Weekly Market Update - 26 June 2023

Tech Companies Commit To India

Amazon and Alphabet’s Google are committing to ramp up investments in India as the tech giants seek to spur growth in a key market. The move follows a meeting between US President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top tech executives at the White House on Friday. Amazon announced it will invest an additional $15 billion in India by 2030, which includes plans to put $12.7 billion into cloud infrastructure in the South Asian nation. And Google will open a global fintech center in Gujarat International Finance Tech-City in Modi’s home state, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said.

Source: Bloomberg

Russian Uprising

An eerie calm fell on Russia after the dramatic end to an armed uprising that posed the greatest threat to Vladimir Putin’s almost quarter-century rule. The man who led the insurrection has gone quiet and the president hasn’t been seen in public since denouncing the mutiny as “treason.” The rapid chain of events has left the US and Europe puzzling over the political implications of a rebellion that shattered Putin’s image as Russia’s invincible leader. As for China, President Xi Jinping needs a friendly, relatively strong Russia that can challenge American power in Europe while Beijing pushes its influence in Asia. Xi stands to lose a great deal from a Russia that falls into civil war, or is humiliated in Ukraine.

Source: Bloomberg

SoftBank’s Vision Fund

SoftBank’s Vision Fund is preparing to start another round of layoffs as soon as this week, following an approximate 30% reduction last fiscal year. About 13% of the Vision Fund staff will be affected, one source said, with the headcount reduction mostly taking place in the US, according to another. News of the layoffs comes after SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son declared in an emotional meeting with investors that he will go back on the offensive in tech investing soon, after racking up billions of dollars of losses. He said he had “cried and cried” when considering the future.

Source: Bloomberg