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The Facebook parent company filed a prospectus that says it may offer and sell debt securities from time to time.
Tech giant Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatApp, submitted a new filing to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for new debt shelf offerings.
The big tech company filed the prospectus on May 1 in which it said that it “may, from time to time, offer and sell debt securities in one or more series.” The statement continued, saying each time a debt security is sold, it will issue a new “prospectus supplement” containing the “specific terms of the debt securities offered.”
Debt shelf offerings, or debt securities, are a provision that grants the issuer (i.e., Meta) the ability to register a new issue of securities without the need to sell the entire issue at once.
Additionally, the filing stated that debt securities may be offered and sold to or via “underwriters, brokers, dealers, or agents as designated from time to time, directly to one or more other purchasers, or through a combination of such methods."
The filing did not disclose the exact amount of debt securities being offered.
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Shelf offerings have the potential to be helpful to investors, by occasionally giving insights into a company’s game plan for raising capital. On the other hand, because new shares could also potentially negatively impact the price of current shares.
On Twitter, the community responded by trying to connect the dots to Meta’s recent spending on AI development and buybacks as a potential reason for the new alternative funding sources.
They need money for AI
— kenyinkz (@kenyinka) May 1, 2023
This filing also comes shortly after Meta released its latest earnings report in which it revealed a nearly $4 billion loss from its metaverse unit. This loss follows a deficit of $14 billion over the last year with Zuckerberg anticipating more to come in 2023.
Nonetheless, sources close to the company recently shared that the company offers its metaverse developers salaries of anywhere from $500,000 to 1 million a year.
In August 2022, Meta raised $10 billion in its first-ever bond offering to fund share buybacks and business investments.
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The Twitter chief alleged Microsoft scraped information from the platform to train its AI and sell the data to others.
Microsoft has been threatened with a suit from Tesla and Twitter chief Elon Musk who claimed the Big Tech firm “illegally” trained its artificial intelligence (AI) on Twitter data.
On April 19, Musk tweeted that it was “lawsuit time” in response to a post reporting that Microsoft would cease supporting Twitter on April 25 across its online social advertising tools, Smart Campaigns and Multi-platform.
They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023
The Twitter boss alleged Microsoft “trained illegally using Twitter data” implying the firm mined user tweets to help train its AI-powered applications.
Microsoft didn’t explain why it was winding down Twitter support although Twitter’s API fees skyrocketed from $0 to $42,000 a month and in some cases are priced upwards of $200,000 per month according to a March report from Wired.
Musk made further allegations that Microsoft is “demonetizing” Twitter data by removing advertisements and “then selling our data to others.”
I’m open to ideas, but ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it (removing ads) and then selling our data to others isn’t a winning solution
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023
Microsoft’s decision to ditch Twitter means its customers will lose access to their Twitter accounts through its tools in addition to being able to create, manage, view and schedule Tweets.
Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn remain available to Microsoft customers, its website states.
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Microsoft’s decision comes a few months after Twitter stopped providing free access to the Twitter API for versions 1.1 and 2.
Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead
— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) February 2, 2023
Academics have been hit hard by the huge price swing. Over 17,500 academic papers have been based on Twitter data since 2020. Now they’ve been largely priced out.
“I don’t know if there’s an academic on the planet who could afford $42,000 a month for Twitter,” says @jhblackb, which was not a unique sentiment https://t.co/RfGyWqpIgF
— Chris Stokel-Walker ~ @stokel@infosec.exchange (@stokel) March 10, 2023
Cointelegraph contacted Microsoft, who declined to comment on Musk’s claims and its decision to scrap Twitter ads support.
The software company is now reportedly developing its own AI chips to power ChatGPT to deal with the rising development costs for in-house and OpenAI projects.
Microsoft is the second largest company in the world by market cap behind Apple, with a $2.15 trillion valuation according to Google Finance.
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Bitcoin's yearly losses are similar to high-profile stocks like Tesla and Meta with BTC investors down 70% in 2022.
Gold and stocks have underperformed in 2022, but the year has been difficult for Bitcoin (BTC) investors, in particular.
Bitcoin price looks prepared to close 2022 down nearly 70% — its worst year since the crypto crash of 2018.
BTC's depressive performance can be explained by factors such as the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates to curb rising inflationary pressures, followed by the collapse of many crypto firms, including Terra, Celsius Network, Three Arrow Capital, FTX, and others.
Some companies had exposure to defunct businesses, typically by holding their native tokens. For instance, Galaxy Digital, a crypto-focused investment firm founded by Mike Novogratz, confirmed a $555 million loss in August due to holding Terra's native asset LUNA, which has crashed 99.99% YTD.
The above catalysts have prompted Bitcoin to drop 65% year-to-date (YTD).
Meanwhile, the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 has plunged nearly 20% YTD to 3,813 points as of Dec. 28. That puts the index on its biggest calendar-year drop since the 2008 economic crisis. The bloodbath has proven to be worse for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, down 35% YTD.
High-profile losers include Amazon, which has crashed approximately 50% YTD, as well as Tesla and Meta , whose stocks have dropped nearly 72.75% and 65%, respectively. As it looks, tech stocks and Bitcoin have suffered similar losses in 2022.
Just as with Bitcoin, the Fed's rate hikes remains the most-critical factor behind the U.S. stock market's underperformance. But whether a tighter monetary policy would cause an economic recession in 2023 remains to be seen.
This uncertainty has driven capital toward the U.S. dollar for safety, with the U.S. dollar index (DXY), a barometer to gauge the greenback's health versus top foreign currencies, rising nearly 8.5% YTD.
Spot gold is up 0.14% YTD to nearly $1,800 an ounce, which makes it a better performer than Bitcoin and the U.S. stock market.
Nevertheless, the year has seen gold deviating from its "safe haven" characteristics in the face of a stronger dollar and rising U.S. bond yields.
For instance, the precious metal is down 22% from its 2022 peak of $2,070, though some losses have been pared as the dollar's uptrend lost momentum in the second half of 2022.
Bitcoin had gained 1,650% after bottoming out in March 2020 below $4,000, boosted by the Fed's quantitative easing policy. Even as of Dec. 28, investors who purchased Bitcoin in March 2020 are sitting on 332% profits.
In comparison, U.S. stock market and gold's pandemic era-rally was small.
For instance, the Nasdaq Composite index grew up to 143% after bottoming out at 6,631 points in March 2020. So investors who may have gained exposure in the Nasdaq stocks during the easing era are sitting atop a maximum of 56% paper profits as of Dec. 28.
The same for gold, which rose a mere 43% during the pandemic era and is now up 26.50% when measured from its March 2020 bottom of around $1,450.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.