Crypto lender Celsius has filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court in New York. The move comes about a month after it froze customer accounts, halting all withdrawals from its platform, citing “extreme market conditions.” Celsius was one of the largest crypto lenders, allowing customers to lend their tokens as collateral for other crypto projects; in return, customers were promised annual yields of up to 17%. More: - The court filing said Celsius had between $1B and $10B in assets, about the same amount in liabilities, and more than 100,000 creditors.
- In a statement released on Wednesday, Celsius said its filing would be an opportunity to stabilize its business and undergo a restructuring that maximizes stakeholders’ value.
- The company added that had it not restricted withdrawals last month, it would have experienced a run on its deposits, leaving some customers with illiquid and less certain claims.
- Celsius has raised $864.3M in total funding from VCs; it raised $750M in late 2021 at a $3B valuation.
- Celsius joins other big-name crypto lenders like 3AC and Voyager Digital, which have all filed for bankruptcy recently amid a sharp sell-off in cryptocurrencies this year.
- The Crypto market has lost roughly $2T in value since its peak in November.
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JPMorgan Chase released its Q2 earnings on Thursday, falling short of analysts’ expectations on revenue and EPS. The bank reported managed revenue of $31.6B, up 1% YoY. Net income came in at $8.65B or $2.76 per share, down 28% YoY. Credit costs were $1.1B, which includes a $428M net reserve build and $657M of net charge-offs. Average deposits rose 9%, and average loans were up 7%. More: - Its Consumer Banking arm reported $12.6B in net revenue, down ~1% YoY, with net income of $3.1B, down 45% YoY.
- Its Investment Banking arm generated $11.95B in net revenue, down 10% YoY, with net income of $3.7B, down 26% YoY.
- Its Asset & Wealth Management arm earned $4.3B in revenue, up 5% YoY, with a net income of $1B, down 13% YoY.
- CEO Jamie Dimon warned that high inflation and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine with its harmful effect on global energy and food prices are very likely to have negative consequences on the global economy soon.
- The bank has suspended its share buybacks.
- JPMorgan shares fell over 4% in morning trading on Thursday.
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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has increased its stake in Occidental Petroleum, buying an additional 12 million shares this month. The move brings Berkshire’s total ownership in the oil company to 18.7%. Berkshire is Occidental’s largest shareholder, followed by Dodge & Cox and The Vanguard Group. More: - Analysts expect Berkshire to continue to increase its stake in Occidental. At the end of Q1, Berkshire had about $106B in cash.
- If Berkshire acquires up to 20% of Occidental, it could include a proportionate share of the company’s earnings in its results.
- Occidental is expected to report about $10B in earnings this year, which could add about $2B to Berkshire’s reported profits.
- Last year, Berkshire reported a record profit of about $90B.
- Occidental shares were down about 2% in afternoon trading; it is up over 80% YTD.
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Morgan Stanley released its Q2 earnings on Thursday, reporting a ~29% drop in net income. The bank missed analysts’ expectations for revenue and earnings. It reported Q2 revenue of $13.13B, down 11% YoY. Net income came in at $2.5B, or $1.39 a share, down from $3.5B reported last year. More: - Its Institutional Securities arm, which includes Investment Banking, Equity, and Fixed Income, reported $6.12B in revenue, down from $7.1B reported last year.
- Wealth Management reported $5.7B in revenue, down from $6.1B reported last year.
- Investment Management reported $1.41B, down from $1.7B reported last year.
- CEO James Gorman said the bank delivered a solid quarter despite a more volatile market environment.
- Morgan Stanley shares fell about 1% in afternoon trading on Thursday.
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Amazon has proposed concessions to settle two antitrust cases against it in the EU. The concessions include not using nonpublic data about sellers on its marketplace, applying equal treatment to all sellers when deciding what to feature in its “buy box,” and setting non-discriminatory conditions for third-party sellers on its platform. If accepted, the concessions would be binding and apply to all Amazon’s activities in the EU over a five-year period. More: - In 2020, the EU charged Amazon with violating its competition law, accusing the company of using nonpublic data it gathers from third-party sellers to unfairly compete against them.
- The European Commission is seeking feedback on Amazon’s commitments to settle the cases.
- The concessions are expected to have far-reaching impact outside of Europe since companies often apply changes they are required to make in Europe to their global operations – often referred to as “The Brussels Effect.”
- Earlier this month, EU lawmakers approved the Digital Markets Act aimed at curtailing alleged anticompetitive behavior by big tech companies.
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest chipmaker, released its Q2 earnings on Thursday, reporting a record net profit. The firm generated 534.14B Taiwanese dollars ($18.16B) in revenue, an 43.5% increase YoY. Net income came in at 237.03B Taiwanese dollars ($7.9B), up 76.4% YoY. More: - CEO CC Wei said the company's capital expenditure would be "pushed into 2023," pointing to supply chain challenges extending the delivery times for some chipmaking equipment.
- The company expects Q3 revenue to be between $19.8B and $20.6B, up from $14.8B reported in the same period last year.
- TSMC is Apple's leading chip supplier; according to Digitimes Asia, the chipmaker is expected to earn $17.06B in revenue, roughly a fourth of its total revenue, from Apple this year.
- TSMC shares were up over 2% on Thursday.
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- Twitter was down for about 40 minutes on Thursday morning, with many users reporting “over capacity” error messages. The outage affected Twitter web, mobile, and TweetDeck and started around 8 a.m. ET. At 12:37 p.m. ET, Twitter confirmed that the problem has been fully resolved, pointing to a problem with the platform’s internal systems that impacted users globally.
- Ivana Trump, the first wife of former President Donald Trump, has passed away. She was 73 years old. She was the mother of Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump. Ms. Trump fled Czechoslovakia and found fame in New York as a socialite and an executive in the Trump organization.
- Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi offered to resign on Thursday after the populist Five Star Movement, a political party in his government, refused to participate in a critical parliamentary vote. Draghi’s resignation was rejected by President Sergio Mattarella.
- Tesla’s AI and Autopilot leader Andrej Karpathy has left the company. Karpathy worked at Tesla for five years leading the EV maker’s autonomous vehicles effort, reporting directly to Elon Musk. Karpathy recently returned from a months-long sabbatical from Tesla.
- Bill Gates donated $20B to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation endowment. In a blog post on Wednesday, Gates said he plans to give all his wealth to the foundation except for what he spends on himself and his family.
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 |  | Vanessa Omeokachie is a Researcher at Inside. Her interests include finance, tech, and startups. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, attending music festivals, and traveling. Connect with her on Twitter @VanessaOmeo or through email at vanessa@inside.com |  | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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