Market rises slightly; Converge, ACEN up

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STOCKS rose slightly Friday after the Philippine Statistics Authority reported that inflation rate in April decelerated to an eightmonth low of 6.6 percent.

The PSE index, the 30-company benchmark of the Philippine Stock Exchange, picked up 1 point to close at 6,685.66 as four of the six subsectors advanced, led by holding firms.

The index representing all shares also rose 2 points to settle at 3,556.06 on a value turnover of P11.45 billion. Gain-

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ers outnumbered losers, 103 to 95, while 42 issues were unchanged.

Six of the 10 most active stocks ended in the green, led by Converge ICT Inc. which jumped 5.03 percent to P11.70 and ACEN Corp. which went up 2.49 percent to P6.17.

Meanwhile, the peso barely moved to close at 55.30 against the US dollar Friday.

In Asian markets, Hong Kong stocks finished higher as major markets elsewhere attempted a rebound following a day of losses driven by interest rate hikes and a banking sector sell-off.

US equities futures were trading in the green a day after all three major US indices finished sharply down thanks to banking sector turmoil and another quarter-point hike from the US Federal Reserve.

Markets in Europe were also up in early trade, having dropped on Thursday after the European Central Bank joined the Fed in hiking rates.

Hong Kong finished half a percent higher after paring early gains, with tech and property companies among the big winners.

Shanghai, however, shed nearly half a percent as fears of an uneven recovery set in and a less-than-stellar earnings season failed to impress traders.

Sydney, Taipei and Kuala Lumpur were also up, while Wellington, Mumbai, Jakarta and Singapore were down. Tokyo and Seoul were closed for holidays.

Indonesia’s economy grew by 5.03% in Q1 ahead of slowdown

JAKARTA —Indonesia’s economic growth kept pace in the first quarter of the year, official data showed Friday, ahead of an expected slowdown that analysts said would be triggered by lagging exports and high interest rates.

Southeast Asia’s largest economy expanded 5.03 percent on-year in the period running from January through March, slightly up from 5.01 in the previous three months, Statistics Indonesia said.

The continued growth was driven by household spending, metal and mineral exports, and returning tourists, Statistics Indonesia official Edy Mahmud told a press conference.

“The trend... is at the five percent level, indicating that Indonesia’s economic growth is still stable,” he said.

Indonesia bounced back from the coronavirus pandemic last year, posting its highest level of growth since 2013 on the back of soaring export prices and the lifting of travel restrictions.

But the record-high commodity prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have started to ease, and countries including Indonesia have kept tightening monetary policy.

“We think the economy is set to struggle over the coming quarters,” said Gareth Leather, senior Asia economist at Capital Economics.

“Our forecast that global growth will struggle and that commodity prices will remain subdued suggest that exports will stay weak.”

Leather predicted Indonesia’s annual growth would fall from 5.3 percent last year to 4.8 percent this year. AFP

White House says tech giants have ‘moral’ duty about AI’s dangers

WASHINGTON, USA—The White House on Thursday told the CEOs of US AI giants that they have a “moral” responsibility to protect society from the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

Vice President Kamala Harris had summoned the heads of Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic to strategize about the impact of AI, afraid that companies are running blindly into technology that could pose serious harms to society.

Harris told the CEOs, which included Sundar Pichai of Google and Satya Nadella of Microsoft, that they have a “moral” duty to safeguard society from AI’s potential dangers.

Companies “must comply with existing laws to protect the American people” as well as “ensure the safety and security of their products,” Harris said in a statement after the talks.

US President Joe Biden also insisted on that point when he briefly dropped by the meeting, telling the assembled CEOs, “What you’re doing has enormous potential and enormous danger.

“I know you understand that. And I hope you can educate us as to what you think is most needed to protect society as well as to the advancement,” he said, according to a video posted later by the White House. Biden has urged Congress to pass laws setting stricter limits on the tech sector, but these efforts have little chance of making headway given political divisions.

The lack of rules has given Silicon Valley freedom to put out new products rapidly, and stoked fears that AI technologies will wreak havoc on society before the government can catch up.

“It’s good to try to get ahead of this. It’s definitely going to be a challenge but it’s one I think we can handle,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told reporters before the meeting. His company, supercharged by billions of dollars from Microsoft, took the lead in making AI available to everyday consumers, with the release of ChatGPT, which caused a global sensation five months ago. Microsoft quickly integrated the AI chatbot’s abilities to crank out natural-seeming written responses from short prompts into its Bing search engine and other products.

The Windows-maker on Thursday expanded public access to these generative artificial intelligence programs, despite criticism and the meeting at the White House.

Risks from AI include its potential uses for fraud, with voice clones, deep-fake videos and convincingly written messages.

It is also a threat to white collar jobs, especially, for now, lowerskilled back-office work.

A range of experts in March urged a pause in the development of powerful AI systems to allow time to make sure they are safe, though a halt was widely seen as unlikely.

The White House used Thursday’s meeting to announce new actions to “promote responsible American innovation in artificial intelligence.”

This included directing $140 million to expand AI research and setting up an assessment system that would work in cooperation with big tech to “fix issues.”

US Vice President Kamala Harris shakes hands with an attendee after delivering remarks during National Small Business Week in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington DC on May 1, 2023. AFP

“Don’t get your hopes up that this will lead to anything particularly meaningful, but it’s a good start,” said David Harris, a lecturer at Haas Business School at the University of California, Berkeley. Race to the bottom Google, Meta and Microsoft have spent years working on AI systems to help with translations, internet searches, security and targeted advertising.

But late last year, San Francisco-based OpenAI thrust generative AI into the public consciousness when it launched ChatGPT, forcing their rivals to answer.

Google has invited users in the United States and Britain to test its AI chatbot, known as Bard, with Facebook-owner Meta pointing to new uses in its ad tech.

And Billionaire Elon Musk in March founded an AI company called X.AI, based in the US state of Nevada, according to business documents.

A top US regulator put AI in the crosshairs ahead of the White House meeting, signaling that the US government would not fall behind when it came to setting up rules and guardrails.

“Can we continue to be the home of world-leading technology without accepting race-to-the-bottom business models and monopolistic control?” Federal Trade Commission chief Lina Khan wrote in a guest essay in the New York Times. AFP

Shares in HSBC were down in Hong Kong trade but up in London as the bank headed into what is expected to be a contentious shareholder meeting in the UK on Friday. Its largest shareholder, Chinese insurer Ping An, has called for HSBC to split itself up and create a separately listed bank headquartered in Hong Kong -- a proposal HSBC is urging other shareholders to vote down. Shares in regional US lenders plunged on Thursday, with PacWest plummeting 50.6 percent, Western Alliance slumping 38.5 percent and First Horizon losing 33.6 percent amid lingering fears for the health of the sector. Short-selling was making matters worse. With AFP

iPhone sales help Apple beat forecasts

SAN FRANCISCO, USA—Apple on Thursday said iPhone sales and money made from services powered quarterly earnings that beat forecasts, despite inflation pressure and the slowing global economy.

The iPhone maker’s bottom line capped a successful earnings season for US tech giants, with Meta, Google and Amazon also beating expectations after suffering a painful spell of lower sales and profits.

The smartphone titan reported profit of $24 billion on revenue of $94.8 billion in the first three months of this year.

The overall revenues for the period were lower than a year before, though this was expected and Apple’s shares were up about one percent in after-market trading.

“We are pleased to report an alltime record in services and a March quarter record for iPhone despite the challenging macroeconomic environment,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in an earnings release. Sales of iPhones were up two percent and tallied $51.3 billion in the quarter, according to earnings figures.

“The iPhone base has well over a billion active devices... We feel great about the size of it and the rate that it’s growing,” Cook told analysts after the earning result.

Analysts said this was at least in part due to the reopening of China after a long period of Covid-19 restrictions that hurt economic growth.

Though Apple has made noise with its expansion into India, China remains the iPhone maker’s crucial supplier and a key market.

Apple was deeply affected by the years of Chinese Covid-related closures and is only now seeing its complex supply chain returning to normal. India is ‘major focus’

The company founded by Steve Jobs is making a very publicized push into India, with Cook himself attending the country’s first Apple Store openings last month.

“India is an incredibly exciting market. It’s a major focus for us. I was just there, and the dynamism in the market, the vibrancy, is unbelievable,” Cook said.

The country is home to the secondhighest number of smartphone users in the world and efforts there help to deflect attention from the company’s dependence on China.

Sales of Macs slipped to about $7.2 billion as belt-tightening around the world hit the entire personal computer market. AFP