REDMOND, Wash. — Shares of Microsoft Corp. surged 3.15% to $513.60 in Friday trading, adding $15.67, as the technology giant participated in a broader market rebound tied to easing Treasury yields and growing optimism over a potential diplomatic resolution to the Strait of Hormuz crisis, while also continuing to benefit from a recent Wall Street rating upgrade.

Friday’s advance marks a sharp rebound from recent trading levels, with the stock climbing from Thursday’s close of approximately $497.93. The gains came as the broader U.S. stock market rallied Friday following a difficult stretch earlier in the week, with easing bond yields and reports of progress in U.S.-Iran negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz helping lift sentiment across technology stocks more broadly.

Microsoft’s rally also builds on a positive analyst rating change from earlier in the week. Stifel upgraded its outlook on Microsoft to Buy from Hold on September 23, according to data compiled by Fintel, adding to the stock’s momentum heading into Friday’s broader market advance.

Despite Friday’s sharp gain, Microsoft’s stock has posted a notably uneven performance over the trailing year, with shares down roughly 2% over the past twelve months as of recent trading, according to analysis from TipRanks, even as the underlying business has continued posting strong financial results. One prominent investor’s assessment of the stock, cited in that analysis, suggested cracks may be forming in market confidence toward the company despite its continued growth, a more cautious read that stands in some tension with the bullish case built around Microsoft’s cloud computing business.

That cloud business has remained a central focus for analysts assessing Microsoft’s long-term prospects. According to a recent analysis from 24/7 Wall St., Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform recently crossed a growth milestone the outlet said should reset how analysts value the broader company, even though the stock has continued trading below the levels it reached a year earlier. That disconnect between Azure’s underlying growth trajectory and the stock’s more muted price performance has become a recurring theme in recent analyst commentary on the company.

Microsoft’s most recent quarterly results underscored the strength of that underlying business performance. The company reported earnings of $4.74 per share for its most recent quarter, comfortably ahead of the $4.24 per share analysts had expected, representing an earnings surprise of nearly 12%. Microsoft’s trailing twelve-month revenue stands at approximately $331.8 billion, with a gross margin of roughly 67.9% and a net margin above 40%, reflecting the continued profitability of its core software, cloud and productivity businesses even amid heavy ongoing investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The company’s market capitalization stood at approximately $3.68 trillion to $3.72 trillion heading into Friday’s session, with shares trading within a 52-week range spanning from a low of $349.20, reached on June 25, to a high of $553.72, reached on October 28 of last year. Microsoft’s stock carries a price-to-earnings ratio in the high 20s and pays a modest dividend yield below 1%, reflecting its continued position as one of the technology sector’s most closely watched large-capitalization stocks. The company is scheduled to report its next quarterly earnings results on October 27.

Microsoft’s business today spans three primary segments: Productivity and Business Processes, which includes Microsoft 365, LinkedIn, Dynamics business applications and Microsoft 365 Copilot; Intelligent Cloud, encompassing the Azure platform along with the company’s broader public, private and hybrid cloud services for businesses and developers; and More Personal Computing, covering Windows, gaming and devices. That diversified structure has allowed Microsoft to generate substantial revenue across multiple distinct technology categories, even as investor attention has increasingly concentrated on the pace of Azure’s growth and Microsoft’s broader artificial intelligence strategy, including its extensive partnership with OpenAI.

That AI partnership has occasionally generated its own headlines separate from Microsoft’s core financial performance. Microsoft AI Chief Executive Officer Mustafa Suleyman recently described a development tied to OpenAI’s technology as a “serious situation,” according to earlier CNBC reporting, though the specific comments predate Friday’s trading session and were not cited as a direct factor in the day’s share price movement.

Microsoft has also faced legal scrutiny in recent months, with multiple law firms announcing securities class action lawsuits on behalf of investors alleging harm connected to the company’s disclosures, according to filings reported in August. The specific allegations underlying those legal actions were not detailed in the available reporting, and it remains unclear what impact, if any, the litigation has had on the stock’s trading performance heading into Friday’s session.

With Friday’s rally lifting Microsoft shares sharply higher alongside the broader market, and the Stifel upgrade adding to a more constructive tone among some analysts covering the stock, investors are likely to continue watching closely for further signals about Azure’s growth trajectory and the company’s broader AI investment strategy as Microsoft approaches its next earnings report at the end of October.

Leading developers of artificial intelligence (AI) are raising concerns about the need to ensure the safety and alignment of cutting-edge frontier models as they become more capable.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Microsoft have all signaled a focus on safety issues related to developing frontier AI models to ensure that they’re aligned with serving humanity.

Those calls come amid warnings from AI researchers that there’s a chance that AI could wipe out humanity within the next decade if the pace of advancement reaches the point with more capable models that a self-improving superintelligence gets beyond the control of its developers.

Concerns about AI running amok also come amid intense competition in the AI industry to put forward more capable models, while the federal government grapples with how to regulate the emerging industry without stifling it amid its rapid growth and as it becomes a flashpoint in the geopolitical competition with China.

SAM ALTMAN IDENTIFIES TWO BIGGEST RISKS FACING AI’S FUTURE

The debate over AI regulation is contrasting safety concerns and calls for regulation with worries about undercutting innovation and competition. (recep-bg/Getty Images)

Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments, told FOX Business that “I do think there’s a risk that if regulation is too far-reaching that it will stifle innovation and the up-and-coming OpenAIs or up-and-coming Anthropics. So I would appreciate a light touch if there is regulation, because at this point I’m not even sure we’ve defined what the problem is.”

Tengler added that “I don’t think Congress is going to be able to regulate AI, at least not now. I think it’s beyond their aptitude,” and added that tech companies have called for regulation of their industries in recent history amid public controversies.

“Just look back as recently as a few years ago when Meta was in the crosshairs for censoring and Mark Zuckerberg just kept saying, ‘please regulate us.’ It’s a tried and true strategy from Silicon Valley to certainly embrace the notion of regulation, and I think part of that is because it doesn’t happen,” she added.

Tengler added that she thinks “there is some risk to innovation that will take place if these companies become bigger and more powerful.”

MICROSOFT UNVEILS CODE OF CONDUCT FOR AI MODELS AS SAFETY CONCERNS MOUNT

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the future of artificial intelligence should empower people rather than replace them as the company unveiled its latest vision for AI. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Julia Cartwright, senior research fellow in law and economics at the American Institute for Economic Research, told FOX Business that “this is a classic case of regulatory capture by the folks at the top.”

“There has been a history of top companies actually aligning themselves with Washington and trying to get regulations on the books because it makes their industry more predictable… but it also raises the barrier to entry to any type of competition, and I think that’s part of the story,” she said.

Cartwright added that the AI regulation debate poses a “collective action problem” because “even if all of the companies in the U.S. say, ‘yes, we are on board with this regulation,’ and now it becomes law, and it’s tied our hands together, what if China’s companies do not want to tie their hands? We are in a global competitive space.”

FOX Business reached out to OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft for comment. The three companies have all outlined their approaches to safety and alignment issues in recent public comments or releases.

ANTHROPIC SAYS IT BLOCKED POSSIBLE EFFORTS TO USE AI FOR BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT, IRAN-LINKED CASES

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for companies to “pace the frontier” of AI development. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Microsoft unveiled a draft version of its “Humanist AI Code of Conduct” this week, which it plans to use as a guide for the development and oversight of Microsoft AI models after a final version is published later this year.

The company said the code of conduct is “motivated by a single overriding objective: that humans must retain meaningful control over AI so that it can help people live healthier, happier, and more productive lives.”

It also touched on the development of AI superintelligence, saying that “Containing, controlling, and aligning such a powerful force is one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced. We must therefore be completely clear about why we are inventing these systems and how we intend to control them.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said that the AI company is delaying its highly anticipated IPO until next year, telling Fortune in an interview that “Meeting this moment of what is going to be required for safety and alignment, and how the industry and governments can work together – I’m happy to be able to do that as a private company.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company plans to delay its IPO to next year to focus on safety issues in the AI space while it remains a private company. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for leaders in the industry to “pace the frontier” of AI development. He added that the company plans to give third-party evaluators employee-level access to the company’s systems to verify adherence to the company’s safety measures, report on incidents and assess the alignment of models during training.

Altman said in a post on X that he thinks that approach “is a great idea, and we will do the same [at OpenAI].”

This article was written by

Follow

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Future Works has come up with plans for a 14-mile Peak District tunnel

The idea to build a tunnel under the Pennines and connect Manchester and Sheffield resurfaced earlier this year. Now the steps towards it becoming a reality have been laid out.

An organisation called Future Works has devised a strategy to build a 14-mile tunnel beneath the Peak District mountains. The scheme is estimated to cut journey times between Manchester and Sheffield by 30 minutes and take traffic away from the National Park.

This comes 10 years on from when the government originally looked into the idea.

The Department for Transport’s (DfT) own report highlighted the benefits of the scheme would include a major environmental and economic boost. The report added that the scheme could be a ‘catalyst to explore further improvements in east-west connectivity, including linking the international ports on Merseyside and Humberside’.

However, the idea came to nothing as DfT decided it would be too expensive to complete – around £10bn. But Future Works believe it can be done for just £2bn.

The organisation, co-founded by Michael Dnes, wants to build the dual carriageway as well as a railway line – inspired by engineers who’ve done similar work in Norway. The Norwegians built the world’s longest road tunnel, the 24.5km Lærdal in Norway, for around £130m.

Despite the excitement of Future Works seemingly bringing the project back to life, the idea remains just an idea. The local MP, Jonathan Reynolds, has long advocated for better transport connectivity around the eastern corner of Tameside.

The villages of Hollingworth and Mottram have long been the victims of queueing traffic through their centres. They are right at the crossroads on Tameside and Derbyshire, where the Woodhead Pass and Snake Pass meet the Greater Manchester road network.

Mr Reynolds was instrumental in securing the Mottram bypass scheme currently under construction. But he believes Future Works’ plan now needs to undergo work to understand if it is actually deliverable and the actual benefits it could bring.

Jonathan Reynolds, MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, said: “Residents in Hollingworth have been waiting for years to see real progress on the issue of traffic passing through the village, so any credible proposal that could reduce congestion and improve connectivity deserves to be looked at seriously.

“I’ve been keen to support Future Works by speaking to stakeholders, and the priority now is to undertake the detailed work needed to establish whether it can be delivered, how it could be financed, and what benefits it could bring to local communities and the wider region.”

The idea would see one of the current Woodhead tunnels, which currently transport electricity lines for the national grid, for the new road and railway.

Rather than using the standard British approach of a tunnel-boring machine, Future Works has looked into the drill-and-blast method applied to tunnels in Norway. This system replaces giant machinery with more traditional mining techniques, the natural strength of the rock and small expert crews.

Although this would not work in many areas of the UK, the expert teams believe this ‘drill-and-blast’ method could work in this area due to the geology of the Pennines. This is because the tunnels built in Norway go through mountains with a similar rock type.

The previous model of going for direct government funding through the Department for Transport never got going after appetite for big road projects waned, according to Mr Dnes. So his team believes the project could be funded by either big pension funds or the local authorities and paid back over time through tolls on the tunnel.

Mr Dnes explained that tolls could actually work out cheaper than paying for fuel costs to go around an alternative route, particularly if the vehicle is larger, such as a HGV.

A spokesperson for Future Works said previously: “High demand for the route means that the project could pay for itself, without the need for Westminster funding.

“Scandinavian tunnels are often owned by local councils, who recover the costs through tolls. Equally, northern pension funds have hundreds of billions in investment capital that could be mobilised to build the project.

“Many options exist – public, private and partnership. Future Works was set up by infrastructure experts Michael Dnes and Alex Griffiths, with a combined expertise in more than £100bn of infrastructure projects. They aim to create a shovel-ready scheme, and to bring this through the planning system faster than the 10+ year processes that have become the norm in UK planning.

“Work could begin before the end of the decade, with the road and railway open in the mid-2030s.”

Skip To Content

LAKEVILLE, MASS. — Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. said it is strengthening its leadership team as cranberry harvest season begins.

The agricultural cooperative named Kevin Zidron chief strategy and transformation officer and Brad Hartzell chief supply chain officer. Hartzell succeeds Earl Larson, who will retire at the end of the month, the company said.

Zidron is joining the company from Nestle Health Science where he previously was vice president of business optimization and strategy. Zidron’s past leadership roles additionally include vice president of strategy and transformation roles at Vital Proteins and Kraft Heinz.

Hartzell most recently was chief operating officer of beauty and body solutions at KDC/One Development Corp., Inc., and was chief operating officer at NovaTaste prior to KDC.

“At Ocean Spray, we have an iconic brand, an extraordinary fruit, a strong cooperative foundation and talented people across our business,” saidAbigail Buckwalter, who was named president and chief executive officer of Ocean Spray earlier this year. “Our focus now is on bringing those strengths together with greater clarity, pace and discipline to accelerate growth and unlock our full potential. We have an opportunity to build on what makes Ocean Spray unique while creating the capabilities needed for our next chapter. Kevin and Brad bring the leadership and expertise to help us move faster, sharpen execution and deliver on our priorities.” 

Puzzle number 936 of The New York Times’ Strands game took a notably different turn Friday, trading the format’s usual wordplay and thematic red herrings for a grid built around basic multiplication, giving solvers a puzzle that felt more like a flashback to primary school math class than the typical vocabulary-driven Strands challenge.

Strands presents players with a six-by-eight grid of letters and asks them to find a set of words connected by a hidden theme, tracing each word in a continuous line that can bend around corners as it moves through the grid. One special word, known as the spangram, always touches two opposite sides of the board and summarizes what the rest of the puzzle’s theme words have in common. Players can also tap or drag to select letters, and non-spangram theme words remain highlighted in blue once correctly identified.

For those still working through Friday’s puzzle, the theme centers on numbers, specifically the kind produced by multiplying a whole number by itself. Every non-spangram answer in Friday’s grid is a number written out in words, and each of those numbers happens to be a perfect square. One outlet described the day’s theme hint plainly as “these are squares,” while another characterized the official in-game theme clue as “1×1, etc.” Today’s spangram itself runs 13 letters long and is positioned horizontally across the board.

SPOILER WARNING: The full solution to Friday’s Strands puzzle follows below. Stop reading now if you’d rather work through the grid on your own.

Today’s spangram answer is SQUARE NUMBER, directly naming the mathematical theme running through the rest of the puzzle. The confirmed non-spangram theme words include FOUR, NINE, TWENTY FIVE, THIRTY SIX and EIGHTY ONE, each representing a perfect square, the result of multiplying a whole number by itself: 2×2, 3×3, 5×5, 6×6 and 9×9, respectively.

Puzzle guides covering Friday’s grid described it as an unusually direct and approachable Strands puzzle compared with the format’s typical entries, since the theme rewards basic multiplication recall rather than the more associative or lateral thinking that Strands puzzles often demand. One outlet framed the puzzle as proof that the Strands format can flex into math-based themes without losing the puzzle’s underlying character, even as it noted this kind of overtly literal theme remains relatively rare for the game.

Strands, created by The New York Times as a spatial twist on the traditional word search format, continues to operate in what the newspaper has described as a beta phase, even as the game has steadily grown in popularity alongside the Times’ other daily word games. A new puzzle appears at midnight local time each day, meaning solvers in different time zones begin working through that day’s grid at staggered points relative to players elsewhere around the world.

Strategy guides accompanying Friday’s puzzle noted that players who find themselves stuck can tap any of several designated clue words to unlock the game’s built-in hint system, a feature intended to nudge solvers toward the puzzle’s theme without immediately revealing the full solution. Guides also reminded players that theme words in Strands fill the entire board without any overlap between words, meaning every letter in the grid ultimately belongs to exactly one theme word or the spangram.

Puzzle number 936 followed Thursday’s Strands puzzle, themed around locations just outside one’s front door, continuing the game’s pattern of rotating through a wide range of everyday and conceptual themes from one day to the next. Players tracking their personal performance on Friday’s puzzle can compare notes with friends and fellow solvers, given how quickly Strands has built a dedicated following since its launch, joining Wordle, Connections and the Mini Crossword among the Times’ most widely played daily word games.

With Friday’s math-themed puzzle now solved, players will have an entirely new grid and hidden theme to work through when Saturday’s edition of Strands resets at midnight local time, continuing the daily puzzle’s steady climb in popularity as one of the newspaper’s newer, but increasingly essential, word game offerings.

Ione Wells speaks to Roelf Meyer, South Africa’s new ambassador to the United States. In the 1990s, Meyer was one of the leading negotiators in the talks that helped bring apartheid to an end.

Now he takes up his new post amid a serious rupture in relations with the US President Trump has cut aid, expelled the previous South African ambassador and offered refugee status to white Afrikaners he says are fleeing persecution, claiming the community faces “genocide”.

The South African government rejects that allegation. Meyer, himself an Afrikaner, explains why he believes Trump has been given the wrong picture and how his experience negotiating the end of apartheid could help repair relations with Washington.

“The notion of a mass attack on the Afrikaner was misrepresented by those that might have conveyed the message. I mean, I’m an Afrikaner from South Africa myself. And I can say that I’ve never experienced something of that kind. We found it strange. So the source is misrepresented, unfortunately, something that just doesn’t exist,” says Meyer.

(Photo: Roelf Meyer, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, wears a navy blazer with a white shirt and light blue tie. He has short white hair. Credit: Getty Images)

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Sundar Pichai and Julia Gillard.

You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presenter: Ione Wells
Producer: Osman Iqbal
Editor: Damon Rose

Programme WebsiteShow less