(Reuters) – Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk on Friday sent an email to his executives ordering a hiring freeze and job cuts, making the email his most direct message on the risks of a recession.

The billionaire has taken to Twitter several times in the recent past to share his thoughts on a possible recession.

DATE COMMENTS

May 26 When asked by a Twitter user if he still thinks

that “we are approaching” a recession, Musk

replied, “Yes, but this is actually a good thing.

It has been raining money on fools for too long.

Some bankruptcies need to happen.”

May 26 When a Twitter user asked how long he thinks the

recession will last: “Based on past experience,

about 12 to 18 months,” Musk responded.

“Companies that are inherently negative cash flow

(ie value destroyers) need to die, so that they

stop consuming resources. ”

May 20 In response to a Twitter thread by former Meta

Platforms CTO Mike Schroepfer, wherein he

commented about a tech downturn and said, “Nobody

can predict what is going to happen over the next

12 months but we haven’t had a real bad tech

downturn since 2000″, Musk said “I ‘member” and

called the thread “accurate.”

May 16 Remotely addressing the All-In Summit in Miami

Beach, Musk said “I think we are probably in a

recession and that recession will get worse.”

“It’ll probably be some tough going for, I don’t

know, a year, maybe 12 to 18 months, is usually

the amount of time that it takes for a correction

to happen,” he added.

Dec. 30 In reply to a tweet asking Musk to predict when

the next recession will be, the world’s richest

man said, “Predicting macroeconomics is

challenging, to say the least. My gut feel is

maybe around spring or summer 2022, but not later

than 2023.”

Nov. 30 In response to a report shared on Twitter, Musk

said, “If a severe global recession were to dry

up capital availability / liquidity while SpaceX

was losing billions on Starlink & Starship, then

bankruptcy, while still unlikely, is not

impossible.”

“GM & Chrysler went BK last recession. ‘Only the

paranoid survive.’ – Grove”

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

By Manas Mishra and Amruta Khandekar

(Reuters) -Bristol Myers Squibb Co said on Friday it will acquire drug developer Turning Point Therapeutics Inc for $4.1 billion in cash to help bolster its arsenal of cancer drugs.

Turning Point’s lead drug, repotrectinib, targets mutations in certain proteins in the body that lead to unchecked cell growth.

Bristol Myers will pay $76 per Turning Point share, a 122.5% premium to its last closing price.

The deal comes at a time when a dearth of large acquisitions, clinical failures and investor exits following a gradual easing of the pandemic have hammered biotech stocks.

Wall Street analysts said the deal could help lift sector sentiment.

The deal “will surprise many investors who over the past year have begun to believe late-to-market targeted oncology drugs are likely to be commercial failures,” Stifel analyst Bradley Canino said.

Turning Point’s shares, which have fallen roughly 28% this year, more than doubled to $73.60 in early trading.

Repotrectinib belongs to a class of treatments known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and is being tested to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and other advanced solid tumors.

However, the drug, if approved, will compete in a crowded market for lung cancer treatments and contend for market share with Bristol Myers’ own drug Opdivo, and other cancer drugs made by Roche, Merck & Co Inc and AstraZeneca.

Bristol Myers said it expects repotrectinib to become a standard-of-care therapy for certain patients with NSCLC, a lucrative market for drug developers, when it is approved.

Sales of Bristol Myers’ Opdivo have fallen below those of rival Merck’s blockbuster treatment, Keytruda.

Bristol Myers expects U.S. approval for repotrectinib in the second half of 2023.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra and Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Shounak Dasgupta)

(Reuters) -Russian internet giant Yandex said on Friday that Arkady Volozh had stepped down as CEO and left the board of directors after the European Union included him on its latest list of sanctions against Russian entities and individuals.

Volozh, who co-founded the Yandex search engine in 1997, was put under EU sanctions on Friday after the bloc accused him of “materially or financially” supporting Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Volozh said he considered the European Commission’s decision “misguided”, but added that while sanctions were in place he was transferring his voting power to the company’s board.

Yandex itself is not subject to EU sanctions.

The company said it did not believe Volozh’s departure would affect its operations, financial position or relations with its partners.

Moscow-listed shares in Yandex were down 6% at 1,496 roubles ($23.43) as of 1407 GMT.

“The Board continues to function as normal. Yandex has a strong and deep management team that is well placed to take the company to new levels with the ongoing support of the Board,” it said in a statement.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” to disarm and “denazify” its neighbour.

($1 = 63.8500 roubles)

(Reporting by ReutersEditing by Mark Potter)

(Reuters) -The Russian rouble firmed past 62 to the dollar in Moscow trade on Friday while shares in internet giant Yandex fell sharply after EU countries imposed new sanctions against Russia.

EU countries have agreed their sixth package of sanctions against Russia over what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, including an import ban on all Russian seaborne crude oil and petroleum products in six to eight months.

The rouble firmed despite the negative development, as it is continued to be driven by capital controls that Russia imposed to protect its financial system soon after sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

At 1405 GMT, the rouble was 0.3% stronger against the dollar at 61.55 and firmed 0.6% to 65.11 against the euro.

The rouble has become the world’s best-performing currency http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/GLOBAL-CURRENCIES-PERFORMANCE/0100301V041/index.html so far this year, boosted artificially by capital controls and supported by high prices for commodities, Russia’s key exports.

New gas payment terms for EU consumers that require conversion of foreign currencies into roubles and a fall in imports have also supported the Russian currency, helping it to shrug off economic hurdles at home and risks of a looming default on sovereign debt.

Most of the gas payments were due in May, Gazprom and the Kremlin have said, and German, Italian and French companies agreed to use the new scheme where end-payments are made in roubles. Buyers from Denmark, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Poland and Finland were cut off after refusing to pay under the new rules.

Following lower activity from the foreign gas buyers to exchange foreign exchange for roubles, the euro continued to rise against the rouble and the dollar, Promsvyazbank said in a note, suggesting that the rouble might have found a balance between supply and demand against the euro and the U.S. dollar.

“The rouble looks balanced to us at the current levels, and we expect it to continue trading at 61-62 versus the dollar today,” Sberbank CIB said in a note.

On the domestic bond market, yields on 10-year OFZ treasury bonds fell to 9.08%, their lowest since early 2022, after inflation data underpinned expectations for another rate cut by the central bank as soon as next week.

Russian stock indexes were down. The dollar-denominated RTS index fell 2% to 1,172.9 points, while the rouble-based MOEX Russian index was also 2% lower at 2,293.3 points.

Moscow-listed shares in Yandex fell 6% on the day to 1,496 roubles after the sanctions prompted Arkady Volozh to step down as Yandex chief executive and leave the board. Yandex shares hit a record high of 6,217 in November.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by David Clarke)

BERLIN -The Swiss government on Friday announced new rules for the nation’s five major banks, requiring that they boost their liquidity in order to better weather events such as the COVID-19 pandemic in future.

“The revision is intended to ensure that systemically important banks (SIBs) hold sufficient liquidity to absorb liquidity shocks and cover their needs in the event of restructuring or liquidation,” the Swiss Federal Council said in a statement announcing the adoption of the ordinance.

One change is that banks deemed systemically important now have to hold enough liquidity to weather a 90-day liquidity crisis, instead of the 30-day threshold previously, the seven-member federal council said.

Switzerland’s five SIBs are UBS, Credit Suisse, Raiffeisen, PostFinance and Zuercher Kantonalbank.

The requirements come into force on July 1, according to the statement.

Under the new rules, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) could impose institution-specific surcharges, the statement said.

To help banks meet the new requirements, certain measures can count towards the upper liquidity limit, for example the sale of marketable securities that a bank can use to generate liquidity during a crisis.

The council said some of the criticisms voiced by the banks had been taken into account when crafting the new rules.

In a statement to Reuters, Credit Suisse said it acknowledged the changes to the liquidity ordinance.

The five lenders have been given a transition period of 18 months to comply with the liquidity requirements.

($1 = 0.9608 Swiss francs)

(Writing by Miranda Murray and Rachel MoreEditing by Paul Carrel and Christina Fincher)

(Reuters) – Micron Technology’s stock received a rare “underweight” rating from a brokerage due to the memory-chip maker’s heavy exposure to mobiles and PCs at a time when rising inflation forces consumers to rein in spending.

Micron shares were down about 6% at $71.18 in early trading on Friday.

“With the global economy expected to face headwinds, we are concerned about Micron’s more than 50% exposure to consumer-like markets such as PCs, mobile, and other,” Piper Sandler wrote in a note to clients.

The brokerage also expects the company’s chip business that caters to the auto industry to suffer due to rising rates, a slowing economy, and the possibility of an excess inventory build.

Piper Sandler added that the Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) market, which represents over 70% of the company’s total revenue, had already started to see price declines for most configurations.

Micron’s DRAM chips are widely used in data centres, personal computers and other devices.

Market research firm Counterpoint reported in April that global PC shipments were down 4.3% in the first quarter of 2022, as the war in Ukraine and China’s lockdowns pressured already fragile supply chains and added to shortages of components.

Global smartphone shipments are expected to decline 3.5% this year, according to IDC.

“While we do feel the company has done an outstanding job to reduce its cost structure and remain financially disciplined, we continue to view memory as largely a commodity market compared to the rest of our universe. As a result, we do feel Micron is likely to underperform,” Piper Sandler said.

The brokerage, however, expressed confidence in the company’s data centre business, which represents less than 30% of revenue.

It cut Micron’s price target by $20 to $70.

(Reporting by Aniruddha Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

By Jan Strupczewski

BRUSSELS – EU countries have reached agreement on their sixth package of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, including a complete import ban on all Russian seaborne crude oil and petroleum products in six to eight months.

Below are the main elements of the package:

OIL EMBARGO

The EU will stop buying all Russian crude oil delivered by sea – or 2/3 of all EU imports of Russian crude – from early December, and will ban all Russian refined products two months later.

Deliveries of Russian crude via the Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Poland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, will be exempt from the embargo for an indefinite time, but Poland and Germany have said they would stop using the pipeline by year end, bringing the reduction of Russian oil imports into the EU to 90% by end-2022.

In 2021, the EU imported 48 billion euros ($51 billion) worth of crude oil and 23 billion euros of refined products from Russia.

Russian crude is much cheaper than Brent, so for the sake of fairness, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which will continue to buy Russian crude, will not be able to re-sell it, or refined products they make from it, to any other EU country.

OTHER EXEMPTIONS

Because of its geographical location, Bulgaria will be allowed to import Russian crude and refined products by sea until the end of 2024. Croatia will be able to buy until the end of 2023 Russian vacuum gas oil for its refinery.

INSURANCE

To make it difficult for Russia to re-direct its oil tankers to other buyers in the world, the EU, together with Britain and other G7 countries, is blocking the insurance and re-insurance of ships carrying Russian oil by EU firms. New insurance contracts are banned immediately and existing ones will be phased out over six months.

Tankers without insurance are not allowed into most major ports because of the risk of cargo loss and litigation in case of oil spills

Many major insurance companies in the shipping business are either European or, in case of groups of insurers and re-insurers, include European firms, so the ban is likely to be effective, as it was for Iranian oil in 2012.

BANKS AND SERVICES

The EU is disconnecting Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank from the SWIFT messaging system as well as two smaller lenders, Credit Bank of Moscow and Russian Agricultural Bank. The EU is also disconnecting one Belarusian bank.

EU accounting, lobbying, public relations and consultancy companies will not be allowed to provide services to Russian entities. This is coordinated with Britain and other G7 countries, making sure most of the world’s biggest consultancy firms are covered.

MEDIA

The EU is suspending broadcasting permits for three Russian State outlets: Rossiya RTR/RTR Planeta, Rossiya 24/Russia 24, and TV Centre International. Also, EU companies will not be allowed to advertise in these outlets.

EXPORT RESTRICTIONS

The EU has added chemicals that could be used in the process of manufacture of chemical weapons.

INDIVIDUALS AND COMPANIES

The EU package expands the list of individuals and companies facing asset freezes and travel bans associated with Russia’s military-industrial sectors. A full list of names will be available later on Friday or on Saturday. The expansion brings the EU into line with a similar list compiled by the United States.

The list of sanctioned Belarusian entities is increased from one to 25. These are entities related to authorisations for the sale, supply, transfer or export of dual-use goods and technology, as well as goods and technology which might contribute to Belarus’s military and technological enhancement, or to the development of its defence and security sector.

($1 = 0.9321 euros)

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by David Holmes)