Hindenburg Research released a report on Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey's payments group Block, formerly known as Square. Hindenburg Research stated the company facilitated fraud against consumers and the government, avoided regulation, dressed up predatory loans and fees as revolutionary technology, and misled investors with inflated metrics. Block has market capitalisation of nearly $44 billion.

Infosys' shares fell nearly 1.3% on Thursday and the stock is down in 12 of the last 13 sessions. It is also just 1.5% away from its 52-week low of ₹1,355.50 that it touched in September 2022. Infosys has declined 10% so far in 2023. It is also among the worst performers on the Nifty 50 index so far.

Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey's Block "regularly hypes...mundane or predatory sources of revenue as technological breakthroughs", according to Hindenburg Research's report. Block's $29-billion acquisition of Afterpay is "flopping" and the 'buy now, pay later' service lost $357 million in 2022, the year it was acquired by Block, the report said. Afterpay reported losses of $184 million in 2021.

Hindenburg Research, in its report on Jack Dorsey's cash payments group Block, mentioned the firm's CFO Amrita Ahuja dumped millions of dollars in stock during pandemic along with other executives. Amrita completed her MBA from Harvard Business School in 2007. She joined Block in January 2019. She has also worked for firms like Morgan Stanley and The Walt Disney Company.

Hindenburg Research, in a report on payments group Block, alleged Block's stock soared on back of its "facilitation of fraud" during the pandemic. It claimed Block Co-founders Jack Dorsey and James McKelvey collectively sold over $1 billion of stock during pandemic. Block reported pandemic surge in user counts and revenue, ignoring contribution of widespread fraudulent payments, the report said.

The Hindenburg Research's report on Jack Dorsey-led Block has said the group's Cash App has "dozens" of 'Elon Musk' and 'Donald Trump' fake accounts. Hindenburg said it was able to send and receive funds easily via fake Trump and Musk accounts. The app also allegedly ignored user pleas for help amid criminal activity and fraud on the platform.

Cash App, which was co-founded by Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey, ignored warnings of Secret Service, US Department of Labor and multiple state regulators, along with internal employee concerns, according to Hindenburg Research's latest report. The warnings were regarding the issue of multiple COVID-19 relief payments going to the same account, which was flagged as an obvious sign of fraud.

Amazon's Web Services Department posted 24,988 job openings, when in fact there were approvals for only 7,798, leading to an over-hiring situation, Insider reported quoting from an internal document. Amazon acknowledged the over-hiring, admitting its processes were prone to inconsistency, error, and potential "mis-use". Amazon announced a second round of layoffs that will result in 9,000 job cuts.

China has never deliberately pursued a trade surplus with US, Chinese Commerce Ministry Spokesperson Shu Jueting said. This statement comes amid signs that China is continuing to reduce its reliance on American exports. Shu said US should "lift trade restrictions on Chinese enterprises as soon as possible" to "create the conditions for enterprises from both sides to expand trade cooperation".

After Hindenburg Research accused Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey's company Block of "frictionless" fraud that inflated user metrics and enabled insiders to cash out over $1 billion, Block's shares fell 20%. "Our two-year investigation has concluded that Block has systematically taken advantage of the demographics it claims to be helping," the short seller said in a note published on its website.

Indigo Co-founders Rakesh Gangwal and Rahul Bhatia are the richest aviation billionaires with a wealth of $3.6 billion and $3.3 billion respectively, as per the 2023 Hurun Global Rich List. The year 2022 saw the addition of 16 Indian billionaires. However, 40 Indian billionaires dropped out of the list last year.

China lost 229 billionaires last year, the largest by any nation, the latest Hurun Global Rich List showed. Over 400 people lost their billionaire status last year. China, which as of January 16, 2023, has 969 billionaires, also added 69 new billionaires to the list. The number of billionaires globally dropped by 8% and their total wealth dropped by 10%.

The Bank of England (BoE) raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 4.25% on Thursday. This was its 11th consecutive increase in borrowing costs which began in December 2021. "The MPC will continue to monitor closely indications of persistent inflationary pressures, including the tightness of labour market conditions and the behaviour of wage growth and services inflation," BoE said.

Hindenburg has targeted about 30 companies since 2020 and their shares fell 15% on average the next day after the report came out, Bloomberg News reported. The report added that six months after Hindenberg posted its report, the firms' shares went down 26% on average. This comes as Block's shares fell 20% after Hindenburg accused it of facilitating fraud today.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX reached a deal on Wednesday to retrieve more than $400 million from Bahamas-based hedge fund Modulo Capital. According to court filings, FTX affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research gave ₹475 million to Modulo last year. The deal marks FTX's new management's efforts to recover assets to repay FTX customers.

Tata Group is considering injecting another $2 billion of fresh capital into its super app—Tata Neu—as the conglomerate seeks to boost its digital business, Bloomberg cited sources as saying. Tata Digital will receive the additional funding over two years if the deal proceeds, the source said. This could help Tata Neu to strengthen its digital offerings and fix technical glitches.

Ford Motor has said its electric vehicle business incurred a pretax loss of $3 billion in the last two years, and the same amount of loss is expected this year. The EV unit, named 'Model e', should be seen as a startup, CFO John Lawler said. EV startups lose money as they build knowledge and gain market share, he added.

TMC MPs visited the offices of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ED and CBI, demanding the arrest of industrialist Gautam Adani. "Our MPs handed over signed caps in protest to the Finance Ministry, ED, and CBI officials," TMC said in a tweet. TMC MPs said that they weren't allowed to enter the CBI office premises and were videotaped without permission.

Metro Brands announced the demerger of its FILA business on Thursday. FILA involved the business of importing, trading, selling, marketing, advertising, retailing and distributing footwear, accessories and apparel in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. FILA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the firm but Metro Brands will not issue any shares in consideration of the demerger.

Finance Ministry on Thursday decided to exercise the "greenshoe option" as the offer-for-sale (OFS) of Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) was subscribed 4.5 times on day one. The government proposed to sell up to a 3.5% stake. If fully subscribed, OFS would fetch about ₹2,800 crore. "Greenshoe option" allows companies to issue more shares in an IPO when there's a greater demand.

The Biden administration on Thursday added 14 Chinese companies to a red flag list. US exporters will have to conduct greater due diligence before shipping goods to them. "We are committed to using all of the tools at our disposal to establish how advanced US technology is being used around the globe," US Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves said.

Canara Bank said it has sold its stake in Russian joint venture Commercial Indo Bank LLC (CIBL) to the other venture partner State Bank of India (SBI) for about ₹121.29 crore. Incorporated in 2003, CIBL is a joint venture between SBI (60%) and Canara Bank (40%). Canara Bank said it has received the entire consideration amount on Thursday.

Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser while expressing her confidence in the US banks after two US banks collapsed earlier said, "The banking system is pretty sound...This is not a credit crisis." "This is a situation where it's a few banks that have some problems, and it's better to make sure that we nip that in the bud," she added.

Swiss financial regulator FINMA defended its decision to write off Credit Suisse's bonds worth $17.49 billion as part of its takeover by UBS, saying the decision was legally watertight. "The AT1 instruments issued by Credit Suisse contractually provide that they will be completely written down in a 'viability event', in particular, if extraordinary government support is granted," FINMA said.

The latest RBI data has shown that Indians spent $11.44 billion on overseas travel between April-January in the current financial year. This marks a 122% jump from the same period last year. In the current fiscal year, Indians spent $1.49 billion on overseas travel in January. In 2021-22, the total spending by Indians on overseas travel stood at $6.9 billion.