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Tesla lands at least $14.7 million in tax breaks to locate Cybertruck factory in Texas

Lawmakers in Texas just gave Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk another incentive to locate its next factory there. Commissioners in Travis County, home to Austin and the possible next Tesla factory, approved Tuesday property tax breaks worth at least $14.7 million — and potentially more — over 10 years. The incentives are on top of $46.6 million in property tax abatement that the Del Valle School District Board approved earlier this month.

Brief's mobile news app aims to tackle information overload and media bias

Founded by former Google engineers, Brief is a newly launched news app that aggregates and summarizes the news in hopes of tackling a number of problems with today’s news cycle, including information overload, burnout, media bias, and algorithms that prioritize engagement over news accuracy. Before Brief, co-founder and CEO Nick Hobbs was a Google product manager who had worked on AR, Google Assistant, Google's mobile app, and self-driving cars, among other things during his time at the company. Co-founder and CTO Andrea Huey, meanwhile, was a Google senior software engineer.

Peacock is the latest streaming service to skip Roku and Amazon Fire TV

While NBCUniversal is launching its Peacock streaming service tomorrow with support for a variety of platforms (including iOS and Android devices, Apple TV, Chromecast and Xbox One), two big names are missing from the list — the two largest connected TV platforms, Roku and Amazon Fire TV. If this sounds familiar, it's because WarnerMedia's HBO Max similarly skipped both platforms. At the time, WarnerMedia simply said, "We look forward to reaching agreements with the few outstanding distribution partners left" — but nearly two months later, no agreements have been announced.

Google Cloud's new BigQuery Omni will let developers query data in GCP, AWS and Azure

At its virtual Cloud Next '20 event, Google today announced a number of updates to its cloud portfolio, but the private alpha launch of BigQuery Omni is probably the highlight of this year's event. Powered by Google Cloud's Anthos hybrid-cloud platform, BigQuery Omni allows developers to use the BigQuery engine to analyze data that sits in multiple clouds, including those of Google Cloud competitors like AWS and Microsoft Azure -- though for now, the service only supports AWS, with Azure support coming later.

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  Google Cloud launches Confidential VMs

  TechCrunch
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  Google Cloud launches Assured Workloads for Government, its version of a government cloud

  TechCrunch

Verizon partners with Airtel to launch BlueJeans in India

Bharti Airtel announced on Tuesday it has partnered with Verizon* to launch BlueJeans video-conferencing service in India to serve business customers in the world’s second largest internet market. The video conferencing service, branded as Airtel BlueJeans in India, offers "enterprise-grade security" (which includes encrypted calls, ability to lock and password protect a meeting and generate randomized meeting IDs), a cloud point presence in India to enable low latency, HD video and Dolby Voice, and can accommodate up to 50,000 participants on a call.

Facebook Says Privacy Disclosures Should Be Easier to Read

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. is calling for clearer, standardized user data privacy policies as part of a white paper focused on potential regulation while governments around the world move to tighten restrictions on how companies can collect information.Customer privacy policies -- the often long, complicated outlines for how companies collect and use data -- are too difficult for people to find and understand, according to Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan, the paper’s author. Presenting important information via push notifications and pop-ups is also flawed, Egan wrote, as they have become so common that many people don’t always read them.“In short, the current practices for informing people about how companies use their data, and the laws setting out transparency requirements, may be insufficient to provide meaningful notice to people,” she concluded in the paper released Wednesday. In an interview, Egan said the paper was intended to increase discussion around these issues and come up with more efficient ways to inform users.Facebook has been criticized repeatedly over its privacy practices and data policies. A Federal Trade Commission investigation into the company’s data collection resulted in a $5 billion fine last year, and Facebook pledged to make a number of changes to its privacy practices, including to its internal corporate structure. India and Australia have recently began actions to tighten online data collection.The paper, which is intended for academics, regulators and policy advocates, mostly outlines a series of observations and questions Facebook executives have about the current state of user privacy, including whether there should be industrywide standards. Egan suggested film ratings or nutrition labels put on food packages as examples of the kind of simple disclosures she wants the industry to consider.“We really like the idea that they provide a standardized way of explaining information to people,” Egan said. “At this juncture I think all ideas should really be put on the table.”Egan acknowledged in the paper, however, that standardization poses other problems because many products use different types of information.Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has called for privacy regulation in recent years, suggesting such rules would give the company more clarity about what it can do. Critics have argued that regulation could actually benefit larger tech companies like Facebook, which have more resources and employees in place to adhere to them.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Over 2,500 games removed from Apple's China App Store after loophole shuts - data firm

More than 2,500 mobile games were removed from Apple's China app store in the first week of July, four times as many in the same period in June, after Apple closed a loophole to comply with Chinese licence requirements, data from SensorTower showed. Apple had given publishers of revenue-generating games a deadline of end-June to submit a government-issued licence number that allows them to make in-app purchases, a requirement that Android-based app stores in China have long had. It was not clear why Apple had allowed the loophole to exist for so long.

Over 2,500 games removed from Apple's China App Store after loophole shuts: data firm

More than 2,500 mobile games were removed from Apple's China app store in the first week of July, four times as many in the same period in June, after Apple closed a loophole to comply with Chinese licence requirements, data from SensorTower showed. Apple had given publishers of revenue-generating games a deadline of end-June to submit a government-issued licence number that allows them to make in-app purchases, a requirement that Android-based app stores in China have long had. It was not clear why Apple had allowed the loophole to exist for so long.

How to Turn Negative Equity Into a $30 Billion Market Cap

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- For weeks, those of us in Asia watched the U.S. stock frenzy with amazement — how a video game-like trading interface could lure millennials, cost fortunes and some even their lives; how Tesla Inc. founder Elon Musk became richer than Warren Buffett; and why on earth retail investors were rushing to buy shares of Hertz Global Holdings Inc., even though the car rental company had filed for bankruptcy. Well, gawk no more. The mania has landed in Hong Kong, too. Take a look at Evergrande Health Industry Group Ltd., a healthcare facilities provider under the umbrella of real estate giant China Evergrande Group. Its stock price has soared more than 200% this year, with most of the gain notched in July. That’s resulted in a market cap as high as $30 billion this week. The catalyst is not its Elderly Care Valley business, which operates specialized centers, but its electric vehicle operations, accounting for only 12% of sales last year. There’s little news on Evergrande Health — it isn’t even covered by the sell-side equity analysts Bloomberg polls — but some investors have latched onto this stock as a Tesla play. Its parent company has the grand ambition to be more Tesla than Tesla, vowing to become the world’s biggest maker of electric vehicles. Since late 2018, Evergrande has spent billions on an array of EV-related companies. Goodwill, accrued upon a series of acquisitions, came in at 6.2 billion yuan ($885 million), or 17% of the company’s non-current assets at the end of 2019.Never mind that Evergrande has yet to release its first pure battery vehicle under the flagship Hengchi brand — that deadline was already pushed back once — or that its factories in Guangdong and Shanghai won’t start production until 2021. That Tesla stock could draw 40,000 Robinhood users in a four-hour window shows there’s enough appetite for anything remotely like the U.S. market darling. Investors may also feel reassured now that Evergrande Health owns National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB, an EV maker that acquired Saab Automobile in 2012. It also has a joint venture with Koenigsegg Automotive AB, a top-tier supercar manufacturer. If anyone bothered to look at the company’s financials, though, they’d quickly get cold feet. According to its latest annual report, “equity attributable to owners of the company” was negative 1.3 billion yuan. In other words, while stock investors think Evergrande Health is worth $30 billion, an accountant could reckon that this company has zero value to shareholders. Building electric vehicles from scratch is an expensive endeavor. Evergrande Health’s negative equity stems from the fact that it has accrued 94.7 billion yuan in debt. Its parent, for instance, has provided a three-year, 32.2 billion yuan loan due next July, with interest rates ranging from 7.6% to 8%. Last year, finance costs in the EV business alone came in at 2.2 billion yuan, or 2.6 times the profit generated from the healthcare segment. As a result, Evergrande Health has no price-to-earnings, or price-to-book, to speak of — both are negative. But then liquidity and policy-driven markets can create very strange phenomena. Speculative capital flows have have already arrived in Hong Kong — just look at the stronger local dollar, which by ordinary logic would have weakened as U.S. moved to strip the city of its special status. Trading will become even cheaper, too. Huatai International Ltd., the Hong Kong arm of China’s third largest broker, is no longer charging commissions.Meanwhile, animal spirits returned to China’s $9.7 trillion stock market in July. At this market cap, Evergrande Health can just do a secondary listing on the mainland if it’s short on cash, without having to prove to regulators that it has an “edge” or “world-leading technology.” A sky-high valuation in China, in turn, would support its Hong Kong-listed shares, one could argue. Hong Kong’s stock market is an interesting hybrid, part-American because of the Hong Kong dollar peg, and part-Chinese because many mainland companies list there. Now that both U.S. and China markets have gone into a trading frenzy, it's only natural that Hong Kong will catch up. So don’t be surprised if more Tesla wannabes start cropping up. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. She previously wrote on markets for Barron's, following a career as an investment banker, and is a CFA charterholder.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Q2 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

JPM earnings call for the period ending June 30, 2020.

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  Wells Fargo (WFC) Q2 Loss Wider Than Expected, Provisions Up

  Zacks
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  JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Nike and Oracle are part of Zacks Earnings Preview

  Zacks

Citigroup (C) Q2 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

C earnings call for the period ending June 30, 2020.

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  Citigroup (C) Q2 Earnings and Revenues Beat Estimates

  Zacks
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  Citigroup (C) Q2 Earnings Beat Estimates on Top-Line Strength

  Zacks

Crunch time for Apple in fight against $15 billion EU tax order

Apple's clash with EU competition regulators comes to a head on Wednesday as Europe's second-highest court rules on whether it has to pay 13 billion euros ($15 billion) in Irish back taxes, a key part of the EU's crackdown against sweetheart tax deals. In its order four years ago, the European Commission said Apple <AAPL.O> benefited from illegal state aid via two Irish tax rulings that artificially reduced its tax burden for over two decades - to as low as 0.005% in 2014. Defeat for European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager could weaken or delay pending cases against Ikea's [IKEA.UL] and Nike's <NKE.N> deals with the Netherlands, as well as Huhtamaki's <HUH1V.HE> agreement with Luxembourg.

Moderna’s Covid Vaccine News Is Good. But Market-Moving Good?

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- About two months after Moderna Therapeutics Inc. released preliminary Covid-19 vaccine data that sent the stock market into a tizzy, the company published a complete look at the initial human trial of its drug late Tuesday — and it promptly moved the market again.Moderna shares surged 20% on the results in after-market trading, and stocks in general got a loft as well. Is it warranted? For sure, the expanded results published in the New England Journal of Medicine contain good news about the vaccine's early attributes. However, they mainly put what the company revealed in its sparse May release on firmer footing instead of breaking swaths of new ground as one might expect from the reaction. In short, investors may be ahead of themselves.There are a host of open questions about the vaccine's clinical and commercial potential. They won't be resolved until Moderna finishes a huge clinical trial currently scheduled to begin July 27. New investors would be paying a hefty price for a long wait and a still high level of risk. According to the expanded results, two shots of the Moderna vaccine generated antibody levels higher than those generally seen in people that recover from Covid-19. The company’s initial release suggested something similar. Still, the new publication shows results in a broader group of patients and goes into needed detail about precisely what Moderna was measuring. Investors should feel more secure in the notion that the vaccine produces an immune response, a real milestone. However, just as in May, it's not clear whether people who survive Covid have durable immunity to the virus and how that relates to antibody levels. A further relationship between antibodies and vaccine effectiveness still needs to be proved in a robust trial. The company isn't necessarily measuring the wrong thing; antibody levels are as good a target as scientists have at the moment. But the human immune system is complicated and researchers have much to learn.While Moderna is undoubtedly a front-runner, it's not alone. It will be neck-and-neck with Pfizer Inc.'s similar vaccine as well as AstraZeneca Plc, with others following soon. There's no guarantee that it will finish first or with a happy result. There's some randomness to placebo-controlled vaccine trials; a significant number of people on the control arm have to contract the virus to prove the shot effective by comparison, and that could take time.Moderna's trial will focus on areas where the virus is spreading, but so will everyone else's. If another drugmaker recruits faster, has a more effective shot or gets lucky with a higher rate of infection on the placebo arm, they could move ahead.Other details: The company's expanded results didn't reveal any "serious" adverse events like a death or a life-threatening reaction, but the vaccine did produce a noticeably high rate of side effects including fatigue, fever, and muscle pain. New safety concerns could arise in the larger trial; the company has 45 people’s worth of data; thousands more will get the shot in the months to come. While the Food and Drug Administration is likely to be relatively flexible on safety for an effective vaccine, unpleasant side effects could diminish uptake and commercial opportunity, especially if there's a more appealing option.Investors may be excited by Jefferies Analyst Michael Yee's prediction that Moderna could reap $5 billion in sales, but none of that materializes if the vaccine doesn't work. Even if the company succeeds and navigates competitive risks, the hefty dose of U.S. taxpayer money that has gone into the company's effort will create extra pressure to price modestly.Moderna, up 283% year to date, is priced for multiple best-case scenarios right now. Investors convinced it’s still a strong buying opportunity should have their eyes open.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Max Nisen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, pharma and health care. He previously wrote about management and corporate strategy for Quartz and Business Insider.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  Analyst Predicts Approval for Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine

  TipRanks
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  Medicago Begins Phase I Clinical Trials for its COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate

  Business Wire

JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) Q2 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

JPM earnings call for the period ending June 30, 2020.

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  S&P 500, Dow rise after mixed bank earnings; tech-heavy Nasdaq falls

  Reuters
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  Stocks bounce higher as banks kick off earnings season

  USA TODAY

GoHealth Prices IPO Above Target at $21 a Share

(Bloomberg) -- GoHealth Inc. expanded the size of its U.S. initial public offering and priced the shares above the marketed range to raise $914 million, according to people familiar with the matter.The Chicago-based health insurance company sold 43.5 million shares for $21 each, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information wasn’t public yet. GoHealth had marketed 39.5 million shares for $18 to $20 each, according to its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.A representative for GoHealth didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.The offering was led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp.and Morgan Stanley. The shares are expected to begin trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol GOCO.(Updates with amount raised in first paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Here's Why Ford Motors (F) Stock Spiked on Tuesday

Shares of automaker Ford Motors (F) spiked as much as 4.8% on Tuesday after unveiling its highly-anticipated 2021 Bronco.

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  We Find Used Ford Broncos for Less Than $30,000: Window Shop with Car and Driver

  Car & Driver
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  2021 Ford Bronco Interior: Retro Cues, Rugged Looks, And Modern Tech

  motor1

Citigroup Inc (C) Q2 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

C earnings call for the period ending June 30, 2020.

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  Citigroup (C) Q2 Earnings and Revenues Beat Estimates

  Zacks
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  Citigroup (C) Q2 Earnings Beat Estimates on Top-Line Strength

  Zacks

Tesla secures tax breaks for cybertruck factory in Texas

The decision marks a step forward for Texas as it vies with Oklahoma to attract a new factory to build Tesla's Y sport utility vehicles and cybertrucks. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The city of Tulsa in Oklahoma has campaigned for Tesla to build the plant there.

Big US banks unwilling to call the economic bottom yet

Three of the largest U.S. banks reported Tuesday that their loan loss provisions had grown by almost $23 billion to over $81 billion, illustrating the pessimism over the economic path ahead.

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  Wells Fargo (WFC) Q2 Loss Wider Than Expected, Provisions Up

  Zacks
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  JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Nike and Oracle are part of Zacks Earnings Preview

  Zacks

A $44 Billion IPO Isn’t the Win SoftBank Needs

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- For SoftBank Group Corp. Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son, selling a stake in Arm, the British semiconductor firm that kicked off his tech spending splurge, cannot have been part of the plan. At least, not yet.When SoftBank agreed to buy the Cambridge, England-based firm for 24 billion pounds ($32 billion) four years ago, the expectation was that it wouldn’t return to the markets in the foreseeable future. Son’s vision was framed in decades, not years. A sustained period nestled within SoftBank would allow the chip designer to invest for the long-term, substantially improving its value.Yet SoftBank is considering an initial public offering or stake sale as soon as next year, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News reported on Monday. In October, Arm CEO Simon Segars mooted 2023 as the earliest date.The accelerated timeline follows a slew of writedowns prompted by poor-performing investments made by SoftBank’s Vision Fund venture arm in WeWork, Uber Technologies Inc. and others. The Vision Fund lost almost $18 billion in its last fiscal year. Activist Elliott Management Corp. seized upon its tribulations to build a stake in SoftBank, calling for improved governance. Son responded with debt-cutting plans and a potential 2 trillion yen ($19 billion) share buyback.The cash raised from an Arm IPO would be only one benefit. A successful deal would be a much needed win for Son: something to convince the world that he’s still got what it takes.Arm is valued internally at its acquisition cost. Listing the shares publicly would give better visibility into what people think it’s worth. That might benefit both the paper returns at the Vision Fund — which holds 25% of the business — and SoftBank’s own shares, which trade at a discount to the value of its constituent investments.The problem is that, right now, Arm doesn't look quite ready to return to the markets.The company licenses semiconductor designs to chipmakers whose silicon goes into almost every smartphone in the world. Revenue, mainly from royalties, jumped more than threefold between 2009 and 2015. When SoftBank bought the British firm in 2016, it was atop the crest of Apple Inc.’s success with the iPhone.QuicktakeHow Global Smartphone Sales Growth Ground to a HaltBut the acquisition coincided with the peak year of global smartphone sales. The pace of growth at Arm has since slowed. Revenue increased just 1% in the 12 months through March 2019, the most recent year for which data is available. When he announced the deal, Son predicted that the number of Arm-based chips shipped each year would rise from 15 billion to 71 billion within five years. That number looks all but unattainable: It hit just shy of 23 billion chips last year.At the same time, investment in research and development means that profitability has also dipped. Paring back such spending could lead to a rapid increase in profit that would boost the IPO financials. But cutting back too quickly would also risk wasting the spending to date. Some new chip architecture is overdue by Arm’s standards (the last generation was released in 2011). The next offering will likely include features geared towards machine learning, and augmented and virtual reality. For now, investors buying in this time around are taking more of a bet that Arm’s R&D will bear fruit.That might be enough to get a listing done. There’s strong appetite for tech IPOs even amid the broader market volatility, and Arm is well positioned to capitalize in the long term as fifth-generation mobile networks mean that ever more computing power is built into cars, machines, factories and homes.But a substantial uplift on the purchase price could be a challenge. New Street Research estimates Arm could fetch a valuation of $44 billion were it to list at the end of 2021, a gain of roughly 40%. That would be a poor return compared to the benchmark Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index, which has climbed nearly 160% since the original acquisition.Buying Arm wasn’t easy. Son had to pay a punchy asking price and assuage U.K. worries about how the firm would be run. But selling a stake back to the stock market at a valuation that suits his own agenda may be harder.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  SoftBank Looking To Sell Or Take Chip Designer Arm Holdings Public: WSJ

  Benzinga
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  SoftBank is reportedly considering selling the trailblazing chip design company Arm Holdings — or taking it public

  Business Insider