”

    “They came in and announced this massive cost cutting, from which you can create growth. They’re embracing the moment, realizing that they’re not executing and have to realign their business. The street is applauding this cost cutting agenda they’ve put together to try to grow earnings again.”

DANIEL KRIETER, DIRECTOR, FI STRATEGY, BMO CAPITAL MARKETS, NEW YORK

“The selloff in tech stocks post earnings indicates that the Fed’s restrictive policy is beginning to be felt in the real economy with growth slowing meaningfully. Now we wait to find out if the Fed can achieve a soft landing…it will be very difficult.”

ANDREW LIPSMAN, PRINCIPAL ANALYST, INSIDER INTELLIGENCE

“It looks like AWS is the primary culprit for the underperformance this quarter, as a relatively sharp slowdown in growth was directly responsible for the topline miss and weighed heavily on profits as well. The AWS slowdown is a clear sign that businesses are beginning to trim costs, so this will likely put more of a squeeze on Amazon’s bottom line in the coming quarters.

“The commerce and ads businesses did pretty well at a time when Amazon needed to show some renewed momentum, so it was successful in reversing those trends. Amazon is well-positioned to continue that momentum in Q4 with the added boost from the October Prime Early Access Event, but will face mounting headwinds in the consumer economy amid high inflation and rising interest rates.”

MICHAEL O’ROURKE, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, JONESTRADING, STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT

    “A lot of people have been holding out that earnings would hold up here. The guidance that Amazon gave is pretty disappointing, in the sense the fourth quarter is their Christmas quarter. They talked about struggling back in July when they reported Q2, and yet the stock rallied 30, 40%. So obviously there are still problems there.”

    “As far as Apple, the numbers weren’t great; they weren’t terrible. But I think everyone wants to hear what the guidance is for next quarter.”

    From a markets perspective, you have to be cautious going forward. When you think about whether it’s the FANGs or Tesla… they’re the biggest stocks in the market, and we really haven’t had much of anything good come out of any of them. A lot of what is holding the broad tape up at the moment is hopes of central bank policy pivots.”

    “Obviously these companies are showing that the interest rate hikes and policy tightening are having an effect. We just don’t know how much of an effect, but it’s notable. And I think you’re going to see through year end investors trying to take a step back. They need a new baseline of where the trend of business is going forward, so I would expect more volatility going into year end.”

RICK MECKLER, PARTNER, CHERRY LANE INVESTMENTS, A FAMILY INVESTMENT OFFICE, NEW VERNON, NEW JERSEY“Big tech companies are not impervious to slowdowns in the economy, particularly if they are consumer driven. What we saw in the past is that in a period of growth, tech really grew faster than anything else and got multiples that reflected that. But as the Fed embarks on this planned slowdown, it is eating away at some of their consumer-faced businesses and given their high multiples it is causing big contractions in their stock prices.”

QUINCY KROSBY, CHIEF GLOBAL STRATEGIST, LPL FINANCIAL, CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

    “We were so used to tech outperforming during the pandemic. There was always concern going into earnings, and quarter after quarter, they surprised to the upside. This period has been a major switch for tech. The higher rates don’t help, and you have the stronger dollar as a headwind amid the backdrop of weaker demand. So this is a period that is difficult.”

KIM FORREST, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, BOKEH CAPITAL PARTNERS, PITTSBURGH 

“The world has changed but people haven’t. They want what won last year to win this year.”

    “Amazon results just reflect the changing tastes of the consumer which nobody should be surprised by it. We were locked in our homes for two years and we’re getting out.”

    “The companies and investors thought this would go on forever so the big technology companies like Amazon continued hiring to support a business that looks like the year 2021, and it’s not 2021. It’s 2022. Layer on top of this inflation. People are buying less stuff, I would have to guess. We know they’re buying less stuff from Amazon.”

    “The big part with Apple is what they think looking forward. Despite the headwinds of the strong dollar and their consumers having to battle inflation, the results are pretty good.”

    “Intel results surprised on the upside. They’d been priced for a going out of business sale which they are not. It’s still a long road ahead but this quarter was a bright spot. But we still have commentary on the call so don’t get too excited.”

(Compiled by the Global Finance & Markets Breaking News team)

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – Relatives of children killed in the Uvalde school shooting confronted the Texas public safety director on Thursday and demanded he resign over the failure of his agency’s troopers to confront the gunman quickly and possibly save lives.

Brett Cross, uncle of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia – one of the 19 children and two teachers killed in the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School – was one of several relatives who pressed Director Col. Steven McCraw to follow through on his vow to resign if his agency was found culpable in its response.

“You have disgraced our state,” Cross said at a podium as he looked directly at McCraw during a meeting of the Public Safety Commission in Austin. “Steve, the time is now: If you are a man of your word, you will resign.”

McCraw, whose agency is responsible for statewide law enforcement, acknowledged that responding officers failed to follow protocol by waiting more than an hour before entering the adjoining classrooms where the gunman was holed up with the teachers and school children. He said quicker response may have saved lives.

Even so, McCraw said he would only resign if an internal investigation finds that his agency failed the community of Uvalde. “Then, absolutely, I need to go,” he said.

The investigation is expected to be completed in two months.

“But I can tell you this right now: DPS as an institution, right now, did not fail the community — plain and simple,” McCraw said at the meeting.

Immediately after the shooting, McCraw and others sought to blame the slow response on the school district’s small police force and its chief, Pete Arredondo, who was incident commander on the scene. Arredondo was eventually fired.

Since June, the actions of nearly 400 law enforcement officers from various agencies who were on the school have come under heavy criticism.

In July, the Texas legislature released a report blaming the response on “systemic failures” and poor leadership.

McCraw’s agency is evaluating the actions of the 91 state police officers, he said. Among them seven of the DPS officers are under investigation by its internal affairs division, while one officer was fired earlier this month.

During the meeting, Jesse Rizo, uncle of Jacklyn Cazares, a 9-year-old girl who was killed in the shooting, accused McCraw and his agency of concealing information or providing misinformation about the incident.

“Closure to our families is not an option until we have the answer and hold those responsible, accountable,” said Manual Rizo, also an uncle of Cazares, to the commission.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy rebounded strongly in the third quarter amid a shrinking trade deficit, but the data overstated the nation’s economic health as domestic demand was the weakest in two years because of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes.

The Commerce Department’s advance third-quarter gross domestic product report on Thursday also showed residential investment contracting for a sixth straight quarter, the longest such stretch since the housing market collapse in 2006, as the sector buckles under the weight of soaring mortgage rates.

While overall inflation slowed substantially from the second quarter, underlying price pressures continued to bubble.

Still, the return to growth after two straight quarterly declines in GDP offered evidence that the economy was not in a recession, though the risks of a downturn have increased as the Fed doubles down on rate hikes to battle the fastest-rising inflation in 40 years.

“Despite the shiny headline number, a look under the hood shows a much grimmer picture of the U.S. economy, one that is clearly losing steam,” said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto. “With the full effect of past and future Fed rate hikes still to be felt, the economy appears poised for a modest downturn in the first half of next year.”

Gross domestic product increased at a 2.6% annualized rate last quarter after contracting at a 0.6% pace in the second quarter. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP growth would rebound at a 2.4% rate, with estimates ranging from as low as a 0.8% rate to as high as a 3.7% pace.

The trade deficit narrowed sharply as slowing demand curbed the goods import bill. Exports also increased during the quarter. The smaller trade gap added 2.77 percentage points to GDP growth, the most since the third quarter of 1980.

Final sales to private domestic purchasers, which exclude trade, inventories and government spending, edged up at only a 0.1% rate, a sign that higher borrowing cost were starting to erode demand. That was the slowest rise in this measure of domestic demand since the second quarter of 2020 and followed a 0.5% rate of increase in the second quarter.

“GDP growth cannot be sustained without domestic private-sector growth,” said Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial in New York.

The data will probably have little impact on monetary policy, though Fed officials could draw some comfort from the ebbing demand. Personal consumption expenditures price data for September and third-quarter labor cost numbers, due to be released on Friday, could carry more weight ahead of the U.S. central bank’s Nov. 1-2 policy meeting.

The Fed has raised its benchmark overnight interest rate from near zero in March to the current range of 3.00% to 3.25%, the swiftest pace of policy tightening in a generation or more.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading mixed. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields fell.

CONSUMER SPENDING SLOWS

Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, slowed to a 1.4% rate from the April-June period’s 2.0% pace.

Spending was held back by a decrease in goods, mostly motor vehicles as well as food and beverages. That partly reflects motor vehicle shortages and a shift in spending to services. Outlays on services increased, lifted by healthcare and international travel.

Consumer spending is being supported by a strong labor market, which is driving up wages. The Labor Department reported on Thursday a modest rise in the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits last week.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits increased 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 217,000 for the week ended Oct. 22. Claims have remained significantly low despite reports of layoffs at companies, mostly in sectors sensitive to interest rates.

“Even as the economy slows, employers appear to be reluctant to lay off workers that they have struggled to hire and retain,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York. “We don’t look for claims to fall much below current levels, but we don’t look for a significant rise in claims or unemployment either until we enter a recession.”

Companies boosted spending on equipment such as trucks, aircraft and computers last quarter. But that bounce could fizzle, with a third report from the Commerce Department showing an unexpected drop in orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft in September. Businesses also increased investment in software as well as research and development.

There were, however, further cutbacks in the construction of commercial and healthcare structures among others. Government expenditures rebounded after five straight quarters of decline, led by defense spending as well as an increase in compensation for state and local government workers.

There was some encouraging news on inflation. A broader measure of inflation in the economy rose at a 4.6% rate, decelerating from a 8.5% pace of increase in the second quarter.

As a result, income at the disposal of households after accounting for inflation rebounded at a 1.7% pace after decreasing at a 1.5% rate in the second quarter. The saving rate dipped to 3.3% from 3.4%.

But inflation remains uncomfortably high. The personal consumption expenditures price index excluding the volatile food and energy components rose at a 4.5% rate after increasing at a 4.7% rate in the prior quarter.

With demand for goods cooling and supply chain bottlenecks easing, retailers are saddled with excess merchandise, forcing them to slow down their pace of inventory accumulation.

Business inventories increased at a rate of $61.9 billion after rising at a pace of $110.2 billion in the second quarter. Inventories subtracted 0.7 percentage point from GDP growth.

“Inventories, which used to jam the ports, have moved to the warehouses of the retailers exactly when the demand is softening and employment gains are slowing,” said Sung Won Sohn, finance and economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “As the inventory correction process proceeds, the economy could slide into a recession.”

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Andrea Ricci and Paul Simao)

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s main stock index rose on Thursday to its highest closing level in more than three weeks as shares of e-commerce giant Shopify surged after strong results, while heavily-weighted financials also gained ground.

The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index ended up 72.35 points, or 0.4% at 19,352.11, its fifth straight day of gains and its highest closing level since Oct. 4.

The index rose despite losses for major U.S. benchmark the S&P 500. Investors on Wall Street were contending with solid economic data and a mixed bag of corporate earnings.

Shopify Inc shares surged 17.1% after the company beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly revenue and reported a smaller-than-expected loss.

That helped push the technology index 3.9% higher, while financials advanced 0.5%.

Among stocks that lost ground was Teck Resources Ltd. It fell 5.1% as the company swung to a third-quarter loss, hurt by higher diesel costs and a downturn in copper prices.

The materials group, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, lost 0.7%, while energy ended 0.4% lower even as oil prices rose.

(Reporting by Fergal Smith; Additional reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Alistair Bell)

By Noel Randewich and Lewis Krauskopf

(Reuters) – Over $200 billion in U.S. stock market value went up in smoke in extended trade on Thursday, after a weak forecast from Amazon added to a string of downbeat quarterly reports from Big Tech companies.

Amazon’s stock tumbled 17% after the bell, wiping out $190 billion in market capitalization after the retail and technology heavyweight projected a holiday slump that would leave current-quarter sales below Wall Street estimates.

Also after the bell, Apple shares fell about 1%, erasing about $30 billion of its stock market value after the Cupertino, California company reported quarterly iPhone sales that fell short of Wall Street targets.

The latest in a string of poor quarterly results from some of Wall Street’s most widely owned companies underscores deep worries about the health of the global economy as central banks raise interest rates in a battle against inflation.

“Big Tech companies are not impervious to slowdowns in the economy, particularly if they are consumer driven,” said Rick Meckler, a partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.

“As the Fed embarks on this planned slowdown, it is eating away at some of their consumer-faced businesses, and given their high multiples it is causing big contractions in their stock prices,” Meckler said.

Amazon’s weak report sent Nasdaq futures tumbling about 3%, showing traders expect Wall Street to open with a deep decline on Friday. Google-owner Alphabet and Microsoft dropped about 1% each, adding to losses following their own poorly received quarterly reports on Tuesday.

Thursday’s late-day reports also followed disappointing results from Facebook-owner Meta Platforms that earlier sent its stock plummeting 25%. Thursday’s drop left Meta’s stock market value at about $260 billion, with the one-time behemoth now about the 20th most valuable company on Wall Street.

If Amazon’s drop after hours is reflected in Friday’s trading session, it will have been its deepest one-day loss since 2006.

Among a handful of winners late on Thursday, Pinterest surged 12% after the social media platform reported higher than expected quarterly revenue, while Intel climbed 6%, despite forecasting annual revenue below analysts’ estimates.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich and Lewis Krauskopf; editing by Richard Pullin)

(Reuters) – A carnage in U.S. technology stocks widened on Thursday as shares of Meta Platforms Inc sank 20% after the Facebook parent’s costly metaverse bets and the impact of soaring inflation on ad spending spooked investors.

Meta was set to lose about $78 billion in market value, if losses hold to the end of the session, adding to the trillions of dollars that some of the biggest tech names have shed this year amid rising interest rates and a stronger dollar.

Meta has lost more than half a trillion dollars in market value so far this year. Its shares were trading at $100.55, their lowest since February 2016.

The company’s results come a day after Google and Microsoft posted dismal numbers, sparking a widespread selloff in technology stocks.

Analysts said investors are worried because Meta is spending on capital-intensive projects at a time when the ad market, a major source of revenue for the company, is drying up.

The company expects to spend about $10 billion a year for metaverse hardware and software, with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg saying on Wednesday that he expects those investments to take about a decade to bear fruit.

“Meta Horizon Worlds (at present) is a relative ghost town when compared to other 3D immersive worlds like Roblox and Fortnite,” said Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester.

CHIP BOON

Meta’s aggressive spending on the metaverse, however, is likely to be a boon for one segment of the broader technology sector – chipmakers.

Its plans require capital expenditure for new data centers and infrastructure, said Ben Barringer, analyst at Quilter Cheviot.

Data center-focused companies such as Broadcom Inc, Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia Corp could get a boost from Meta’s plans. Their stocks rose between 1.4% and 4.3%.

But for Meta, things look bleak a year after it changed its name to focus on the metaverse, a shared virtual reality where people can interact with each other through avatars.

So far this year, Reality Labs, the company’s metaverse unit, has already lost $9.44 billion in revenue, while last year the unit recorded more than $10 billion in losses.

Meta has predicted that the unit’s losses would grow further in 2023 and pledged to “pace” investments after that.

At least 13 brokerages cut their price target on the stock, with J.P. Morgan slashing to a Wall Street low of $115.

Graphic: Meta’s Reality Labs continues to sink in losses – https://graphics.reuters.com/META-RESULTS/zgpobwndwvd/chart.png

(Reporting by Medha Singh, Akash Sriram, Chavi Mehta and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Arun Koyyur)

(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin showed no regrets on Thursday for his war in Ukraine, insisting that the “special military operation” was still achieving its goals and the West’s dominance over world affairs was coming to an end.

Inveighing against the West for more than three-and-a-half hours in a question-and-answer session at an annual foreign policy conference in Moscow, Putin appeared confident and relaxed, a marked contrast from stiff, formal and uneasy public appearances early in the war.

Asked if there had been any disappointments in the past year, Putin answered simply: “No”, though he also said he always thinks about Russians lost in Ukraine.

The speech contained a familiar litany of grievances against “our Western opponents”, who he said faced the inevitable crumbling of their “hegemony”. Liberal Western leaders had undermined “traditional values” around the world, foisting a culture with “dozens of genders, gay parades” on other countries.

Putin accused the West of inciting the war in Ukraine and of playing a “dangerous, bloody and dirty” game that was sowing chaos across the world.

“The historical period of the West’s undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an end,” the 70-year-old former KGB spy said. “We are standing at a historical frontier: Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important decade since the end of World War Two.”

The conflict, which began eight months ago with an invasion by Russian forces of neighbouring Ukraine, has killed thousands, displaced millions, shaken the global economy and reopened Cold War-era divisions.

NO MENTION OF SETBACKS

Later, when drawn more directly into discussion of the war, Putin made no mention of Russia’s battlefield setbacks of recent months, or of steps he has ordered in response, such as calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists, which has led to thousands of men fleeing abroad.

When the event’s host referred obliquely to public concern about whether the operation was still “going according to plan” as Russian officials have maintained since the outset, Putin said its aims had not changed.

Russia was fighting to protect the people of the Donbas, he said, referring to an eastern industrial region that comprises two of the four Ukrainian provinces he proclaimed annexed last month. Economic sanctions had already had their worst impact and would ultimately make Russia stronger by making its industry more independent, he said.

Fighting has been going on in eastern Ukraine since 2014 between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatists.

NUCLEAR ‘BLACKMAIL’

In his speech, Putin played down a nuclear standoff with the West, insisting Russia had not threatened to use nuclear weapons and had only responded to nuclear “blackmail” from Western leaders. He and other Russian officials have repeatedly said in recent weeks that Russia could use nuclear weapons to protect its territorial integrity, remarks interpreted in the West as implicit threats to use them to defend parts of Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed. Scores of countries have condemned the move as illegal.

He also repeated Russia’s latest allegation – that Ukraine was planning to use a so-called “dirty bomb” to spread nuclear material, which the United States, Britain and France have called “transparently false”. Putin said the Ukrainians would carry out such an attack to blame Russia.

A suggestion by Kyiv that the Russian charge might mean Moscow plans to detonate a “dirty bomb” itself was false, he said.

“We don’t need to do that. There would be no sense whatsoever in doing that,” Putin said.

Both Russia and NATO are carrying out annual drills of their nuclear forces this week, and Russia has given the exercises an unusually high profile, showing off missiles, submarines and strategic bombers on state TV.

Putin’s speech was dismissed in Kyiv: “Any Putin‘s speech can be described as ‘for Freud'” tweeted Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Pololyak.

“The one who invaded foreign country, annexed its land and committed genocide accuses others of international law/ sovereignty of other countries violation?”

Putin’s remarks were not very new and did not indicate a change in his strategic goals, including in Ukraine, the White House said.

KHERSON SHELLING

Fighting on the ground appears to have slowed in recent days, with Ukrainian officials saying tough terrain and bad weather had held up their main advance in southern Kherson province.

Russia has ordered the evacuation of civilians from a pocket it holds on the west bank of the mouth of the Dnipro River that bisects Ukraine, but Kyiv says Russia is reinforcing the area with freshly called-up reservists.

Russian forces shelled Ukrainian positions along the entire length of the line of contact and built fortifications, particularly on the east bank of the Dnipro River, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a Facebook post on Thursday evening.

Russian forces targeted more than 15 localities along the front line, the post said.

Russian forces were enduring shortages of material and equipment, including warm winter clothing, and this had prompted a rise in theft and looting in Russian-occupied areas, it said.

Russian forces persisted in attempts to advance on the two theatres of heaviest fighting in eastern Donetsk region – Bakhmut and Avdiivka, the Ukrainian military said.

Reuters was not able to verify battlefield reports.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff and Grant McCool; Editing by Alex Richardson, Andrew Heavens and Cynthia Osterman)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo on Thursday posted a 51% year-on-year jump in its third quarter net profit, beating estimates, boosted by strong sales and product price increases to tackle rising inflation.

Grupo Bimbo’s earnings stood at 6.06 billion pesos ($301 million) in the July to September period, the company said in a statement, well above the 4.1 billion pesos anticipated by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

Revenues for the company, which operates some 100 brands, climbed 20% to 102.8 billion pesos, just above the 101.3 billion forecast by analysts, driven by a hike in sales, mainly in Latin America.

The company increased prices in Europe, Asia and Africa, and said it also adjusted prices in the rest of the regions it operates in.

“We reached record levels and our volumes continued to grow despite price increases,” Bimbo’s Chief Executive Daniel Servitje said in a statement.

The firm’s earnings per share stood at 1.37 pesos, beating the Refinitiv estimate of 1.02 pesos.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) surged 15.2%, while margins contracted 60 basis points, mainly due to higher commodity costs and rising inflation.

“The inflationary environment has been very challenging. However, we have been able to navigate it thanks to the resilience of our categories and the high demand for them,” Servitje added.

($1 = 20.1271 pesos by end-September)

(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire, Editing by Isabel Woodford and Richard Pullin)

By Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (Reuters) -President Joe Biden contrasted his economic plan with Republicans’ on Thursday in a last-ditch effort days before U.S. midterm elections to convince voters that Democrats are best equipped to battle inflation and create jobs.

“The previous president made a string of broken promises in places like Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio,” Biden said. “On my watch, we’ve kept our commitments. On my watch, made in America isn’t just a slogan, it’s a reality.”

Biden spoke in Syracuse, New York, where Micron Technology Inc plans to invest up to $100 billion in computer chip manufacturing, part of tens of billions in new factory spending announced after the president signed the CHIPS Act subsidizing the industry in August.

The visit was aimed at touting efforts to bring manufacturing jobs back to upstate New York, an American center of innovation associated with brands like IBM and Kodak that lost jobs that went to lower-cost locations abroad.

Biden contrasted those his made-in-America manufacturing approach with what he framed as Republicans wed to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement and an emphasis helping the wealthy at the expense of the working class.

Some Republicans have pledged to use the U.S. statutory borrowing limit or debt ceiling to force cuts to federal spending, extend Trump’s tax cuts, repeal Democrat-enacted laws lowering prescription drug prices and block Biden’s student debt relief plan.

“I would argue it’s reckless and irresponsible and will make inflation worse, if they succeed,” Biden said.

His trip comes at a time when the White House optimism that Democrats could buck history and retain control of one or both houses of Congress has waned. Any shift will shape the final two years of Biden’s term, and Democrats could lose control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Voters identify rising prices as their biggest concern amid inflation that has hit four-decade highs.

Meanwhile, Democrats in some crucial races have chosen to campaign without Biden, pushing the White House to significantly scale back their planned presence in competitive areas around the country in the weeks leading up to the race.

Forecasters regard the Syracuse-area 22nd Congressional District in New York state as one of few House of Representatives seats in the country that Democrats have a chance at gaining control of on Nov. 8.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Chris Gallagher; Editing by Heather Timmons, Lincoln Feast and Jonathan Oatis)