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By Stephen Nellis and Harshita Mary Varghese (Reuters) -Oracle said on Thursday it expects cloud infrastructure revenue to grow to $166 billion in fiscal 2030, which would make up nearly 75% of its total sales by then. Chief Executive Officer Clay Magouyrk gave the cloud infrastructure prediction during a meeting with financial analysts, where he said new bookings were coming in from a range of customers, not just OpenAI. Dough Kehring, Oracle's chief financial officer, said the company expects $225 billion in overall revenue and adjusted profits of $21 per share by the firm's fiscal 2030. Analysts had been expecting $198.4 billion in overall sales and adjusted profits of $18.92 per share for fiscal 2030, according to LSEG data. Oracle shares closed up 3% after the cloud computing announcement, but declined about 2% in after-hours trading after the broader revenue and profit forecasts. Oracle said last month that it has racked up hundreds of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure bookings and is working with ChatGPT creator OpenAI on a $500 billion project that will include five new data centers. For the most recent quarter, Oracle reported cloud revenue jumped 28% to $7.2 billion. Magouyrk said that during a single 30-day period during the previous quarter, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, the company's cloud unit, had booked $65 billion in new commitments, which included a $20 billion deal with Meta Platforms. He said that the newest $65 billion of bookings came from customers other than OpenAI. "I know some people are questioning, 'Hey, is it just OpenAI?' The reality is, we think OpenAI is a great customer, but we have many customers," Magouyrk said. "This is literally seven deals, four customers, all of them other than OpenAI." Oracle also sought to address concerns among investors about its gross margins, which were 68.7% in its most recent quarter and which analysts predict will fall slightly in its fiscal 2027, according to LSEG estimates. Oracle said it expected to have adjusted gross margins of between 30% and 40% for delivering AI cloud computing infrastructure, while other segments such as more conventional cloud software and infrastructure for business customers would have margins of between 65% and 80%. Oracle also said that those margins would be steady over the term of a contract, showing a hypothetical example of an AI infrastructure rollout where the company would have about $6.4 billion of costs in each year of a six-year, $60 billion cloud contract. (Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Vijay Kishore, Mark Porter and Sonali Paul)

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By Noel Randewich (Reuters) -Wall Street closed lower on Thursday, with signs of weakness in regional banks spooking investors already on edge over U.S.-China trade tensions. Shares of Zions Bancorporation tumbled 13% after the regional bank disclosed an unexpected loss on two loans in its California division, adding to growing investor unease about hidden credit stress as lenders navigate economic uncertainty with interest rates still relatively high. Western Alliance slumped 10.8% after it said it initiated a fraud lawsuit against one of its borrowers. Jitters about commercial lending emerged following the September collapses of U.S. auto parts supplier First Brands and car dealership Tricolor. "I think that there's some level of minimal nervousness associated with the credit markets," said Ron Albahary, chief investment officer at LNW in Philadelphia. "If you've been doing this long enough, you don't ignore anything that might be a yellow flag in the credit markets."  With the S&P 500 recently at record highs, investors were also watching for developments between Washington and Beijing after their trade war escalated last week. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened 100% tariffs on China starting November 1, as well as other new trade measures against the world's second-largest economy following Chinese curbs on exports of rare earth minerals. "With the added uncertainty of U.S. and China trade and increased rhetoric and what that could mean for the economy and for the markets, I think that's adding to market instability," said Tom Hainlin, an investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis.  TSMC, the world's largest manufacturer of advanced semiconductors, gave a bullish outlook for spending on artificial intelligence. Still, heavyweight AI-related stocks dipped, with Palantir and Meta Platforms both off 0.8%, and Tesla losing 1.5% . Salesforce jumped 4% after the business software seller forecast revenue of more than $60 billion for 2030, above Wall Street estimates. Optimism about AI and expectations of U.S. interest rate cuts have lifted Wall Street to record highs this year. The S&P 500 has gained 12% so far in 2025, and it is valued at an elevated 23 times expected earnings, a five-year high, according to LSEG.  Robust earnings from major U.S. banks this week offered fresh signs of economic resilience at a time when official macroeconomic reports remain delayed due to an ongoing government shutdown.  Analysts on average see S&P 500 aggregate earnings up 9.2% in the third quarter, versus expectations of an 8.8% increase two weeks ago, according to LSEG I/B/E/S. The S&P 500 insurance index dropped after industry bellwether Travelers Companies posted quarterly revenue below estimates, with its stock falling nearly 3%. Insurer Marsh & McLennan reported flat operating margins and slowing growth in its risk and insurance business, and its stock dropped 8.5%. The S&P 500 declined 0.63% to end the session at 6,629.07 points.     The Nasdaq declined 0.47% to 22,562.54 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.65% to 45,952.24 points. Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes declined, led lower by financials, down 2.75%, followed by a 1.12% loss in energy. Data showed the Philadelphia Fed Business Index for October declined 12.8 points, compared with a rise of 8.5 estimated by the economists polled by Reuters. Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he supported an additional interest rate cut in October due to mixed readings on the state of the job market. Hewlett Packard Enterprise slumped 10% after the technology company forecast annual profit and revenue below Wall Street expectations. J.B. Hunt shares jumped 22% after the trucking firm reported third-quarter profits. Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones within the S&P 500 by a 2.7-to-one ratio. The S&P 500 posted 29 new highs and 16 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 113 new highs and 109 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively heavy, with 22.4 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 20.5 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions. (Reporting by Sukriti Gupta and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru, and by Noel Randewich in San Francisco. Editing by Maju Samuel and David Gregorio)

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By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week, economists at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs estimated on Thursday, but lackluster hiring has left many on unemployment rolls.    Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped to a seasonally adjusted 217,000 for the week ending October 11 from 235,000 the prior week, they calculated. A U.S. government shutdown, now in its third week due to a political standoff between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, has halted the collection, processing and publishing of official economic data. States have, however, continued to collect the claims data and submit it to the Labor Department's database, which remains accessible. Economists have been using the unadjusted claims data to make estimates using seasonal adjustment factors that the government published earlier this year. Claims data was unavailable for Arizona, Massachusetts, Nevada and Tennessee.  "Our estimates assume that initial claims for Tennessee, Massachusetts, Arizona and Nevada – which didn't appear in today's DOL data – were in line with the latest published numbers," Goldman Sachs said in a note. "We obtain a range between 211,000 and 225,000 using the lowest and highest levels for claims in these states this year." The Labor Department follows a similar practice to make estimates for states that are unable to provide data on time. "The latest jobless claims look quite decent, and suggest layoffs remain low with movement in the unemployment rate," said Abiel Reinhart, an economist at JPMorgan.  Claims data have become a key for Federal Reserve officials trying to assess the health of the labor market ahead of their October 28-29 policy meeting. BOTH LAYOFFS AND HIRING REMAIN LOW Fed Chair Jerome Powell said this week "available evidence suggests that both layoffs and hiring remain low, and that both households' perceptions of job availability and firms' perceptions of hiring difficulty continue their downward trajectories." Unemployment claims have remained within their pre-government shutdown range. They have not shown large spikes, despite the shutdown pushing thousands of federal contractors out of work.  Federal workers, hundreds of thousands of whom have been furloughed, file for claims under a separate program. Data for the program was not immediately available.  The labor market remains stuck in a "no hire" and "no fire" state, economists say. The U.S. central bank's Beige Book report on Wednesday described demand for labor as "generally muted" in recent weeks.     A Bank of America Institute survey on Thursday found signs of a slowdown in the small business labor market. Its alternative hiring indicator based on Bank of America small business payments data decreased in September. It also noted business applications with planned wages, viewed as a signal of real job creation, have dropped below pre-pandemic norms.   Small businesses have been the main driver of job growth. Economists say President Donald Trump's trade and immigration policies, and the growing popularity of artificial intelligence have cut demand for workers and labor supply. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, was unchanged at a seasonally adjusted 1.927 million during the week ending October 4, JPMorgan estimated. Goldman Sachs put its estimate of these so-called continuing claims at 1.917 million.  The unemployment rate increased to nearly a four-year high of 4.3% in August, and the elevated continuing claims suggest no improvement. (Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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By Doyinsola Oladipo NEW YORK (Reuters) -Spirit Airlines on Thursday said it will furlough 365 pilots and downgrade the status of up to 170 pilots in the first quarter of 2026 as it makes larger cuts to its workforce as part of its restructuring efforts. After filing for bankruptcy in August for the second time in a year, the ultra-low-cost airline told the union representing its pilots that it wants to cut $100 million in annual spending on pilots to conserve cash. "As part of our ongoing restructuring, we are taking additional steps to align staffing across our organization with our previously announced capacity reduction and smaller operating fleet size," the company said in a statement.  With voluntary attrition, the estimated furloughs are likely to decrease over the next several weeks, Spirit COO John Bendoraitis told employees in a memo seen by Reuters. The company will open the bid at the end of November.     Spirit said it currently has about 2,400 pilots. The airline previously furloughed about 330 pilots and plans to furlough another 270 in November. It has also decided to furlough approximately 1,800 flight attendants, about one-third of its cabin crew, effective December 1. The Florida-based airline said there will also be reductions across its corporate teams and it plans to make volume-based staffing adjustments across its maintenance stations. The carrier will close its maintenance stations and warehouse operations in Baltimore and Chicago effective January 1, 2026. Spirit said in a filing that the furloughs are expected to save the company $211 million. Spirit estimated it would incur losses of $804 million in 2025. It said its transformation plan to return to profitability in 2027 requires it to reduce its network in 2026.  (Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo in New York and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; editing by Diane Craft, Deepa Babington and David Gregorio)

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(Reuters) -Meta Platforms was set to seal an almost $30 billion finance package for its data center site in rural Louisiana, which would be the largest private capital deal on record, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. Large-scale cloud service providers, called hyperscalers, have been racing to build AI infrastructure, with most of the investment going towards powering data centers. Meta and alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital will split ownership of the Hyperion data center site in Richland Parish, Louisiana, with the social media giant retaining just 20%, Bloomberg said, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Morgan Stanley arranged more than $27 billion debt and about $2.5 billion equity into a special purpose vehicle to finance the build-out, according to the report. Meta is not borrowing the capital itself, but the financing entity is, under the SPV structure, Bloomberg News reported. Meta will be the developer, operator and tenant of the project, to be completed in 2029. The social media giant has tapped U.S. bond company PIMCO and Blue Owl Capital to spearhead $29 billion in financing for the data center expansion, Reuters reported in August. The parties took the final step to price the bonds — in the 144A format — with PIMCO as the anchor lender on October 16, according to Bloomberg News. A few other investors are receiving some allocations of the debt, which matures in 2049, the report said. Meta, Blue Owl and Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Meta said on Wednesday it would invest $1.5 billion in a data center in El Paso, Texas, breaking ground at its 29th such facility globally as it expands infrastructure to support AI workloads. (Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City)

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By Manya Saini, Arasu Kannagi Basil and Ateev Bhandari (Reuters) -U.S. bank stocks, including Zions Bancorporation, Jefferies, and Western Alliance, fell sharply on Thursday as investors grew uneasy about risk in the sector, which has been shaken by exposure to two auto bankruptcies. Zions sank 12% after disclosing it would take a $50 million loss in the third quarter on two commercial and industrial loans from its California division. Western Alliance's stock slumped almost 11% after the bank separately disclosed it had initiated a lawsuit alleging fraud by Cantor Group V, LLC.  Investment bank Jefferies, which held an investor day on Thursday, plunged 9%. The firm has disclosed exposure to bankrupt auto parts maker First Brands, and its stock has fallen by more than one-fifth since First Brands' bankruptcy announcement. "It shows you can't take credit quality for granted, and poor performing credit quality at one bank can drag down the group quite fast," said Stephen Biggar, a banking analyst at Argus Research. JEFFERIES LEFT 'QUESTIONS UNANSWERED' Jefferies' investor day was closed to the press. Morgan Stanley analyst Ryan Kenny said in a note that Jefferies' investor day was positive on the core business, "but left some questions unanswered on what exactly went wrong with First Brands and whether or not JEF could have mitigated risk in advance."  Jefferies did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Zions did not respond to a request for comment.  "It appears that investors are electing to sell first and ask questions later regarding Jefferies, a selloff that soon threatens to be overdone," said Sean Dunlop, bank analyst at Morningstar Research, in a note The situations shook the broader market, with the regional banking index dropping 5.8% and the S&P 500 losing nearly 1%. Wall Street analysts drew parallels from Zions' disclosure with the collapse of auto parts maker First Brands, which exposed gaps in lenders' oversight and raised questions about credit market transparency. Brokerages pointed to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's comments this week about anxiety in the credit market following the bankruptcies of First Brands and subprime lender Tricolor.  As major global lenders file unsecured claims, the issue has become a key test of transparency and management in the rapidly expanding private credit market. JPMorgan wrote off $170 million in the third quarter related to the Tricolor bankruptcy and said it was reviewing its controls. "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more, and so everyone should be forewarned," Dimon said. The banks' selloff comes more than two years after Silicon Valley Bank's 2023 failure, when high interest rates drove paper losses on its bonds, sparking a fatal deposit run that felled Signature Bank days later. FIRST BRANDS, TRICOLOR PUT SPOTLIGHT ON RISK CONTROLS  The bankruptcies of First Brands and Tricolor have put a spotlight on the risk controls of banks and the opaque credit market, where complex loans and new facilities have made it harder to gauge participants' exposure. Zions said it expects to recognize the charges in the third quarter and has filed a lawsuit in California to recover the loans. Western's disclosure said it had alleged the defendants breached a business loan and security agreement by forging title policies related to the lien – a legal claim – on properties underlying several loans. The August court filing showed Cantor was a company that did business in California's Los Angeles County. Western will provide context about its diversified business model and "strong credit structures" when it announces quarterly results on October 21, the bank said in an email. Attorneys for Cantor denied the allegations made by Western Alliance. "These claims are unfounded and misrepresent the facts. We are confident that once all the evidence is presented, our clients will be fully vindicated," Brandon Tran, senior counsel at Dhillon Law Group, said in an email. Western has sought to reassure investors, saying its total criticized assets — credit identified as weak — were lower than on June 30. Some analysts still see the collapses as idiosyncratic and tied to individual borrowers, rather than systemic. But the cases are fueling unease. "In times of loose credit, you are going to have more instances of fraud," said Mike Mayo, banking analyst at Wells Fargo. "Right now, credit in general is fine, but there's a heightened need to watch the recent issues." (Reporting by Manya Saini, Arasu Kannagi Basil and Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru and Saeed Azhar and Anirban Sen in New York; Editing by Lananh Nguyen, Megan Davies, Rod Nickel)

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(Corrects paragraph 5 to specify that Citi declined to comment while CFPB did not respond) WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The top U.S. consumer finance watchdog agency on Thursday terminated a 2023 enforcement case against Citigroup's lending arm Citibank that had penalized the banking giant for alleged discrimination against Armenian Americans in California. Citibank in 2023 agreed to pay nearly $26 million in fines and consumer redress to resolve allegations that it had intentionally discriminated against credit card applicants based on their last names and then illegally fabricated records to cover this up. At the time, Citigroup apologized, saying a "small number" of employees had circumvented protocols when trying to thwart an Armenian fraud ring and that those involved had been disciplined. In an order posted Thursday to the CFPB's website, acting Director Russell Vought said the CFPB had terminated the consent order, noting that the bank had paid the settlement costs and taken steps to prevent future violations. Representatives for Citigroup declined to comment. The CFPB did not respond to an email seeking comment. Vought, who is also President Donald Trump's budget director and has overseen efforts to slash the federal workforce, said Wednesday he expected to shut the CFPB down within months. The original 2023 consent order was due to remain in force for another three years and contained provisions requiring the bank to supply the CFPB with compliance records on request and make employees and others available to investigators if necessary. Since Trump took control of the CFPB in February, the agency has sought to undo several already-resolved enforcement actions, including cases against Toyota Motor Credit, Bank of America, Apple and US Bank. It has also dropped pending cases en masse. (Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

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By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. budget deficit shrank by $41 billion to $1.775 trillion in the 2025 fiscal year as an increase in revenue from President Donald Trump's tariffs and cuts to education spending helped offset higher outlays on healthcare and retirement programs and interest on the debt, the Treasury Department said on Thursday. The results for the year ended September 30, which include nearly nine months of Trump's second term in the White House, compared to a $1.817 trillion deficit in fiscal 2024. It was the first time the annual deficit had fallen since 2022, when the unwinding of COVID-19 relief programs brought spending down. The smaller deficit was aided by a record $195 billion in net customs receipts for the fiscal year, an increase of $118 billion from the prior year as new Trump tariffs rolled in. Customs receipts in September reached a new record high of $29.7 billion, but the pace of increase slowed from August, when $29.5 billion was collected. Customs receipts were $7.3 billion in September 2024. But this powerful new revenue source was partly offset by a $79 billion reduction in gross corporate tax collections for fiscal 2025, to $486 billion. About $45 billion of that reduction occurred in September, reflecting implementation of full capital equipment expensing and research deductions made retroactive to January 1 in the spending and tax-cut bill passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in July. Total receipts for fiscal 2025 were a record $5.235 trillion, up $317 billion, or 6%, from fiscal 2024, largely driven by increases in withheld and non-withheld individual tax collections. Fiscal 2025 outlays also were a record at $7.01 trillion, up $275 billion, or 4%, from the prior year. A U.S. Treasury official said the department calculated an estimated deficit-to-GDP ratio of 5.9% for fiscal 2025, compared to an actual fiscal 2024 ratio of 6.3%. The official declined to say what GDP estimate was used to calculate the ratio. Data on third-quarter GDP, which would be close out the 2025 fiscal year, has been delayed by the partial U.S. government shutdown.  U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday that he wants to bring the ratio down to the 3% range by boosting economic growth and cutting or constraining spending. Budget analysts said the number released on Thursday showed little progress toward that goal. "Most of the fiscal policy changes are simply replacing tax revenue and spending with other sources without lowering the deficit," said Kent Smetters, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis group. "So, we are still very much on an unsustainable path." TREASURY REPORTS SURPLUS FOR SEPTEMBER For the 2025 fiscal year's final month of September, the Treasury reported a record surplus of $198 billion, up $118 billion, or 147%, from the same month in the prior year. September is often a month of surplus due to quarterly tax filing deadlines for companies and individuals. Receipts last month were up $17 billion, or 3%, to $544 billion, while outlays were down $101 billion, or 23%, to $346 billion. The latest monthly surplus was boosted by a $131 billion cut to the Department of Education budget that was mandated in the recent spending and tax bill. For September, the education outlays were $123 billion lower than in September 2024. For the full 2025 fiscal year, the Department of Education suffered the biggest cut in outlays, down $233 billion, or 87% from the prior year to just $35 billion. That cut and the higher customs receipts masked continued increases in outlays for the Social Security retirement plan, the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs and interest on the U.S. federal debt. The interest expenditure reached a record $1.216 trillion for the full fiscal year, up $83 billion, or 7%, from fiscal 2024, making it the second-largest expenditure item after Social Security. Expenses for that program reached $1.647 trillion, up $127 billion, or 8%, from the prior fiscal year. "There's good news that the tariffs are generating higher revenue, but all major categories of spending are higher with mandatory spending and interest significantly so. The fundamentals remain deeply troubling," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Paul Simao)

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By Tom Polansek, Trevor Hunnicutt and Costas Pitas WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that his administration was working to lower the price of beef in the country. "We are working on beef, and I think we have a deal on beef," Trump told reporters at the White House. The price of beef is "higher than we want it, and that's going to be coming down pretty soon too. We did something," Trump added, without elaborating. Beef prices have climbed to record highs after cattle ranchers slashed their herds due to a yearslong drought in the western United States that dried up lands used for grazing and raised feeding costs. By the beginning of the year, the herd had dwindled to 86.7 million cattle, the smallest number for the time period since 1951, according to U.S. government data. The Meat Institute, which represents meatpacking companies, said it needed to learn more about Trump's plans to lower prices. The administration of former President Joe Biden blamed meatpacking companies for rising food costs. Last week, processors Tyson Foods and Cargill agreed to pay a combined $87.5 million to settle a federal lawsuit brought by consumers who accused the companies of conspiring to inflate beef prices by restricting supply. The companies have denied wrongdoing. Meatpackers such as Tyson have lost money in their beef businesses as tight cattle supplies force them to pay more to buy animals to slaughter. Supplies tightened further this year after the U.S. Department of Agriculture halted imports of Mexican livestock to keep out a damaging pest spreading in Mexico. Mexican cattle were formerly imported to be fattened in U.S. feedlots and slaughtered in U.S. processing plants. Tariffs that Trump imposed on Brazilian goods have also slowed U.S. imports of Brazilian beef that was mixed with U.S. supplies to make hamburger meat. Recently, some U.S. ranchers have begun taking initial steps to start rebuilding the herd. However, it takes about two years before beef output rises after they make the first moves to expand because that is how long it takes to raise full-grown cattle, ranchers said. Last month, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the USDA in mid-October would provide details on a plan to revitalize the decimated herd that would not include payments to producers. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Costas Pitas and Tom Polansek; Writing by Ismail Shakil, Editing by Franklin Paul and Diane Craft)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said on Thursday the largest U.S. lender was looking at banks in Europe and Latin America, without giving further details, but a spokesperson later said the comments were in jest. Dimon made the comments in response to economic commentary from Banco Santander Executive Chair Ana Botín as she laid out growth prospects in both regions at a financial conference in Washington. "We are looking at all the banks over there (in Europe) … we are looking at Latin American banks too," Dimon said, without specifying if he meant for acquisitions. A JPMorgan spokesperson said later that Dimon was joking. Earlier this year, JPMorgan said it would launch its Chase digital retail bank in Germany in the second quarter of 2026. Germany will become Chase's second European market after its launch in Britain in 2021. (Reporting by Nupur Anand in New York, editing by Lananh Nguyen and Rod Nickel)

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