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OpenAI is hiring the head of Instacart into a new role as chief executive officer of applications, reshaping leadership at the artificial-intelligence pioneer under CEO Sam Altman.

Fidji Simo, 39, will take on many of the operational duties currently held by Altman, including finance and product development. She will report to Altman, allowing him to focus on broader strategy, he announced on Wednesday.

OpenAI has gone through a tumultuous stretch as it seeks to develop a business model to support technological breakthroughs like ChatGPT. Altman also had to scale back plans to convert the startup to a for-profit entity after public pushback from former employees, academics and rivals, including Elon Musk. The company’s restructuring effort still has not received the blessing of Microsoft Corp., one of its largest stakeholders.

Applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week after a short-term spike coinciding with spring recess and the Easter holiday at the end of April.

Initial claims decreased by 13,000 to 228,000 in the week ended May 3. That was roughly in line with the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, also fell, to 1.88 million, in the previous week, according to Labor Department data released Thursday.

Jobless claims have remained largely subdued, indicating low levels of layoffs despite increased economic uncertainty amid tariffs and the ripple effects from the Trump administration’s actions to shrink the federal government.

White men no longer make up the majority of board seats at the largest US companies, a historic shift reflecting decades of pressure to diversify the upper ranks of corporate leadership.

For the first time, women and non-White men hold just over half, or 50.2%, of the more than 5,500 board seats at S&P 500 companies, according to data compiled for Bloomberg by ISS-Corporate. That compares with five years ago when White men accounted for almost 60% of the directorships.

The question now is whether the shift is a short-term blip or becomes an embedded adjustment in the makeup of the people who oversee companies. The milestone also comes as political and legal attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are intensifying.

US labor productivity fell in the first quarter for the first time in nearly three years as economic output declined, snapping a streak of efficiency gains that have helped temper the inflationary impact from employment costs.

Productivity, or nonfarm employee output per hour, decreased at a 0.8% annualised rate after a revised 1.7% increase in the fourth quarter, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed Thursday.

Unit labor costs — what businesses pay employees to produce one unit of output, adjusted for productivity — jumped 5.7% in the first quarter, the most in a year.

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., the parent of HBO and CNN, reported first-quarter results that fell below analysts’ expectations even as the media company added 5.3 million new streaming customers.

The New York-based company reported revenue of $8.98 billion, missing Wall Street’s estimates of $9.61 billion. The adjusted loss per share totaled 18 cents a share, missing analysts’ expectations of a loss of 11 cents.

As customers continue to abandon the traditional pay-TV world in favor of new online options, Warner Bros. recently completed a restructuring of its overall business into two divisions: one focused on streaming and studios and the other on cable television networks.

President Donald Trump said he will raise the case of ex-media mogul Jimmy Lai as part of US trade talks with China, a move likely to antagonize Beijing just days before the two sides meet.

“I think talking about Jimmy Lai is a very good idea,” Trump said in a May 7 radio interview with Hugh Hewitt. “We’ll put it down, and we’ll put it down as part of the negotiation.”

The European Union’s executive arm on Thursday said it would launch a dispute with the World Trade Organization over the US’s “reciprocal” tariff policy.

The European Commission also said it had launched a public consultation on a list of U.S. imports potentially subject to countermeasures.

“It is the unequivocal view of the EU that these [U.S.] tariffs blatantly violate fundamental WTO rules,” the European Commission said in a statement.

“The EU’s objective is thus to reaffirm that internationally agreed rules matter, and these cannot be unilaterally disregarded by any WTO member, including the US.”

Peloton Interactive Inc. shares dropped in premarket trading after reporting that revenue sank 13% last quarter, marking the third straight year-over-year decline in sales.

Revenue totaled $624 million in the fiscal third quarter, which ended March 31. That beat Wall Street estimates of about $619 million, but it wasn’t enough to convince investors that Peloton’s new chief executive officer’s bid to turn around the company has fully taken root.

CEO Peter Stern has been trying to whip the company into shape since taking over in January. Revenue has continued to decline, with sales from hardware such as its bikes and treadmills sliding 27% last quarter and revenue from app subscriptions dropping 4%. Peloton thrived during pandemic lockdowns but became mired in a deep sales slump post-lockdowns.

Bitcoin approached the $100,000 mark for the first time since February, with US President Donald Trump expected to announce a trade agreement with the UK.

The largest digital asset rose as much as 3.2% to $99,894 on Thursday, as most major tokens climbed higher. Ether — the second-largest token — soared as much as 9.4% to $1,968.

Molson Coors Beverage Co. lowered its full-year guidance as the challenging consumer environment in the US drives shoppers away from the company’s products.

The Coors Light and Miller Lite manufacturer now expects 2025 underlying diluted earnings per share to increase in the low single digits. It previously said profit would rise in the high single digits. It also projected a low single-digit decline in sales, lowering its previous guidance of a low single-digit increase.

The company blamed macroeconomic pressure and weaker consumer demand. It also took a hit from the loss of its Pabst Brewing contract, and this time, international beer sales didn’t save the company the way they did last quarter. The beer maker also disclosed that CEO Gavin Hattersley plans to retire by the end of the year.

US Treasury yields rose on Thursday as traders pared bets on interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve after Chair Jerome Powell said he won’t be rushed into lowering borrowing costs.

The policy-sensitive two-year rate climbed four basis points to 3.82%, narrowing the gap to its 10-year peer to 48 basis points, near the smallest level in a month. Powell said on Wednesday that the central bank needs more certainty on the direction of trade policy before making a move.

Treasuries initially gained after the Fed decision, as investors focused on the risk mentioned by policymakers that trade-related uncertainty could lead to stagflation. But on Thursday, attention turned to Powell’s message that the US central bank will wait and see how things evolve.

The Bank of England cut interest rates on Thursday in a move likely to bring relief to borrowers, businesses and hard-pressed consumers across the country.

The central bank reduced its key interest rate from 4.5% to 4.25% at its latest monetary policy meeting amid a backdrop of lacklustre economic growth and uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.

The cut had been widely expected. Five of the central bank’s nine policymakers voted for the cut, with two members wanting a larger 50 basis-point reduction, and two wanting to keep rates on hold.

The US and the U.K. have agreed to sign a trade deal, making the UK the first country to do so after the US announced tariffs in April. The White House will hold a press conference at 7.30 pm IST to announce the deal, which aims to strengthen the relationship between the two countries.

European stocks traded in positive territory on Thursday, amid a swathe of earnings reports and reports of an imminent UK-US trade deal.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was 0.5% higher at 10:08 a.m. in London, with most sectors and all major bourses seeing gains.

The UK’s FTSE 100 added 0.2%, while France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX were higher by 0.8% and 1%, respectively.

Siemens Energy AG shrugged off the US tariff chaos that’s hit other German manufacturers, saying that the effect of import duties on its bottom line will be small.

Tariffs’ impact on profit is expected to be as much as a high double-digit million euro amount for the second half of the fiscal year, the maker of gas turbines and grid equipment said Thursday. It’s planning to hike prices on new orders and boost local production to soften the blow.

“The situation isn’t good, we are not immune to US tariffs,” Chief Executive Officer Christian Bruch said in a call with reporters. The levies are “annoying, but manageable,” he added.

Malaysia kept interest rates unchanged on Thursday, saving its policy ammunition amid looming risks to growth from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Bank Negara Malaysia left the overnight policy rate at a post-pandemic high of 3%, as predicted by 20 of 25 economists in a Bloomberg survey. The rest expected a 25-basis point cut — the first time easing bets have come into play since the Monetary Policy Committee adjusted the key rate to its current level in May 2023.

“At the current OPR level, the monetary policy stance is consistent with the current assessment of inflation and growth prospects,” BNM said in a statement. “Recognising that there are downside risks in the economic environment, the MPC remains vigilant to ongoing developments to inform the assessment on the domestic inflation and growth outlook.”

Shipping giant Maersk, widely regarded as a barometer of global trade, reported preliminary underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $2.71 billion for the first three months of the year.

That’s up 70% from the same period a year earlier and above the $2.57 billion expected by analysts in an LSEG poll.

Maersk kept its 2025 profit guidance unchanged at between $6 billion and $9 billion but said global container market volume growth had been revised to -1% to 4% “given the increased macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty.”

Toyota Motor Corp. said US President Donald Trump’s tariffs will result in a ¥180 billion ($1.3 billion) hit to operating income in just two months, with the Japanese carmaker joining a growing list of companies scrambling to shield themselves from trade turmoil.

The company said Thursday that the impact for April and May has been tentatively factored in, and the situation remains uncertain. That’s set to weigh on its full-year results, with its outlook for operating income of ¥3.8 trillion for the year ending March 31, 2026, falling far short of analyst expectations of ¥4.7 trillion.

The carmaker said operating profit for its latest financial year was ¥4.8 trillion, well below the record ¥5.35 trillion during the 2024 fiscal year — an all-time high for any Japanese company. The company reported a lukewarm finish to the year, with profit rising 0.3% in the fourth quarter to ¥1.1 trillion.

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s adjusted earnings surged past expectations as the world’s biggest brewer grew sales of its top beers in some of its largest markets.

The maker of Michelob Ultra and Stella Artois said adjusted organic earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization rose 7.9% in the first quarter, more than the 3.68% analysts had expected.

The company held its fiscal year outlook and expects Ebitda to grow in line with its medium term outlook of between 4% and 8%.

Indonesia’s foreign-exchange reserves saw the biggest drop in nearly two years after the central bank ramped up market intervention to cushion the sliding rupiah last month.

The stockpile fell by $4.6 billion to $152.5 billion in April, Bank Indonesia said in a statement on Thursday. The decline, the biggest since May 2023, was due to the government’s external debt payments and the central bank’s rupiah stabilization measures as the global market was roiled by the US announcement of so-called reciprocal tariffs.

The pressure for Bank Indonesia to intervene has eased recently, with the rupiah rebounding 2.8% from a record low touched on April 9. The rupiah was steady at 16,543 against the dollar while stocks slipped 0.1% after the reserves data announcement. The 10-year government bond held its earlier gain.

Iron ore fell as China’s top steel association confirmed that output curbs were underway, and long-awaited PBOC rate cuts failed to deliver a sustained lift in sentiment.

Futures fell as much as 1.5%, paring gains from Wednesday when the People’s Bank of China announced easing measures, including cutting the seven-day reverse repurchase rate. The turnaround came as the impact of tariffs and output cuts outweighed the government support measures.

The China Iron and Steel Association said this week the government was “actively deploying and promoting” its crude steel production mandate. Looming output restrictions have weighed on the market and are expected to impact demand of iron ore.

The pound and FTSE 100 stock-index futures rallied on a report that US President Donald Trump is expected to announce a trade deal between the US and UK later Wednesday.

Trump teased the announcement of a “major trade deal” in a social media post on Tuesday night, with subsequent reports indicating the country involved was the UK. Sterling gained as much as 0.5% to 1.3356 after the news.

FTSE futures also rallied on the news, gaining as much as 0.7% amid hopes the trade agreement will alleviate US tariffs on the UK. The report “is a modest positive” for the pound, said Moh Siong Sim, FX strategist at Bank of Singapore.

“The details of the deal will be critical as a possible template for negotiations with other countries,” said Rajeev De Mello, global macro portfolio manager at Gama Asset Management. “It’s a positive for UK equity markets and for the sterling, and possibly for other very close friends of the US.”

“The Fed is not really sure where tariffs are going to land, which is important, and when they land they’re not really sure what the consequences are going to be on growth versus inflation,” said William Dudley, the former New York Fed president, on Bloomberg Television.

Taiwan’s central bank governor dismissed the possibility of being labeled a currency manipulator by the US Treasury.

“I’m confident that Taiwan will not be labeled as a currency manipulator,” Yang Chin-long, governor of Taiwan’s central bank, said when reporting to lawmakers on Thursday. He also reiterated that the US did not pressure Taiwan to appreciate its currency.

Yang’s comments come as the currency stabilizes following its biggest two-day gain since the 1980s. The rally halted after Yang urged market commentators on Monday to stop speculating about the foreign exchange market.

A year-long rally in South Korean bonds is facing a speed bump, as concerns grow that another ramp-up in fiscal stimulus after next month’s presidential vote would further increase government borrowing.

Yields on the benchmark 10-year government paper have dropped about 27 basis points this year, making Korea the best performer among major Asian peers from China to Australia. Open interest in the country’s sovereign bond futures has hit a record high, with investors positioning that the Bank of Korea would ease policy further.

The impressive bull run is now facing obstacles, given expectations that after the nation elects a new president in June, policymakers may issue more debt to fund spending to arrest a growth slowdown. Meanwhile, sticky inflation and a stubborn local housing bubble may hinder the central bank’s ability to cut interest rates to aid Asia’s fourth-biggest economy.

South Korea’s foreign exchange reserves reached a five-year low to $404.67 billion at the end of April, partly attributable to the National Pension Service’s expanded swap agreements with the Bank of Korea.

The reasons for the decline “include foreign exchange swap transactions with the National Pension Service and financial institutions’ loss of deposits due to the disappearance of the end-of-quarter effect,” according to a BOK statement issued Thursday.

Still, the odds of the reserves dipping below the $400 billion level — a threshold that’s been a topic of much discussion among traders and the local media — are “low,” Hwang Moonwoo, head of foreign exchange accounting team of the central bank, said.

Gold climbed after tumbling on Wednesday as the Federal Reserve held interest rates, and Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank isn’t in a rush to cut despite trade-war uncertainty.

Bullion traded near $3,375 an ounce, after losing 2% in the previous session. Powell warned that President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda raises the risk of both higher inflation and slowing growth, but added the Fed could afford to keep policy on hold until officials have a better understanding of where the economy is headed.

“The effects on inflation could be short-lived, reflecting a one time shift in the price level,” he said. But it’s “also possible that the inflationary effects could instead be more persistent.” Any trade certainty would have to come from the White House, Powell said.

President Donald Trump said he plans to hold a news conference Thursday to discuss “a MAJOR TRADE DEAL WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF A BIG, AND HIGHLY RESPECTED, COUNTRY.”

The news conference in the Oval Office is scheduled for 10 a.m. Washington time, Trump said in a Truth Social post, though didn’t elaborate on which country he was referencing.

The New York Times reported the deal would be with the United Kingdom, citing three people familiar with the plans, though said details weren’t immediately clear. The pound extended gains on the report.

Oil rose after Donald Trump signaled a trade deal with a country he didn’t identify, as the US president faces political pressure following broad tariffs that rattled global markets.

Brent climbed toward $62 a barrel after falling 1.7% in the previous session, and West Texas Intermediate traded above $58.

Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, and said he plans to hold a news conference on Thursday, without providing any scope or details on the agreement. The New York Times reported the deal would be with the UK.

The news of a deal comes ahead of trade talks between US and Chinese officials this week, though Trump said on Wednesday that he’s unwilling to preemptively lower tariffs on China to jump-start negotiations.

Apple Inc. made an unusual pitch in its bid to save a lucrative search partnership with Alphabet Inc.’s Google, saying that the deal might not be necessary in the long run and that even the iPhone may fall out of use.

Eddy Cue, the company’s senior vice president of services, laid out the argument during testimony Wednesday at the US Justice Department’s antitrust trial against Google. Though Apple receives roughly $20 billion a year from the company — in return for making Google’s search engine the default option on devices — Cue warned that the whole landscape is shifting.

Apple plans to reshape its Safari web browser around artificial intelligence services such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Perplexity AI Inc. and Anthropic PBC’s Claude, he said.

Shares of Alphabet fell 7.3% in New York trading on Wednesday, while Apple slipped 1.1%. Google generates billions of dollars a year from search queries conducted on Apple’s more than 2 billion active devices.NewsLive TVMarketPopular CategoriesCalculatorsTrending NowLet's Connect with CNBCTV 18Network 18 Group :©TV18 Broadcast Limited. All rights reserved.