US vetoes immediate Gaza ceasefire resolution

Good morning. Here's what happened overnight and what you need to know today.

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1.

Ceasefire veto: The US has again vetoed a UN resolution for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, with Washington saying that an unconditional ceasefire would prolong the conflict. The US had signalled its plans to veto the proposal ahead of the vote, circulating its own draft resolution calling for a “temporary ceasefire” instead. The US was the sole veto against the proposal put forward by Algeria, adding to the Biden administration’s isolation in support of Israel’s right to defend itself. Israel’s looming plans to invade the Southern Gazan city of Rafah are also increasing tensions with the US government. (Wall Street Journal)

2.

Gearing up: Microsoft is building an AI server gear specifically designed to reduce its dependence on Nvidia. The tech giant is developing a networking card to ensure that data can move quickly between its servers, according to an anonymous source cited by The Information. The card is hoped to offer an alternative to one supplied by Nvidia which could both save Microsoft money and enhance the performance of its Nvidia chip servers. In turn, this would help Microsoft-backed OpenAI to produce large AI models on Microsoft servers, allowing it to better compete with the likes of Google. (The Information)

3.

Banking reset: Barclays chief CS Venkatakrishnan has revealed an ambitious plan to return £10 billion ($19.27 billion) to shareholders via share buybacks and dividends over the next three years, as part of a major restructuring. Announcing the bank’s full year earnings yesterday, Venkatakrishnan also unveiled Barclays’ first major strategy update since 2016, which will see the establishment of five key divisions largely under new management. Shares in Barclays rose 7% on the news, however the bank continues to trade at a more than 50% discount to the book value of its assets, one of the worst valuations of any major western lender. (Financial Times)

4.

High value, high volume: Nvidia has eclipsed Tesla as the most traded stock on Wall Street, as investors keenly await the chipmaker’s quarterly results due for release on Thursday morning. The AI giant recently became the US’ third most valuable company, with shares in the company soaring 47% during 2024. Approximately USD30 billion worth of Nvidia shares changed hands daily on average over the past 30 sessions, besting Elon Musk's Tesla, which averaged USD22 billion per day over the same period. (Reuters)

5.

Incoming cuts: The Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, has said that policymakers may back an interest rate cut before inflation falls to the BoE’s target of 2%, and that investors would not be ‘unreasonable’ to expect a policy pivot this year. The UK’s CPI came in at 4% in January. Giving evidence to the House of Commons Treasury Committee, Bailey explained that while he is comfortable with a profile that contains rate cuts, the timing and how much policy will be eased depends on more progress being made to tackle inflation. (Bloomberg)(UK Parliament)

6.

Monzo motza: UK fintech Monzo is targeting a £4 billion valuation as it races to finalise a funding round from a mix of new and existing investors. According to unnamed sources cited by the Financial Times, Monzo is raising as much as £350 million in the round lead by Alphabet’s CapitalG. Last May the company reported that its revenue had more than doubled to £355.6 million over the year to the end of February 2023, however it also made a pre-tax loss of £116 million in the same period. Monzo’s last raise, in 2021, valued the company at around £3.5 billion. (Financial Times)

7.

Lockbit lock-up: An international law enforcement operation has arrested and indicted members of the notorious Lockbit ransomware gang. Dubbed ‘Operation Cronos,’ the operation involved a coalition of 10 countries including Australia, and was led by the UK’s National Crime Agency and the US FBI. Two Russian nationals were charged with deploying Lockbit ransomware against companies and groups around the world, and authorities said that the arrests have allowed them to take control of the gang’s infrastructure, seize their source code and obtain keys to help victims decrypt their systems. The US Department of Justice explained that the gang has targeted over 2,000 victims, raked in over USD120 million in ransom payments and has demanded hundreds of millions of dollars. (Reuters)

8.

Classified contracts: SpaceX is strengthening ties with US spy and military agencies, having won at least one major classified contract and growing a secretive satellite program called Starshield. Company documents viewed by the Wall Street Journal show that in 2021, Musk’s SpaceX entered into a USD1.8 billion contract with the US government, but do not disclose the name of the government customer. Information about the Starshield unit, which was designed for use by national-security customers, is even more guarded, but the newspaper reports that SpaceX won a USD70 million award from the military in 2023 to provide communications service to dozens of Pentagon partners. (Wall Street Journal)