Campus Crackdown, Amazon Shares Rise on Earnings

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager and I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the stories we're following today.

We have new developments on the pro Palestinian protests at Columbia University and across the country. Let's get the very latest with Bloomberg's John Tucker bag on you.

You at the epicenter of the protests. New York City police moved in just after nine o'clock last night, entering Columbia University's Hamilton Hall with a ladder truck through an upstairs window. They pushed through mounds of furniture piled up as barricades. As arrests were made. Some people were led away bound by zip ties. Mayor Eric Adams did deliver a warning before police began making arrests.

I'm urging every student and every protestant to walk away from this situation.

Now they continue your advocacy.

Through other means, The Police Commissioner sai. Among those arrested were people who had no affiliation with Columbia. As those arrested were loaded on buses, demonstrators on the streets wave Palestinian flags and chanted into fada the building was cleared to protesters after about two hours. That was the scene in New York. In Los Angeles early today, police were responding immediately to a request for support of the University of California campus. John Tucker Bloomberg Radio, all.

Right, John, Thanks well.

Lawmakers are calling more university leaders to Capitol Hill to testify about anti Semitism on campus, and Bloomberg's Nancy Lyons reports.

With pro Palestinian protests and encampments growing at universities across the country, the House Committee on Education in the Workforce is expanding its questioning about campus activity. It's now calling on the presidents of Yale, the University of Michigan, and UCLA to testify May twenty third. The presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn appeared before the committee in December, while the

All Right, Nancy, thank you.

Then, the Middle East Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln continues his push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Blincoln met today in Tel Aviv with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and he called on Hamas to accept Israel's terms for appause in fighting in exchange for hostages.

We're determined to get a ceasefire that brings the hostages vault, and to get it now, and the only reason that that wouldn't be achieved is because of Hamas.

And Secretary Blincoln says the release of hostages in Gaza is at the heart of US foreign policy. That policy may be shifting when it comes to Palestinians caught up in the fighting. According to CBS News, the Biden administration is considering allowing certain Palestinians into the US as refugees if they have family members who are American citizens or permanent residents. Until now, the more than four decade old US refugee program has never been used to resettle Palestinians in large numbers.

Well Nathan in Legal News this morning, former President Donald Trump is getting a break from his Manhattan hush money trial today, but there have been significant developments in the last twenty four hours. In Bloomberg Law, host Doing Granso has the details from New York.

Donald Trump was held in contempt of court yesterday and fined nine thousand dollars for repeatedly violating a gag order that barred him from making public statements about witnesses and jurors. The judge warned that if there are other violations, Trump may end up in jail, and the jury heard the most vivid testimony yet about payments to silence a former Playboy playmate, Karen McDougall at an adult film star Stormy

All right, June, thank you.

Turning to Market's futures are lower as we begin this new trading month. The S and P five hundred dropped more than four percent in April, snapping a streak of five straight monthly gains. The dollar notched its fourth consecutive monthly advance. That's the longest winning run for the greenback since September twenty twenty two.

Well Nathan Corporate earnings continued to be front and center. Shares of Amazon at more than two percent in early trading. Profit and revenue came in above analyst estimates. The company's cloud unit, AWS posted the strongest sales growth in a year. Begin More from Bloomberg Technology Host and Ludlow from San Francisco.

AWS is the clear market leader in cloud, bigger than Microsoft as you're certainly bigger than Google's cloud platform. It's seeing accelerating growth. Growth in the fourth quarter was about thirteen percent, It's now nearer to fourteen and a half fifteen percent, and the strategy is basically be a place where other companies who are interested in AI can build whatever software it is they want on aws's platforms.

Bloomberg's and Ludlow says.

Despite the strong cloud performance, the company's sales forecast for the current quarter fell short of estimates.

Karen A couple other high tech companies are taking it on the chin. This morning, shares of Advanced micro Devices are down more than six percent. The second biggest maker of computer processors gave a lukewarm revenue forecast for the current period. It's being weighed down by lackluster demand for chips used in video game hardware.

Well Nathan, shares of a super microcomputer are down nine and a half percent. The company did report quarterly sales that tripled from the same period last year, but they fell slightly short of estimates. That's disappointing investors who had sky high expectations that the server maker's business would benefit from AI related demand.

And Starbucks investors are getting a jolt to the downside. Those shares are down twelve percent. Sales at the coffee chain fell for the first time since twenty twenty. If this morning's declined holds, it would be Starbucks' biggest stock drop since March of twenty twenty, the early days of the pandemic.

Well Nathan, Let's turn to the economy now. The Fed is expected to leave rates on hold once again, but attention will turn to j Powell's news conference after their decision. We get a preview from Bloomberg's Michael McKee.

If today's FED meeting were a Dickens novel, it might be called small expectations. Policymakers are not going to change the nation's benchmark interest rate, They are not providing new economic forecasts, and they are not issuing a new dot plot outlook for rates. Chair j Powell's press conference is essentially the only chance for any market moving news, and he will be working hard not to provide any expected

All right, Mike, thanks well for full team coverage at the FED decision and Powell news conference. Day tuned to a Bloomberg Radio and television for the Bloomberg Surveillance special the Fed discides. It all begins at one thirty pm Wall Street Time. But it's time now for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world, and for that we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr.

Michael, Good Morning, Good morning.

Karen. Tim Kennedy declared victory in a special election to replace former New York Representative Brian Higgins and serve the rest of the term. It keeps the Buffalo area district and Democrats control. Higgins resign in February after being named president of a performing arts center in Buffalo. Kennedy, a state senator, defeated Republican Gary Dixon, a town supervisor in the upstate New York district that includes the cities of Buffalo and Niagara in the heavily blue district.

This victory is your victory.

This victory is our victory.

Tonight, we are one step closer to preserving.

Tom audio courtesy of WIVBTV. The margin of victory for Kennedy was seventy eight to twenty two percent. A six week abortion ban takes effect today in Florida, replacing a previous restriction of fifteen weeks. National Right to Life President Carol Tobias.

I'm very excited about fifty percent of all abortions occur after that point in pregnancy, so this bill is going to save a.

Lot of lives.

Meanwhile, Michelle Cassada, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood in Florida, says the band will have an immediate impact in the state.

We're looking at tens of thousands of patients that are either going to have the travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles to another state with access, or be forced to carry a pregnancy against their will.

Casada says most women who seek abortion care are between eight and ten weeks pregnant. New York City police fatally shot a man after a brief stand off in Manhattan. Officials say two officers had an investigator with a Department of Homeland Security part of a gang violence task force, identified and approached the twenty five year old man suspected of committing a violent crime. The n MYPD says the man ran inside an optical story he was standing in

The mail was removed to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A member of the task for US received minor injuries. The Biden administration is taking a major step toward reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The move would not legalize pot, but the consequences for using it would be less severe. Global News twenty four hours a day and whenever you want it with Bloomberg News Now Michael Barr and this is Bloomberg Heart.

Sorry Michael Burr, thank you time now for the Bloomberg Sports Update with John stash Hour.

John, Good morning, Good morning Care on the Mixter getting read of head back to Philadelphia for our game six tomorrow, and it certainly didn't look like that was going to be the case. Game five that the guard Knicks led the Sixers by six with twenty eight seconds to go, but Tyrese Maxie with a four point play, and after Josh Hart missed a free throw, Maxie with a three pointer from about thirty five feet forced overtime. Six Ers

In those situations, you talk about what you want to do there out of timeouts. Josh, you's got two free throws, it's two, So you have to, you know, communicate what your decisions are. And so you know, we could have done better in that situation.

And we will.

Two other games in the East Milwaukee State Alive one fifteen ninety two over Indiana's the leads three to two. Cleveland top to Orlando by a point, Caves are up three to two. Home teams won every game the season's over for the Islanders. They fought back in Raleigh, down three to one, game was tied going to the third

Coast to Coast on Bloomberg Radio, nationwide on Sirius XM, and around the world on Bloomberg dot Com and the Bloomberg Business app. This is Bloomberg Daybreak. Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager. We want to get more now.

In the big tech earning story of the morning, that would be Amazon. The e commerce giant reported profit and revenue in the first quarter that did beat Wall Street estimates, with its strongest sales growth in the cloud in a year, but the forecast for the current quarter is falling short in what may be a warning sign for the main e commerce business over at Amazon. Let's bring in Dan Ives for more on these results. Senior equity research analysts at white Bush Securities.

Dan, good morning.

I know you and a lot of analysts were focused really closely on the cloud. Did AWS come through for you?

I can't. This is a trophy case quarter for AWS. Seventeen percent, I mean whispers were fifteen percent. This is exact what Amazon needed to do to show that the cloud moved. Joe is back, very important quarter for Jase and Amazon.

What about the forecast for the current quarter? It did come in a little bit weaker than a lot of analysts expected. Could that be a concern not just FORAR the e commerce side, but for the cloud?

Yeah, it could be, but I think streets we can do. This is conservative and that's why stock will be up today. Look a key with this name, especially in the shadows of a massive number from my Microsoft and Google. Amazon needs to come to ourn AWS and it sures not just on cloud, but now the next step in terms AI jazzing and Amazon monetizing that that's the golden Dews. That's what the streets focused on.

Obviously, AWS is the dominant player in the cloud. Do these results show that the cloud side did enough to maintain that position against the pretty impressive numbers we saw last week from Microsoft and alphabet for their cloud units.

Yeah. I think in this game of thrones, they're keeping up. And that's the important thing because this is not just a winner takes all. You're going to see many, many winners in this AI revolution. Amazon's going to be key player there. But now you're starting to see a company that i'd say the last few quarters backwards against the wall. It's starting to turn and that is huge for the stock and it's something that I think investors, even on a ripple effect, they're going to look to the rest

Can these text stalwarts maintain this kind of trajectory when we could see potentially some macro risks when it comes to enterprise spending on AI products. Do you think this kind of demand can continue to be maintained in this economic environment.

Yeah, it's a great clause. Well, I think on the edges, I mean, there could be some soft spots, but overall, this is a fourth Industrial Revolution that's planning out, and I think that's what we see across tech. You know, it's not going to be straightened to the right, but it's something that we have not seen since nineteen ninety five at the.

Time we have left Dan, I want to get your take on this confirmation that we've gotten from Tesla that the supercharger network, just about all the workers involved in it are being a lit eminated. I wonder what you make of that move from elon Musk.

Look, it's tough decisions that they're making on these cost cuts, but that's the street ones to see. He'll rebuild it back. But it shows now you finally have an adult in the room with Musk and Nats and investors want to see in Tesla after a very very tough six to nine months.

What could it mean though in terms of EV demand. I mean, a lot of concern is around range anxiety, right, and if the growth of supercharger doesn't potentially stay where it has been, what could that mean for EV demand going forward?

Look, I think writing is in the wall, and I think Musk has seen you know, we've seen in Tesla's results. They're going to have to slow down the supercharge to build out even with these OEM deals. And I think it just shows it's been some dark days for ev demand, but the growth is not over. But it's this smart move for Tesla, even though it's a head scratcher that they actually got rid of the whole department.

This is Bloomberg day Break Today, your morning brief on the story's making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond.

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