Apple has also announced it will increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam.
GIANG HUY/Getty
The Apple CEO has arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam to meet with Apple suppliers and content creators.
The company has also announced plans to increase spending on suppliers in the country.
Vietnamese manufacturing has been important for Apple as it moves away from dependence on China.
Tim Cook has arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, to start a two-day trip to one of Apple's top manufacturing hubs.
During his visit, he's set to meet with content creators, app developers, and students to learn about how they use Apple products, according to local media.
Apple also plans to boost its ties with local suppliers during the trip as well as help fund clean water projects and education opportunities, local newspaper VietnamNet wrote.
In a post on X, the Apple CEO shared a photo of himself drinking egg coffee with two Vietnamese musicians. In another post, he shared his visit to a workshop where creators were using Apple products to create and share their artwork.
Apple also announced plans to increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam.
Since 2019, the company has spent nearly 400 trillion Vietnamese dong ($16 billion) through its supply chains in Vietnam and has more than doubled its annual spending in the country over the same period, the company said in a statement on its Vietnamese website.
The statement added that Apple supports the jobs of 200,000 people in Vietnam through direct employment, via suppliers, and as app developers.
In 2020, major Apple supplier Foxconn moved its iPad and MacBook assembly to Vietnam from China at the request of Apple as it attempted to minimize the impacts of US-China trade tensions.
A couple of years later, Foxconn faced issues with Chinese smartphone makers trying to poach their talent in Vietnam, attracting them with higher salaries.
Apple has faced a recent blow as iPhone shipments fell nearly 10% in the first quarter of 2024, as global smartphone shipments increased.
The median home price could surge by 20% to over $500,000 if the Fed cuts rates before beating inflation, one expert says.
Sudarshan negi/Shutterstock
The median US home price could surpass $500,000 for the first time, one expert says.
Housing guru Bill Pulte said prices could jump 20% if the Fed cuts rates before crushing inflation.
Pulte pointed to rising housing costs and a potential buying frenzy if mortgage rates drop.
The average price of a home could soar to over $500,000 if the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates without crushing inflation first, a housing expert says.
"I predict if rates go down, housing prices will go through the roof," Bill Pulte recently told Fox Business. "You could see those home prices go up, in my opinion, 5, 10, 20%."
The median US home price has surged by over a third within the past five years, from $313,000 in early 2019 to $418,000 last quarter, St. Louis Fed data shows. A 20% increase would raise it to a record $501,000.
Pulte is the CEO of Pulte Capital — a private equity firm that invests in building-products companies — and his grandfather founded PulteGroup, a homebuilding giant.
He explained that aspiring homeowners could face a "two-pronged problem" of rising cost of housing and increased demand for homes if the Fed proceeds with cutting rates before inflation comes down.
Prices and rates
Home prices have jumped partly because of the rising cost of everything from land and construction to building materials and furniture.
Overall inflation leapt to a 40-year high of over 9% in the summer of 2022, spurring the Fed to hike its benchmark interest rate from virtually zero to over 5%.
The Fed increases rates to deter spending, hiring, and investing and raise borrowing costs, which typically cools demand and slows the pace of price increases.
Its rate hikes have lifted the 30-year fixed-mortgage rate from around 3% at the end of 2021 to nearly 8% in October, and they were still at an elevated 6.8% in February, St. Louis Fed data shows.
Prospective homesellers have shied away from listing their homes and losing the cheap mortgage rates they've locked in, which has fueled a shortage of housing inventory that has boosted prices.
There's also an affordability crisis. Potential buyers have balked at paying top dollar for their next home and taking on a hefty monthly mortgage payment due to higher rates.
If rates come down, that could boost housing demand while inventory remains constrained, Pulte said.
"You're going to have a flood of people trying to get into this stuff, and it's going to be a big problem, and you're going to see it everywhere," he said.
"That would be just insane, you would start to have a buying frenzy again much like during COVID."
The price impact of the demand surge could be exacerbated by inflation, which has ticked up over the last two months to 3.5% in March — well above the Fed's 2% target.
In other words, housing is already getting more and more expensive to build and maintain, and there could suddenly be a lot more people clamoring to buy a limited amount of homes.
Pulte isn't alone in calling a buying boom. Real estate tycoon and "Shark Tank" investor Barbara Corcoran has also predicted prices would "go through the roof" if rates fall by even one percentage point, and raised the prospect of a 20% spike last summer.
An anti-missile system operates after Iran launched drones and missiles toward Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel April 14, 2024.
Amir Cohen via Reuters
Iran's aerial attack on Israel mirrored Russian tactics in Ukraine, according to analysts.
But Iran underestimated Israel's ability to defend itself from such attacks, they said.
Another analyst disagreed, saying Iran used similar tactics long before Russia's full-scale invasion.
Some military analysts are comparing Iran's attempt to bombard Israel over the weekend with Russian tactics in Ukraine.
On Saturday, Iran launched more than 300 drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles at Israel in a massive attack that, according to the Israel Defense Forces, was 99% intercepted before it hit its targets.
"The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect," Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan, both defense experts for the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project, wrote.
The IDF estimated that the attack used 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles.
"The drones were launched well before the ballistic missiles were fired, very likely in the expectation that they would arrive in Israel's air defense window at about the same time as the cruise missiles and drones," the analysts said.
The slower-moving drones and cruise missiles were intended to overwhelm Israel's air defense systems, allowing the more difficult-to-target ballistic missiles to break through, they said, adding that: "The Russians have used such an approach against Ukraine repeatedly."
But "the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine," they said.
Unlike in Ukraine, other countries also helped to take out some of the missiles and drones. The US and the UK both said they helped fend off the attack.
But not everyone agrees that Iran was copying Russia's actions in Ukraine.
Fabian Hinz, a defense research fellow for London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote on X that Iran had launched combined-missile attacks aimed at overwhelming air defenses long before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
US officials also estimate that about half of the ballistic missiles fired by Iran in the recent attack failed, CBS reported.
The exact intention of the weekend's attack is also still being debated, with Hinz agreeing with Carter and Kagan in their assessment that "the attack was designed to succeed, not to fail."
Iran intended "significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response," they wrote.
Someanalysts have suggested that Iran planned the weekend attack more as a warning than a surefire strike.
"This attack was designed to re-establish deterrence on the part of Iran," Rodger Shanahan, a fellow at Australian think tank the Lowy Institute, told ABC News Australia.
"Iran also understands that it's not in anybody's best interests — certainly not their own — to attract direct intervention from other countries into Iranian territory, and so this response was calibrated," he said.
Israel had advance warning of the attack, Shanahan added, with this allowing a much more robust defense.
Goldman Sachs reported first-quarter earnings on Monday that trounced Wall Street's forecasts.
The investment bank generated over $14 billion in net revenue and $11.58 in earnings per share.
Goldman reported strong growth in investment-banking fees and asset and wealth management.
Goldman Sachs reported first-quarter earnings on Monday that crushed Wall Street's expectations.
The storied investment bank generated $14.2 billion in net revenue — a 16% rise versus the previous year and 26% above the fourth quarter of 2023 — and $11.58 of earnings per share, trouncing consensus forecasts on both measures.
Net revenue in the key global banking and markets division rose 15% year on year to nearly $10 billion, fueled by a 32% rise in investment-banking fees, and 10% revenue growth in both its fixed income, currency and commodities segment, and its equities business.
Goldman's asset and wealth management arm posted an 18% rise in net revenues, helped by record quarterly management and other fees. Its assets under supervision grew by $36 billion to a record $2.85 trillion.
In the earnings release, Goldman CEO David Solomon said: "Our first quarter results reflect the strength of our world-class and interconnected franchises and the earnings power of Goldman Sachs.
"We continue to execute on our strategy, focusing on our core strengths to serve our clients and deliver for our shareholders."
Elon Musk announced in an internal memo that Tesla plans to cut over 10% of its global workforce.
The Tesla CEO said that as the EV maker grew rapidly, there's been some "duplication" of roles.
He added that the cuts will help it become "lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase."
Elon Musk sent Tesla employees a memo on Sunday announcing the EV maker is laying off more than 10% of its workforce globally.
The internal email was sent at close to midnight in California,according to a timestamp seen by Business Insider.
The Tesla CEO said in the memo, which BI obtained, that there has been a "duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas" as the company has grown rapidly.
Over the weekend, Tesla workers had speculated layoffs were on the horizon, as rumors that some managers had been told to provide upper management with a list of names spread throughout the company.
Separately, Tesla started instructing managers in February to identify which roles at the company were business-critical and had temporarily delayed performance reviews.
It's the company's first large-scale layoffs since it laid off some workers at its plant in Buffalo, New York, in February 2023.
At the time, the Worked United union said in a complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that Tesla unlawfully laid off some of the staff, claiming that the workers were terminated "in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union activity." Tesla denied the allegation and said the employees were laid off due to poor performance.
The job cuts come as Tesla is grappling with slower demand for its EVs and its stock is down over 31% year-to-date. The company will provide its next earnings report on April 23.
Read the full memo Elon Musk sent Tesla employees below:
Over the years, we have grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe. With this rapid growth there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas. As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.
As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally. There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.
I would like to thank everyone who is departing Tesla for their hard work over the years. I'm deeply grateful for your many contributions to our mission and we wish you well in your future opportunities. It is very difficult to say goodbye.
For those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead. We are developing some of the most revolutionary technologies in auto, energy and artificial intelligence. As we prepare the company for the next phase of growth, your resolve will make a huge difference in getting us there.
Thanks,
Elon
Do you work for Tesla or have insight to share? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work email and device at gkay@insider.com
Martin Migoya is the CEO of Globant, which has nearly 70 offices worldwide, including seven in the US.
Eóin Noonan/Getty
Globant, a software company with nearly 30,000 employees, is letting its workers stay fully remote.
The CEO told Bloomberg he's focused on making offices more enticing than enforcing RTO.
It makes Globant an outlier in the tech world, where some major companies have strict RTO policies.
While many tech companies have enforced workers' return to the office, software company Globant is allowing its nearly 30,000 employees to remain fully remote.
But the policy hasn't meant that its offices are empty, instead, employees have been drawn back to the office more flexibly, Globant CEO Martin Migoya told Bloomberg.
The company opted to entice workers back by expanding and updating office space — with more lounge areas and private rooms for remote calls.
"We found that people come, they get together, they use our offices in a different way, and we've been modifying our offices to attend to that new reality," Migoya told the outlet.
"The office must be an attraction point for the people to get together, rather than just the desk in which you do your job," he added.
The company has nearly 70 offices across the world, including seven in the US.
Those who enforce RTO mandates say that it boosts productivity and facilitates collaboration, improving the company's bottom line.
But others say it can have the opposite effect. A recent study on S&P 500 firms by researchers at the Katz Graduate School of Business found that companies with strict RTO mandates aren't more profitable, and workers aren't necessarily more productive either.
Instead, these policies can cause a "massive disruption" to employees' lives, Dan Schawbel, a future-of-work expert, previously told Business Insider.
"They made big decisions, especially millennials who had moved, they bought a house, they settled down, they had kids," he said.
These mandates are unattractive to workers who have "already invested so much time and emotion and energy into their decision to move or have flexibility," he added.
Wall Street has had a muted reaction to Iran's attack on Israel so far.
US stock futures rose in Monday's premarket, while benchmark oil prices dropped.
It's another reminder that traders are more worried about interest rates than geopolitical tensions.
The market served up another reminder of its indifference to geopolitics on Monday, as traders seemingly shrugged off the potential impact of Iran's strikes on Israel.
Meanwhile, both gold and the US Dollar Index — which tracks the greenback's strength against a basket of six other currencies — started off the week in the red, in a sign investors are shunning so-called "safe-haven" assets despite the potential for increased volatility. Yields on 10-year US Treasury notes traded flat.
Signs that the conflict between the two countries won't escalate any further have calmed the market's nerves, XTB research director Kathleen Brooks said on Monday. Iran said in a statement that "the matter can be deemed concluded," while Joe Biden has signaled that the US won't take part in any counter-strike against Tehran.
"There is a sense that this attack from Iran could have been a lot worse, instead Iran has drawn a line under it and said that it deems the matter concluded," Brooks wrote in a research note. "From a geopolitical perspective, the focus now is on the Israeli response, however, the limited impact of the Iranian attack and the G7 calling for restraint, may limit the impact on financial markets in the short term."
"The initial reaction seems to be one of relief," she added. "The dollar opened the week fairly muted and US bond yields are slightly higher, suggesting that there was no flight to safe havens."
Anyone who's been following markets for the past two years won't be surprised at traders' muted reaction to the latest tensions in the Middle East.
Since Hamas' first attack on October 7, the S&P 500 has climbed 19% — while oil benchmarks have ticked up by around $7 a barrel, much shallower gains than might have been expected amid a conflict in the vicinity of many of the world's biggest oil producers.
Capital Economics ' group chief economist Neal Shearing said in a research note on Sunday that Iran's drone strikes are unlikely to impact stocks unless they drive a massive run-up in crude prices that leads to the Federal Reserve delaying its first expected interest-rate cut.
"The key risks for the global economy are whether this now escalates into a broader regional conflict, and what the response is in energy markets," he said.
"As things stand our sense is that events in the Middle East will add to the reasons for the Fed to adopt a more cautious approach to rate cuts, but they won't prevent it from cutting altogether," Shearing added, noting that the OPEC+ cartel choosing to up production levels could offset any price rises driven by Iran's attack.
It's a reminder that the key person who'll shape the direction US stocks go this year isn't Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, or Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei — it's the central bank's chair, Jerome Powell.
"One of our biggest complaints is it's not so much that we're arguing what workers should make, it's that the reality is the bill for this legislation is on the backs of franchise owners," Keith Miller, who owns three Subway stores in northern California, told Business Insider.
The legislation, AB 1228, applies to limited-service restaurant chains with at least 60 locations nationwide.
Fast-food chains often stress the nature of their franchisees as small-business owners. But the $20 wage applies to both corporate-owned and franchise restaurants, even if the franchisee just owns one or two restaurants.
"We're a small business," Brian Hom, who owns two branches of Vitality Bowls — a smoothie and Acai bowl chain with around 70 stores nationwide — told Business Insider.
Hom, whose stores are in San Jose, California, said that he ran the stores with his wife, two sons, and daughter-in-law. "We're not people who are a corporation."
"I definitely know that corporate stores have a deeper pocket," Hom said. "We don't have a large profit margin … We're not a corporate store that has maybe some ways they can cut costs."
Hom said that he had put up prices, stopped hiring, and reduced the number of workers on each shift to increase his revenues and reduce his costs over the new $20 wage. Miller, the Subway franchisee, said he'd raised his prices, too.
"I think what people keep forgetting is the fact that they keep seeing McDonald's Corporation or these public corporations making record profits, that doesn't mean the franchise operators are making record profits," Miller said.
Mike Mangoine bought his first McDonald's restaurant with his father in 1967, The Los Angeles Times reported. Now he owns 19 around Los Angeles and California's Inland Empire area.
"It's not just this giant corporation that runs things," Jessica D'Ambre, his daughter who manages the restaurants with him, told The Times. "I think that's where the misconception lies, especially with politicians." She added that the new $20 wage felt like an "unfair target on our backs."
"We run it like any other family business," D'Ambre said.
Matthew Haller, the president and CEO of the International Franchise Association, told BI in a statement that the legislation would lead to "many small businesses struggling to keep their doors open."
'Franchise operators keep getting squeezed more and more'
The costs of being a franchisee vary drastically by chain, location, and the size of the restaurant. To become a Subway franchisee in the US, people generally need to have a $150,000 net worth per restaurant, with $100,000 in liquid assets. For both Wendy's and Burger King, wannabe franchisees need a total net worth of at least $1 million, including at least $500,000 in liquid assets.
As well as real-estate and initial development costs, franchisees have to pay a proportion of their sales to their franchisor as royalty and advertising fees.
Earnings can vary greatly, too: Chick-fil-A's average unit volumes — the total sales per restaurant — were $7.5 million last year, compared to $3.7 million for McDonald's and $1.9 million for Taco Bell, according to data from foodservice-industry group Technomic.
This is before deducting any costs including labor, food, and fees.
Franchisees are a major part of the fast-food business — they reduce risk for chains and enable them to explore new markets. At McDonald's, 95% of its US restaurants are franchised.
Some franchise companies own hundreds of restaurants. Miller said policies such as the new $20 minimum wage would push small franchise owners out of the industry.
"Franchise operators keep getting squeezed more and more," Miller said, referring to the introduction of new fees by restaurant chains.
"You're not going to have people who own one to three stores anymore," he said. "You're going to have to have the mega owners as they're called, or 20 stores, a hundred stores, 500 outlets. And they're not really operators, they're investors at that point because they're not going in and running the store."
Are you a fast-food worker excited about the new minimum wage? Or a franchisee or restaurant manager worried about how it will affect your business? Email this reporter at gdean@insider.com.
The million-dollar question is, how many workers — and what jobs — are most likely to see the positive and negative impacts of AI?
Twenty percentof Americans worked in "high exposure" jobs that were most likely to be impacted by the adoption of AI technologies, according to a White House reportreleased in March by the Council of Economic Advisors.
To be sure, the authors weren't suggesting that 20% of Americans were likely to see their jobs replaced by AI. That's because AI-related job changes could impact one job task but leave all others untouched. Additionally, these changes could bring about positive outcomes for workers.
That said, if and when some AI job replacement does come, some workers could be more at risk than others.
"Some workers typically benefit from technological change, either because the evolving technology provides new labor market opportunities for them or because it enhances their productivity in their current job," the council wrote. "Conversely, some are harmed, typically due to job displacement."
The council's findings highlight what could be a reality of the coming AI boom: It'll be good for some workers and bad for others. While the adoption of AI technologies could help some workers become more productive, spend less time on boring tasks, earn higher wages, and even have a four-day workweek, others could face more competition, earn lower wages, or even see AI replace their jobs.
Lower-wage jobs could be at the most risk of being replaced by AI
The report didn't highlight specific jobs or industries that are most likely to be negatively impacted by AI.
But the council wrote that workers at the highest risk of replacement fit two criteria: Their jobs were highly exposed to AI and had lower "performance requirements" — meaning their job tasks had a lower degree of "difficulty or complexity" that may be more likely to be automated.
Ten percent of US workers fit both criteria, the council found. They tended to be lower-income workers without a college degree.
The findings "suggest that AI may be a skill-biased technology, increasing relative demand for workers with high levels of education in high-earning occupations," the council wrote. "They also suggest that AI could exacerbate aggregate income inequality if it substitutes for employment in lower-wage jobs and complements higher-wage jobs."
Perhaps counterintuitively, the council found that the cohort of workers whose jobs had among the highest exposure to AI — people with a bachelor's degree — were the least likely to have a high-exposure job with low-performance requirements, the combination of roles at most risk of replacement.
Twenty-one percent of people with a bachelor's degree worked in jobs that are highly exposed to AI, the council found. However, only 6% worked in high-exposure jobs that also have low performance requirements. Conversely, 17% of high school graduates had jobs with high AI exposure, and 14% had jobs with both high AI exposure and low performance requirements.
This suggests that college-educated workers could be more likely to see the productivity benefits of AI, rather than see their jobs replaced by these technologies, the council theorized.
Meanwhile, 20% of women had jobs that are highly exposed to AI, compared to 19% of men. Twelve percent of women had jobs that fit both the high exposure and low performance requirement criteria, compared to 9% of men.
The world isn't black-and-white, so it's unlikely AI's impacts on workers will be either. That means it's unlikely that every worker whose job is changed due to AI will be able to be clearly placed in a "good change" or "bad change" bucket.
The council cited the hypothetical example of a school bus that can drive itself, which, in theory, could render a bus driver's job obsolete. In this scenario, the bus would likely need an adult on the bus to supervise the children.
"AI-led automation might fundamentally change the school bus driver's job, but it is unlikely to eliminate the job," the council wrote.
In this example, the bus driver gets to keep their job — a good outcome — but the nature of their job has changed substantially.
Major economic changes tend to help some workers and hurt others
The AI boom wouldn't be the first major shift in the global economy to have divergent impacts on workers.
When China emerged as a major player in global trade in the 1980s, some economists argued that the deluge of low-cost products was a net positive for the US, even though some domestic manufacturing jobs were lost in the process.
"The people who lost their jobs lose money to the China shock, but the rest of us get cheap goods at Walmart and Target or whatever," Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton previously told Business Insider. "And the theorem says the value of what we gain is more than the value of what they lose."
Deaton said he's grown increasingly uncertain that this trade-off has been worth it.
It remains to be seen whether the tradeoffs that come from the AI boom will be a net positive for Americans. Re-training workers who lose their jobs due to AI could help move the needle in a more positive direction.
But as Deaton's globalization example illustrates, the US doesn't have a great track record of helping displaced workers find new jobs.
Has your job been impacted by AI technologies for better or worse? Are you willing to share your story? If so, reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.
Tesla is reducing its workforce by more than 10%, per an internal memo seen by Business Insider.
Earlier this month, Tesla's delivery numbers slumped below Wall Street expectations.
The carmaker employs over 140,000 people across the globe.
Tesla is the latest major company to lay off employees.
The company is eliminating"more than 10%" of staff globally, according to an internal memo sent by Elon Musk on Sunday, which was seen by Business Insider. The layoffs come shortly after the carmaker posted lackluster delivery numbers.
Musk wrote in the email, "There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth cycle."
Some Tesla employees lost access to their emails and Teams by Monday, two people with knowledge said.
Tesla's first-quarter delivery numbers revealed a significant slump — falling below Wall Street's estimates. Tesla deliveries in the first quarter fell 20% from the previous quarter and over 8% from the same time the previous year, marking the company's first year-on-year sales decline since 2020.
In a press release, Tesla blamed the decline in deliveries on its production ramp for its refreshed Model 3, an arson attack at its factory in Berlin, and supply-chain issues caused by the Red Sea conflict.
There have been rumors of a coming layoff in recent months. In February,the carmaker reportedly called for managers to begin identifying the most vital roles for the company. At the time, Tesla also delayed some workers' performance reviews, Bloomberg reported. The reviews were later rescheduled, three sources told Business Insider.
A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a history of reducing staff to cut costs. The billionaire famously cut Twitter's workforce in half after he purchased the company in 2022. And Tesla has conducted multiple rounds of layoffs before.
Last year, Tesla laid off dozens of its employees working on its Autopilot service at one of its sites in Buffalo, New York. At the time, the company said the terminations had nothing to do with a union campaign at the facility that had been announced the week before. The company said it dismissed the employees for poor performance.
Tesla appeared to slow down its hiring last year. Musk told staff in May that he must personally approve all new Tesla hires.
Musk has also warned that Tesla could face production hurdles in the coming year as it tries to ramp up production of the Cybertruck and Tesla's next-gen vehicle platform.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Do you work for Tesla or have insight to share? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work email and device at gkay@insider.com