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Microsoft shrank its workforce in July and October 2022 and eliminated open positions and paused hiring in various groups. While technology peers Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Salesforce Inc. have announced cuts by the thousands in the past few months, Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has so far been taking smaller steps to deal with a worsening global economic outlook and the potential for a protracted slowdown in demand for software and services. However, Microsoft could announce wide-sweeping layoffs within the next few days. The possibility of the tech giant laying off a significant part of its workforce was first reported by Sky News and later corroborated by Bloomberg. Sky put the number of the cuts at approximately five percent of the company’s 220,000-person workforce or about 11,000 employees total. Bloomberg said it couldn’t find out the scale of the layoffs but reported they would affect “a number of engineering divisions” and that they’re set to be “significantly larger” than other rounds of job cuts undertaken by Microsoft over the last year.

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Meanwhile, U.S. stocks ended mostly lower with the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapping a four-day win streak after Goldman Sachs reported poor earnings results. The S&P 500 also ended lower, but the NASDAQ Composite eked out a gain as investors focused on whether the early 2023 rally has legs.

• The S&P 500 shed 8.12 points, or 0.2%, to end at 3,990.97
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 391.76 points, or 1.1%, to finish at 33,910.85
• The NASDAQ Composite gained 15.96 points, or 0.1%, ending at 11,095.11

Q4 earnings season continued to heat up, with investors sifting through differing results from Dow member Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, while Travelers Companies warned that its upcoming results will be lower than forecasts. The economic calendar started off a bit slow before beginning to heat up tomorrow, but today a read on New York manufacturing showed an unexpected tumble for January.

Treasury yields were mixed, and the U.S. dollar gained ground, while crude oil prices advanced, and gold traded to the downside.

Asia finished mixed, and markets in Europe also diverged, following a flood of economic data, notably out of China.

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