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(Reuters) -eBay Inc will cut about 1,000 roles, or an estimated 9% of its current workforce, the e-commerce retailer said on Tuesday.

“While we are making progress against our strategy, our overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business,” eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said in a letter shared with employees.

“To address this, we’re implementing organizational changes that align and consolidate certain teams to improve the end-to-end experience, and better meet the needs of our customers around the world.”

The job cuts follow a wave of U.S. tech layoffs after the industry hired heavily during the pandemic, including among behemoths such as Amazon and Google.

In addition to the job cuts, the company will also scale back the number of contracts within its alternative workforce over the coming months, Iannone added in the note.

Last February, eBay announced plans to lay off 500 employees globally, representing 4% of its total workforce.

(Reporting by Jyoti Narayan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

(Reuters) -Walgreens Boots Alliance is exploring a sale of specialty pharmacy company Shields Health Solutions, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The sale could be valued at more than $4 billion, the report added.

The U.S. pharmacy chain is working with advisers to assess the level of interest in Shields Health, the report said, adding that the specialty pharmacy company is expected to draw interest from private equity firms and healthcare companies.

However, no decision has been made so far and Walgreens could hold onto the business, according to the report.

Walgreens declined to comment on the reported sale.

In 2022, Walgreens had bought the remaining stake in Shields for $1.37 billion, after spending $970 million to increase its stake in the company to 71% in the prior year.

Specialty pharmacies are designed to deliver medications with unique handling, storage and distribution requirements, often for patients with complex conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

(Reporting by Surbhi Misra and Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

By Sinéad Carew and Amanda Cooper

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -MSCI’S global equities index gained very slightly as investors digested a mixed crop of earnings reports and waited for key economic releases due later in the week while the yen fell after the Bank of Japan left monetary policy unchanged.

While the dollar index climbed to a six-week high, U.S. Treasury yields rose as investors waited for economic growth and inflation data for clues on when the Federal Reserve will decide to cut interest rates.

Oil prices on Tuesday handed back some of the previous day’s gains, as traders weighed production outages in the U.S. and tensions in the Middle East and Europe against rising crude supply in Libya and Norway.

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 nations, gained 0.14% after hitting its highest level since late December on Monday. The Dow Industrial Average was down while the Nasdaq rose slightly.

“It’s not surprising markets are taking a step back today and hitting the pause button,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial, citing recent market strength and caution ahead of economic data releases and earnings reports from megacap technology companies.

S&P 500 was barely higher for much of the session but still managed to register its third consecutive record closing levels. Economic data due out later this week includes fourth-quarter GDP and the December reading of Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE), Federal Reserve’s favored inflation measure.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 96.36 points, or 0.25%, to 37,905.45. It was dragged down by a 11% drop in 3M shares after it forecast dour annual earnings due to weak demand. In contrast Verizon Communications shares rose 6.7% after it released a strong annual profit forecast.

The gained 14.17 points, or 0.29%, to 4,864.60 and the gained 65.66 points, or 0.43%, to 15,425.94. Earlier Europe’s STOXX 600 index had closed down 0.28%.

Currency trading was volatile after the Bank of Japan kept interest rates in negative territory, but signalled conviction that conditions for phasing out its ultra-loose monetary policy were falling into place.

In afternoon trading the dollar was up 0.18% against Japan’s yen at 148.35. Earlier in the day the greenback had fallen to a low of 146.97 yen.

The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. currency against a basket of six currencies, after hitting its highest level since Dec. 13, was last up 0.17% at 103.54.

In Treasuries, the yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes rose to 4.1378% compared with its U.S. close of 4.094% on Monday. The two-year yield, which rises with traders’ expectations of higher Fed fund rates, touched 4.3784% compared with a U.S. close of 4.376%.

The European Central Bank (ECB) meets on Thursday and is expected to hold monetary policy steady. The Fed is also expected to keep rates steady when it meets next week, but investors will watch for clues on the timing of rate cuts.

Investors will also monitor U.S. Treasury’s announcement of funding needs for the coming quarter next week.

U.S. crude settled down 0.5% to $74.37 a barrel. Brent crude finished down 0.64% at $79.55 per barrel.

Spot gold rose 0.33% to $2,027.99 an ounce investors waited for economic data and clarity on Fed policy.

Earlier, Hong Kong stocks staged a rebound to close up 2.6% after slumping the previous session, when foreign outflows gathered pace and short selling surged.

After China’s cabinet pledged to take measures to stabilise market confidence, the Shanghai SE composite index showed a muted recovery, rising 0.5%, after touching a five-year low on Monday. One option is mobilising some 2 trillion yuan ($278.53 billion) to support the stock market, Bloomberg News reported.

“The one positive for the market today was the suggestion China would be moving towards supporting their stock market,” said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments, a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey.

(Additional reporting by Stella Qiu in Sydney and Ankur Banerjee in Singapore; Editing by Kim Coghill, Bernadette Baum, Chizu Nomiyama, Nick Macfie and Aurora Ellis)

(Reuters) -German software firm SAP SE unveiled a 2 billion euro ($2.17 billion) restructuring plan covering 8,000 roles on Tuesday, as it seeks to better focus on growth in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven business areas.

SAP expects generative AI to fundamentally change its business and has pledged to invest more than $1 billion, while opening new tab in AI-powered technology startups via its enterprise capital firm Sapphire Ventures.

The company said it plans the restructuring to help better focus on key growth areas such as business AI. The restructuring programme would be implemented majorly through voluntary leave programs and internal re-skilling measures, the company said, adding that it expects to exit 2024 with a headcount “similar to the current levels.”

SAP has more than 105,000 employees, according to the company’s website.

The restructuring expenses would reflect mostly in the first half of 2024, impacting operating profit, the company said.

The business software maker, separately on Tuesday, also forecast 2024 cloud revenue at 17 billion euros to 17.3 billion euros and updated its 2025 outlook forecasting adjusted cloud gross profit of approximately 16.2 billion euros.

Its key cloud business revenue at 2023 end came in at $13.66 billion euros, falling short of its forecast of 14.06 billion euros. The software firm had previously missed analyst expectations for cloud revenues in the third quarter.

($1 = 0.9211 euros)

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Rashmi Aich)

By Noel Randewich and Ankika Biswas

(Reuters) -The S&P 500 climbed to a record high close on Tuesday as investors digested a mixed bag of early quarterly results and awaited a slew of additional reports from Tesla and other companies later this week.

It was the third straight all-time high for the benchmark stock index, and many investors view upcoming quarterly reports from the heavily weighted “Magnificent 7” group of megacap companies as key to whether Wall Street’s recent rally continues or loses steam.

“It’s a crescendo of reports tomorrow and Thursday, and then next week will be even busier,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth. “We’ve got a lot of things to contemplate over the course of this week and next that will likely will end up being a market positive.”

In extended trade, Netflix rallied 3.2% after the video streaming service blew past Wall Street subscriber estimates in the fourth quarter, driven by a strong slate of shows.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.29% to end the session at 4,864.59 points.

The Nasdaq gained 0.43% to 15,425.94 points, while Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.25% to 37,905.45 points.

Verizon Communications rallied 6.7% after forecasting a strong annual profit and posting its highest quarterly subscriber additions in nearly two years, while Procter & Gamble gained 4.2% after it topped second-quarter profit expectations.

3M tumbled 11% after forecasting dour annual earnings, while Johnson & Johnson dipped 1.6% after reporting quarterly results just above expectations.

D.R. Horton dropped over 9% after the homebuilder missed estimates for first-quarter profit.

Tesla climbed 0.2% ahead of its report late on Wednesday.

Analysts on average see S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings up 4.6% year over year, compared to 7.5% growth in the third quarter, according to LSEG data.

Stock market valuations appear rich. The S&P 500 is trading at about 20 times forward 12-month earnings estimates, well above its long-term average of 16 times, according to LSEG.

“Earnings for all equity classes peaked and will move lower as the economy weakens and revenue growth stalls,” Wells Fargo senior global market strategist Sameer Samana said in a note.

Wall Street’s recent gains have been fueled by expectations of lower interest rates and optimism around artificial intelligence, which has helped lift the Philadelphia chip index over 5% so far in 2024, adding to a 65% surge last year.

The personal consumption expenditure (PCE) index – the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, as well as the S&P Global PMI readings and an advance fourth-quarter GDP print this week will be key in assessing the central bank’s next interest rate decision when it meets on Jan. 31.

The Fed will wait until the second quarter before cutting rates, according to a Reuters poll, with June now seen more likely than May.

Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 by a 1.2-to-one ratio.

The S&P 500 posted 34 new highs and one new low; the Nasdaq recorded 102 new highs and 90 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 10.9 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 11.4 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.

(Reporting by Ankika Biswas, Johann M Cherian and Shubham Batra in Bangalore and by Noel Randewich in Oakland. Calif.; Editing by Pooja Desai, Maju Samuel and Aurora Ellis)

By Zaheer Kachwala

(Reuters) -Google will invest $1 billion on building a data centre just outside of London, the U.S. technology giant said on Thursday, in its latest investment in Britain as it meets growing demand for internet services in the region.

The data centre, located on a 33-acre (13-hectare) site bought by Google in 2020, will be located in the town of Waltham Cross, about 15 miles north of central London, the Alphabet-owned company said in a statement.

The British government, which is pushing for investment by businesses to help fund new infrastructure, particularly in growth industries like technology and artificial intelligence, described Google’s investment as a “huge vote of confidence” in the UK.

“Google’s $1 billion investment is testament to the fact that the UK is a centre of excellence in technology and has huge potential for growth,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in the Google statement.

The investment follows Google’s $1 billion purchase of a central London office building in 2022, close to Covent Garden, and another site in nearby King’s Cross, where it is building a new office and where its AI company DeepMind is also based.

It also comes weeks after Microsoft unveiled plans to pump 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) into Britain over three years, including in growing its data centre capacity, to underpin future AI services.

“This new data centre will help meet growing demand for our AI and cloud services and bring crucial compute capacity to businesses across the UK while creating construction and technical jobs,” Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said in the statement.

Google, which employs over 7,000 people in Britain, also said that waste heat generated from the data centre would be an opportunity for energy conservation that can benefit the local community.

($1 = 0.7881 pound)

(Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru and Sachin Ravikumar in London; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri, Maju Samuel and Jonathan Oatis)

By Echo Wang and Anirban Sen

(Reuters) – Social media platform Reddit has drawn up detailed plans to launch its initial public offering (IPO) in March, moving forward with a listing it has been eyeing for more than three years, according to people familiar with the matter.

It would be the first IPO of a major social media company since Pinterest’s debut in 2019, and would come as Reddit and its peers face stiff competition for advertising dollars from the likes of TikTok and Facebook.

The offering would also test the willingness of some Reddit users to back the company’s stock market debut. Many investors posting on the platform have helped fuel dozens of “meme” stock rallies in the last three years, from retailer GameStop to movie operator AMC Entertainment Holdings.

Reddit, which filed confidentially for its IPO in December 2021, is planning to make its public filing in late February, launch its roadshow in early March, and complete the IPO by the end of March, two of the sources said.

The San Francisco-based company, which was valued at about $10 billion in a funding round in 2021, is seeking to sell about 10% of its shares in the IPO, the sources added. It will decide on what IPO valuation it will pursue closer to the time of the listing, according to the sources.

The sources cautioned that Reddit’s IPO plans could be pushed back, as has happened in the past, and asked not to be identified discussing confidential deliberations.

A Reddit spokesperson declined to comment.

Founded in 2005 by web developer Steve Huffman and entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, Reddit became best known for its niche discussion groups and its users voting “up” or “down” on the content posted by other members.

The company, which generates its revenue primarily through advertising and also offers premium access for $5.99 per month, has yet to turn a profit, Huffman said in a Reddit post last June.

In the past, the company has attributed its losses to investing in the platform and its users engaging less with advertising on its site than other social media.

The company held back from pulling the IPO trigger until it came closer to profitability. Bouts of market volatility that shut down the IPO market for much of the last two years also contributed to it delaying its plans.

Reddit expected to generate slightly over $800 million in advertising revenue in 2023, up more than 20% from a year earlier, The Information reported last month.

Reddit said last year it would charge companies for access to its application programming interface (API), which is used by technology companies to train large-language models used in artificial intelligence. The move upset some users who rely on third-party apps to access Reddit.

Large social media stocks have rebounded over the past year, driven mainly by a rally in technology stocks as interest rates peaked. Shares of Meta Platforms, which operates Facebook, have more than trebled in value over the past 12 months, while Snap’s shares rose 60% over the same period.

(Reporting by Echo Wang and Anirban Sen in New York; Additional reporting by David French and Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Greg Roumeliotis and Mark Potter)

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Amazon’s $1.4 billion acquisition of robot vacuum maker iRobot will be blocked by EU antitrust regulators, three people familiar with the matter said on Friday, as enforcers beef up scrutiny of Big Tech deals.

The U.S. online retail giant defied a European Commission’s warning that the deal could restrict competition in the market for robot vacuum cleaners by declining to offer remedies to address such concerns last week.

The Commission, which is scheduled to decide on the deal by Feb. 14, and Amazon declined to comment.

The regulator’s main concerns were that Amazon may thwart iRobot rivals on its online marketplace, especially in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

While these could be addressed by newly enforced EU tech rules known as the Digital Markets Act, the Commission feels that the lengthy enforcement process and the fact that the new legislation has not been challenged in court means that it is better to block the deal now, one of the people said.

A veto would raise the bar for future Amazon acquisitions for online rivals with EU antitrust enforcers who will likely demand major remedies in exchange for their green light.

iRobot shares were down 30% in late trade.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, Editing by Louise Heavens)

By IbraheemAbu Mustafa and Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA/DOHA/TEL AVIV (Reuters) -The Palestinian Red Crescent accused Israel of firing on Friday at a hospital in Khan Younis, as a major advance in the main city in the southern Gaza Strip threatened the few healthcare facilities still open.

The Red Crescent said displaced people were injured “due to intense gunfire from the Israeli drones targeting citizens at Al-Amal Hospital” as well as the rescue agency’s base. The military said it was checking the report.

Nearby in the same city, Israeli tanks were also approaching Gaza’s biggest remaining functioning hospital, Nasser, where people reported hearing shellfire from the west. Residents also reported fierce gun battles to the south.

Israel has launched a major new advance in Khan Younis this week to capture the city, which it says is now the primary base of the Hamas fighters who attacked Israeli towns on Oct. 7, precipitating a war that has devastated the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza health ministry said 142 Palestinians had been killed and 278 injured in Gaza in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll from more than three months of war there to 24,762.

The World Health Organization says most of the enclave’s 36 hospitals have stopped working. Only 15 are partially functioning and those are operating at up to three times their capacity, without adequate fuel or medical supplies, it says.

Israeli officials have accused Hamas fighters of operating from hospitals, including Nasser, which staff deny.

More than 1.7 million people – around 75% of Gaza’s population – are estimated to be displaced, many forced to move repeatedly, according to U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) figures. Many have sought refuge in tents that do little to protect them from the elements and disease.

Among them, Mohammed al-Ghandour wanted to give his bride a beautiful wedding but they had to flee their homes in Gaza City and the couple finally got married this week in a tent city in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, where they now live.

“My happiness is maybe at 3% but will get myself ready for my wife. I want to make her happy,” Ghandour said.

NETANYAHU REJECTS STATEHOOD

While saying he was not shying away from the “human tragedy” inflicted on Gaza civilians, Israeli President Isaac Herzog cast the offensive as a step towards more peaceful relations with the Palestinians in the future, and bolstering global security, during his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

In the north, where Israel says it has started pulling out troops and shifting to smaller scale operations, 12 people were killed in Israeli strikes on a residential building near the largely non-functioning Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said.

An Israeli strike on a house in Al-Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip killed five Palestinians, health officials said.

Washington has had scant success in persuading its ally to alleviate the plight of the civilian population, deprived since October of regular aid and adequate medical care.

Israel says it will fight on until Hamas is eradicated, an aim Palestinians call unachievable because of the group’s structure and deep roots in an enclave it has run since 2007.

Diplomats were dealing on Friday with the repercussions after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to rule out an independent Palestinian state, rejecting a long-standing pillar of U.S. strategy in the Middle East.

“Israel must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River,” Netanyahu told a briefing in Tel Aviv on Thursday. “It clashes with the principle of sovereignty, but what can you do?”

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu on Friday, the White House said, without disclosing details of the call. White House spokesperson John Kirby later said Biden still believed in a two-state solution.

“He recognizes that’s going to take a lot of hard work. It’s going to take a lot of leadership there in the region,” Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing.

Biden’s strong support so far for Israel has created friction with some members of his own Democratic party who are concerned over the war’s steep toll on Palestinian civilians.

Dozens of Biden’s fellow Democrats signed a letter on Friday urging his administration to reaffirm that the United States strongly opposes “the forced and permanent displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza.

HOSTAGE KILLED

Israel’s onslaught on Gaza was triggered by Hamas attacks in which around 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, of whom about half are still in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

In one of countless protests in Israel since Oct. 7 to push for action to secure the release of the hostages, some 200 women marched in Tel Aviv on Friday, including one pulled along in a cage. They chanted “Their time is running out, bring them back”.

Israeli cabinet minister and former military chief Gadi Eizenkot said a deal would be needed for the hostages to be released alive.

Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, a Gaza-based militant group allied to Hamas, said on Friday an Israeli soldier it was holding captive had been killed in an Israeli air strike, according to a video released by the group to media outlets.

The footage showed the wounded hostage being operated on before he spoke in Hebrew urging Israeli leaders to reach a settlement with Gaza groups that would secure their release. There has been no Israeli army comment.

The Russian foreign ministry said on Friday it had received a delegation from Hamas and had urged it to release the hostages, including three Russian nationals. Hamas said both sides emphasized the importance of reaching a ceasefire.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Doha, Ibraheem Abu Mustafa in Gaza, Henriette Chacar in Tel Aviv, Emma Farge in GenevaWriting by Kevin Liffey, Alison Williams and Phil Stewart; Editing by Peter Graff, Toby Chopra and Rosalba O’Brien)

(Reuters) – Elon Musk has said a report that his artificial intelligence (AI) company, xAI, has secured $500 million in commitments from investors toward a $1 billion goal is inaccurate.

“This is simply not accurate,” he said in a reply to a user post about the Bloomberg article on social media platform X.

The artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI is discussing a valuation of $15 billion to $20 billion, though terms could still change in the coming weeks, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

xAI could not immediately be reached for comment.

Musk and investors are expected to finalize terms in the next couple of weeks, and some parties are evaluating whether they can get computing power in addition to, or in some cases instead of, xAI equity shares, Bloomberg reported.

Last December, Musk said his artificial intelligence company was not raising funds, a day after the startup filed with the U.S. securities regulator to raise up to $1 billion in an equity offering.

Musk launched xAI in July last year in response to Big Tech’s AI efforts, which he has criticized for excessive censorship and a lack of adequate safety measures.

(This story has been refiled to remove extraneous word in paragraph 4)

(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur and Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler and Raju Gopalakrishnan)