Reuters US Business

By Shivangi Lahiri (Reuters) -Australia’s Telstra forecast a rise in annual operating earnings that fell short of market view, sending its shares more than 2% lower on Thursday, even as the telecom firm announced a A$1 billion ($656.10 million) share buyback plan. The company expects between A$8.15 billion and A$8.45 billion in underlying operating earnings …

Telstra forecasts annual earnings below view, taking shine off share buyback plan Read More »

By Scott Murdoch and Rishav Chatterjee (Reuters) -Australia’s Westpac Banking Corp on Thursday said wider margins and lending and deposits gains helped it post slightly higher third-quarter profit, sending its shares surging more than 5%. The country’s third-largest bank by market value reported a net profit of A$1.9 billion ($1.24 billion) for the three months …

Australia’s Westpac profit grows 5% on margin lift and higher lending Read More »

(Reuters) -Australian insurer Suncorp reported better-than-expected full-year cash earnings on Thursday, driven by improved insurance margins and higher investment returns, and announced a share buyback plan of up to A$400 million ($261.72 million). Suncorp, now a pure-play general insurer since exiting its banking and life insurance divisions, benefited from favourable natural hazard costs, improved margins …

Insurer Suncorp’s profit beats street view, launches $262 million buyback Read More »

(Reuters) -Alphabet’s Google said on Wednesday it will spend an additional $9 billion in Oklahoma over the next two years to expand cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company will build a new data center campus in Stillwater and expand its Pryor facility to bolster U.S. AI and cloud capacity, alongside education and workforce programs. …

Google pledges $9 billion to expand AI, cloud infrastructure in Oklahoma Read More »

By Saeed Azhar, Johann M Cherian and Sanchayaita Roy NEW YORK (Reuters) -The benchmark S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes hit new closing highs for the second straight day on Wednesday on hopes that the Federal Reserve was getting close to a monetary easing cycle. But the market reflected weakness in some technology stocks after the previous …

S&P 500, Nasdaq hit new closing highs on rate cut hopes Read More »

By Howard Schneider and Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate cut in September is now seen near 100% after new data showed U.S. inflation increased at a moderate pace in July and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he thought an aggressive half-point cut was possible given recent weak employment numbers. …

Fed cut seen near certain after inflation data, Bessent comments Read More »

By Juby Babu (Reuters) -Cisco Systems forecast first-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, as the artificial intelligence boom boosted demand for its networking equipment from cloud customers. Hyperscale cloud investments are healthy and driving IT infrastructure financing, which sets up a good backdrop for Cisco. “Within the enterprise spending environment, there is incremental …

Cisco projects upbeat quarterly revenue as AI fuels networking equipment demand Read More »