Caroline Hepker

That's how much four of the biggest US technology companies are planning to spend on capital expenditure this year.

Bloomberg has calculated that the spending planned by Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon would set a high watermark for capital spending by any single corporation in any one of the past 10 years.

Shares in Amazon dropped after the company yesterday announced its latest results and plans to spend $200 billion this year on data centres, chips and other equipment.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the money will predominantly go to the company's cloud unit and most of that spending would be for AI workloads.

Speaking on the earnings call, he said it would be worth it.

Amazon's shares fell by 11% in post-market trading after Andy Jassy spoke with the spending set to weigh on profits.

Operating income in the current quarter is now forecast to be below expectations at between $16.5 billion and $21.5 billion.

Bitcoin hit a fresh low this morning of just above $60,000 before recovering.

At one point, the benchmark cryptocurrency was worth less than half its value at its October peak.

On Thursday, Bitcoin fell by more than 13% in its largest single-day drop since Sam Bankman freed FTX.

which collapsed in 2022.

Cryptocurrencies have been on shaky ground ever since a brutal series of liquidations last year, which sapped market confidence.

The selling has picked up steam this week as leverage bets have been unwound and broader market turbulence has hit crypto.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has apologised for appointing Peter Mandelson to a senior role despite his links to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaking during an event on the south coast of England yesterday, the Prime Minister directly addressed Epstein's victims.

Keir Starmer speaking there.

His apology follows a concession on Wednesday that material used to vet Mandelson for the role of UK ambassador to the US did contain details of his links to Epstein.

After that revelation, some Labour MPs helped to force the government to agree to release sensitive documents about the appointment.

to the Cross-Party Intelligence and Security Committee for review.

A YouGov poll released hours after Starmer's latest remarks show 50% of the British public believe he should resign.