Alphabet shares plunged after its new chatbot Bard gave an incorrect answer in a new ad. We asked a Furby the same question and while it was unable to respond, at least it did not give an incorrect answer. The Furby also looked very cute and was nice to hug. Bard again performed poorly in these areas proving it is at best, the third most impressive chatbot on the market. Shares in Hasbro were flat.

The lowdown

• 💸 Adani faced a margin call of $500 million before repaying $1.1 billion debt in full.

• 🎮 UK competition watchdog raises concerns over Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision.

• 🪤 Disney to lay off 7,000 workers as part of company restructure.

Flex your finance muscle

Behavioral undertakings

The Call of Duty franchise continues to cause problems for Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. Of concern to competition regulators is that Microsoft could make the game exclusive to its Xbox platform ($). 

To complete the deal, a sale of Call of Duty may be required or perhaps regulators would be satisfied with behavioral undertakings – promises or commitments made by a company to a competition authority to resolve concerns over potential anti-competitive practices. 

Behavioral undertakings may include commitments to:

• Maintain certain prices or price levels

• Refrain from certain exclusionary practices (such as tying or bundling)

• Allow access to certain facilities or resources

• Licensing of intellectual property

• Divestiture of certain assets or businesses

Featured Stories

Maersk reports $31 billion profit

Not since the dislodging of the Ever Given from the Suez Canal has container shipping had such good news. Shipping company A.P. Moller-Maersk has reported the best financial result in the history of the company with EBIT of $31 billion for 2022.

Freight rates, however, have fallen due to the impending recession and the deflation of pandemic-fueled import bubbles. Maersk has therefore warned that profits will crater to $2-5 billion in 2023 due to a drop in container volumes and freight rates. Maersk predicts a drop in global demand for shipping containers by as much as 2.5%. 

The company's shares have lost one-third of their value in the last year. Like every company right now it seems, Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said he will focus on reducing costs.

The content we're consuming today

• Bloomberg: Meta Asks Many Managers to Get Back to Making Things or Leave ($).

• Gamecraft podcast: Console Castles (Ep.6).

Off-balance sheet items

• On Tuesday, Lebron James became the NBA’s all-time leading goal scorer surpassing the record Kareem Abdul-Jabbar held for 39 years. This video shows the moments each player broke the record.

The bottom line