LinkedIn launches new effort in push to capture business advertisers

Wall Street sold despite cooler June inflation. The tech sector fell 5.2% for the week and the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SMH) was down about 18.5% MTD. IBM shares dropped 25.2% after preannouncing Q2 results: revenue $17.2B vs estimates by about $700M, adjusted EPS $2.93 vs $3.02. Traders now expect the Fed to hold rates at 3.75%.

IBM shares fell sharply after the company’s preliminary Q2 results. IBM reported revenue of $17.2B vs $17.9B expected and EPS of $2.93 vs $3.02 consensus, citing client spending reprioritization, execution issues, deal slippage and customer cybersecurity concerns. Bank of America cut its target to $280 from $330 and HSBC lowered to $191. IBM reports final results July 22.

Moonshot AI said its Kimi K3 open-weight model benchmarks place it among the top three and it priced output at $15 per million tokens, below Fable 5 at $50. The launch coincided with a chip selloff, including Taiwan Semiconductor down 7%, and declines in SoftBank, Nvidia, Meta, and the Nasdaq 100, according to market reports.

The article says AI leaders and economists are calling for new AI regulation, citing concerns about job losses and standards efforts by figures including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis. It notes New York’s data center moratorium and Meta’s plan to raise Hyperion spending to $50B. It also reports IBM’s earnings shortfall forecast drove a stock drop of over 25% and mentions China’s Moonshot Kimi model.

Sen. Josh Hawley said Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are being investigated after former Meta public policy head Sarah Wynn-Williams testified that Meta worked with China’s Communist Party. Hawley’s letter asks for legal bills, arbitration documents, and other records by Aug. 14, alleging Meta used arbitration to silence her.

Meta Platforms is reportedly in early talks with Anthropic to lease computing power worth up to $10 billion over two years, first reported by The New York Times and cited by Reuters. Anthropic would pay monthly, with both sides able to exit early. The talks are said to be complex because Meta is not a traditional cloud provider.