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Andrew Ross Sorkin speaks with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy during the New York Times DealBook Summit in the Appel Room at the Jazz At Lincoln Center on November 30, 2022 in New York City.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Shares of Amazon fell as much as 4% on Friday, a day after the e-retailer posted soft growth in its retail and cloud computing businesses and gave downbeat guidance.

Its stock was hit harder than peers Apple and Alphabet, which also reported on Thursday evening. Shares of Apple were trading up about 4% on Friday morning, while Alphabet was down about 1%. Both of those companies missed on the top and bottom lines.

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Amazon’s fourth-quarter revenue increased 9% to $149.2 billion, topping analysts’ expected $145.4 billion. But the revenue beat was overshadowed by another quarter of slowing growth in Amazon’s core retail business and in Amazon Web Services, which have been dented by the challenging economic environment.

Amazon said it expects revenue of between $121 billion and $126 billion in the current quarter. Analysts had been expecting $125 billion.

“Consumers sound cautious and the Cloud deceleration cadence appears to be landing in the ‘mid-teens’ for [the first quarter],” analysts at Piper Sandler, which have an overweight rating on Amazon shares, wrote in a note Friday.

“Above all, management comments suggest AMZN is still navigating a difficult stretch,” the analysts added.

Despite the near-term rockiness, several analysts said they remain encouraged by CEO Andy Jassy’s efforts to control costs. They also believe Amazon will prove it can withstand the economic turbulence and can continue to grow in the long term.

Jassy has been working to get Amazon’s costs under control after a period of unbridled expansion. Last month, the company said it would lay off more than 18,000 corporate employees. It enacted a hiring freeze among its corporate ranks, cut some projects, closed some physical stores and paused warehouse expansion.

“While the next few quarters will likely remain volatile as an output of macroeconomic volatility, the long-term narratives from Amazon and a compelling multi-year risk/reward should appeal to investors,” Goldman Sachs’ Eric Sheridan wrote in a note Friday.

Analyst sentiment was a bit different for Apple, which telegraphed that things are getting better. That may explain why its stock is in the green. “Taking a step back, it’s rare to see Apple miss and guide down in a quarter, but we believe the long-term positives from tonight’s report outweigh the short-term negatives,” Morgan Stanley’s Erik Woodring wrote.

Similarly, despite Alphabet’s misses, analysts are bullish on its prospects for artificial intelligence and highlighted its strong core business. “We see Alphabet as a more defensive stock in the group in 2023 with more relative earnings stability given utility of search, expense flexibility, healthy margins that will minimize cash flow concerns, and opportunity to support the stock with buybacks,” Bank of America’s Justin Post said.

WATCH: Arete Research’s Richard Kramer on the outlook for Apple, Amazon and Alphabet

Arete Research's Richard Kramer on the outlook for Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet

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Elon Musk’s xAI raising $10 billion at $200 billion valuation: sources

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Elon Musk's xAI raising  billion at 0 billion valuation: sources

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $10 billion at $200 billion valuation: sources

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has raised $10 billion from investors that puts the company’s post-money valuation at $200 billion, sources told CNBC’s David Faber.

The valuation for Musk’s AI company is the latest example of skyrocketing valuations for companies that develop foundational AI models. Earlier this month, Anthropic raised $13 billion at a $183 billion valuation. OpenAI, the largest company in the industry, held a secondary share sale that valued it at $500 billion.

The fundraising comes weeks after Musk raised $10 billion in debt and equity at what was believed to be a roughly $150 billion valuation, according to Faber. Last December, xAI raised $6 billion to fund its artificial intelligence development.

However, xAI’s Grok service is widely believed to lag behind Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s GPT models in terms of capabilities and number of users.

Musk said in May that he wants to buy a million AI chips, Faber said. Much of the proceeds of this round of funding could go to building data centers filled with Nvidia and AMD AI chips called GPUs that are needed to develop next-generation AI, as well as to hire expensive talent. The company is currently building a large cluster of AI computers in Memphis, Tennessee.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

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Top Amazon reseller Pattern opens at $13.50 in Nasdaq debut after IPO raised $300 million

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Top Amazon reseller Pattern opens at .50 in Nasdaq debut after IPO raised 0 million

Pattern Group, one of the leading resellers on Amazon, took the plunge into the public markets on Friday, and saw its stock slip in its Nasdaq debut.

Trading under the ticker “PTRN,” the stock opened at $13.50 after the company sold shares at $14 in its IPO, the middle of the expected range. Pattern’s offering raised $300 million, with half the proceeds going to investors, and valued the company at about $2.5 billion.

The Utah-based company was founded by husband and wife duo David Wright and Melanie Alder in 2013 as iServe Products before changing its name to Pattern in 2019. Pattern currently ranks as the No. 2 Amazon seller in the U.S., based on the number of customer reviews, according to research firm Marketplace Pulse.

The company describes itself as an “ecommerce accelerator” that helps more than 200 brands optimize their sales on online marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Target and TikTok Shop. It sells tens of thousands of products across categories ranging from health and wellness, consumer electronics, as well as beauty and personal care. Some of its brand partners include Nestle, Panasonic and Skechers.

The tech IPO market has roared back to life in recent months after an extended dry spell. Ticket reseller StubHub debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, though its stock dropped in its first two days of trading. Online lender Klarna and Gemini, the crypto firm founded by Cameron and Tyler Wiklevoss, started trading last week. Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish, design software company Figma and stablecoin issuer Circle have also recently hit the market.

In the second quarter, Pattern reported revenue growth of 39% from a year earlier to $598.2 million. The company recorded net income of $16.4 million in the second quarter, compared with $11.3 million a year earlier. Operating income came in at $30.1 million for the period versus $23.1 million in the same period last year.

The company competes with millions of merchants who hawk their wares on Amazon’s sprawling marketplace, where third-party vendors now account for more than half of all goods sold on the site. Pattern said 94% of its 2024 revenue came from consumer product sales on Amazon, with a “substantial majority” in the U.S.

Pattern isn’t the first Amazon seller to pursue an IPO. Pharmapacks, once the top U.S. Amazon seller, eyed going public via a special purpose acquisition company in 2021, before nixing those plans and filing for bankruptcy a year later.

Pattern is hitting the market at a time of major global trade uncertainty, a factor it acknowledged in its prospectus. President Donald Trump‘s tariff threats against trade partners have, for the past five months, sent shockwaves through markets and shaken businesses globally.

“There is significant uncertainty as to the potential actions of the U.S. government with respect to international trade policy and the impact of tariffs, particularly with respect to trade between the United States and China,” Pattern wrote in the filing.

Pattern said the tariffs and trade tensions between the U.S. and China could negatively impact demand for its products, or harm its ability “to sell brand partner products at prices consumers are willing to pay.”

CEO David Wright told CNBC in an interview on Friday that the company was trying to hold its offering “a few months ago,” but delayed because of the tariffs, which were first announced in April. Klarna and StubHub put their IPOs on hold after the market plummeted on Trump’s initial announcement.

But the company’s top risk, according to its prospectus, is its reliance on Amazon and what can happen if the ecommerce giant makes significant alterations.

Pattern said that should Amazon restrict its ability to sell products, terminate the relationship or see any big changes due to litigation or regulation, it “could adversely affect our continued growth, financial condition and results of operations.”

Wright said the Amazon challenge is unavoidable.

“No matter what you’re doing in this space, you’re going to be playing with them,” Wright said. As for Amazon suspending certain brands and sellers, “so long as you stay within the line, they’ve been a great partner for us,” he said.

WATCH: Barclays sees around 20 tech IPOs by year-end

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Apple CEO Tim Cook says iPhone price hikes are not tied to tariffs

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Apple CEO Tim Cook says iPhone price hikes are not tied to tariffs

iPhone 17 goes on sale: Apple CEO Tim Cook opens flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City

Apple CEO Tim Cook said price hikes on the newest iPhone models aren’t tied to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans.

“There’s no increase for tariffs in the prices to be totally clear,” Cook told CNBC’s Jim Cramer from Apple’s Fifth Avenue store location in New York City, as the latest iPhone model launched in stores worldwide.

It is one of the first instances in which Cook has decisively addressed tariffs in relation to iPhone prices.

Earlier this month, Apple increased the price of its iPhone 17 Pro model by $100, while maintaining the prices of its entry-level phones. It also introduced an Air model that replaced the Plus at steeper price point.

Many analysts had widely anticipated price hikes despite Cook’s attempts to dodge tariffs.

To circumvent the levies, Apple has pivoted its supply chain to import iPhones to the U.S. from lower tariff countries, such as India and Vietnam. Apple has historically produced a majority of its products in China.

Cook has also made public appearances with Trump as the company commits at least $600 billion toward bolstering U.S. manufacturing and supporting suppliers.

During the June quarter, Cook revealed that the company took an $800-million hit from costs tied to tariffs.

At the same time, Apple faces questions about its slow AI rollout, as well as rising competition in international markets such as China.

“We have AI everywhere in the phone,” Cook told CNBC on Friday. “We just don’t call it” that.

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