Weekly news summary for November 3 to November 9

Friday, Nov. 3: Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty of FTX Fraud

FTX Trading Ltd. founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty on all seven fraud and conspiracy charges after a monthlong trial in which the crypto exchange’s former chief executive was accused of stealing 8 billion dollars’ worth of customers’ money.

Bankman-Fried now faces a 115-year maximum prison sentence for two counts of wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of securities fraud, one count of commodities fraud conspiracy, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.

Monday, Nov. 6: Elon Musk’s xAI Reveals New AI Chatbot’ Grok’

Elon Musk’s new artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI Corp. has unveiled ‘Grok,’ its large language model (LLM) expected to rival the likes of OpenAI Inc.’s ChatGPT.

Musk and the company said the ‘humor’- equipped AI chatbot offers real-time information about the world through X and can respond to queries that other AI systems may have rejected, although it is currently only available to selected users in the US.

Tuesday, Nov. 7: Shein Eyes 90B Dollar Valuation in US IPO – Report

Chinese-founded online retailer Shein reportedly seeks a valuation of 80 billion to 90 billion dollars in its US initial public offering (IPO), above its current private market valuation of 64 billion dollars.

Sources familiar with the matter said the fast-fashion giant has revealed its valuation target to potential investors, while plans for a share sale and a final decision on its public listing have yet to be made.

Wednesday, Nov. 8: PwC Australia to Lay Off 338 Employees

Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) LLC’s Australian audit and consulting arm announced on Wednesday its plans to cut 338 jobs as the embattled firm faced a sluggish economy and the impact of its major tax scandal in the country.

The layoffs represent 4% of the remaining 7,600 employees at PwC Australia, with a company spokesperson saying the reductions were due to a weaker economy and the firm’s downscale after its government consulting arm, now called Scyne Advisory, was sold in June amid the tax leak controversy.

Thursday, Nov. 9: China Returns to Disinflation as CPI, PPI Drops

China was in a disinflationary state in October, as the country saw consumer and producer inflation decline amid lower spending in the retail sector and continued weakness in manufacturing activity.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Thursday that the consumer price index (CPI) dropped 0.2% year-over-year in October from September’s 0%, while the producer price index (PPI) fell for the 13th straight month at an annualized 2.6% from the previous month’s reading of 2.5%.