FirstFT: Apple beats expectations

Good morning. Apple’s shares are rising in pre-market trading, even though the iPhone maker reported lower revenues for the first quarter of the year and a 10 per cent drop in the sales of its flagship phone.

However, the fall in revenues for the first three months of the year to $90.75bn beat analysts’ expectations and Apple predicted a more positive outlook following a bumpy start to the year. It also announced a bigger than expected $110bn share buyback and a 4 per cent rise in its quarterly dividend.

Chief executive Tim Cook was bullish about the use of generative artificial intelligence in its products and promised more details “in the weeks ahead”.

Sales in China were down year on year, Cook said, but had accelerated compared with the previous quarter, driven by the iPhone.

Apple shares, which had fallen 7 per cent between the start of the year and yesterday’s results announcement, gained almost 8 per cent in after-hours trading.

And here’s what I’m keeping tabs on today and over the weekend:

• Economic data: The government releases monthly employment statistics for April and we also get services sector data for last month.

• Companies: Hershey, TC Energy, CBRE Group, and XPO are expected to report earnings before the bell. Berkshire Hathaway holds its annual meeting tomorrow. The third part of our Berkshire after Buffett series is on the prized energy business, which began with a little noticed deal in 1999.

• Panama: Barred from the ballot and avoiding arrest on a money laundering conviction in the Nicaraguan embassy, popular former president Ricardo Martinelli has backed José Raúl Mulino, the favourite to win Sunday’s election.

Join Nancy Pelosi, Jake Sullivan, actor Bradley Whitford and holistic health practitioner Eileen Moran at the FT Weekend Festival tomorrow in Washington DC. FirstFT readers can claim a 10% discount if you register here for the full programme of speakers and events go here.

How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.

Five more top stories

1. Sony and private equity group Apollo have told Paramount Global they intend to make a $26bn cash offer for the entertainment company. While Sony and Apollo are providing all of the equity financing to the bid, Legendary Entertainment, an existing Apollo investment that recently released the blockbuster Dune: Part Two, would also form part of the takeover effort, people familiar with the bid said.

2. Turkey has halted trade with Israel as it again accused the country of stoking a “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza. Ankara in April sanctioned exports in 54 important categories of goods but this latest move will disrupt bilateral trade worth more than $7bn a year. Israel Katz, Israeli foreign minister, said “this is how a dictator behaves”, referring to Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Read more on the deepening tensions between Israel and Turkey.

• More on the Israel-Hamas war: The leader of the militant group Hamas said it will send negotiators back to Cairo “as soon as possible” to resume talks to secure the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and secure a ceasefire.

3. Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives were trounced by the opposition Labour party in a parliamentary by-election and faced huge losses in local elections across England and Wales. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his party’s victory in the Blackpool by-election, secured with a 26 per cent swing, was “seismic”. The elections were the last big electoral test before an expected general election later this year. Here are the five main takeaways from a terrible night for the ruling Conservative party.

4. Exclusive: South Africa’s antitrust regulator has warned it will have the last word on BHP’s bid for Anglo American. After UK-listed Anglo last week rejected a £31bn approach, BHP sent a team led by chief executive Mike Henry on a charm offensive to South Africa, where Anglo was founded in 1917 and still operates iron ore, platinum, diamond and manganese mines. Read the full story here.

5. Joe Biden denounced the violence associated with pro-Palestinian protests on elite campuses across the US. In his first public comments since police stormed university encampments set up by protesters from New York to Los Angeles, the president said he supported efforts by law enforcement to restore order and warned demonstrators that “acts of chaos” should not be permitted.

The Big Read

At the recent gathering of G20 finance ministers in Brazil, delegates were gripped by a deep sense of unease over a pressing issue: whether hundreds of billions of euros in frozen Russian assets should be used to fund Ukraine. Doing so would deliver a financial boost with the potential to turn the war in Kyiv’s favour, argue those in support, led by the US. But critics say it sets a dangerous precedent — one that could endanger the interests of any country that falls out with the west and the international legal order itself.

We’re also reading . . . 

• TikTok and Tesla: It is naive to expect consistency in the policy positions of Washington or Beijing, writes John Thornhill. Naked self-interest is normally a better guide to any nation’s actions.

• US election: Why are opinion polls painting such divergent pictures of young people’s support for Biden and Donald Trump? John Burn-Murdoch explains.

• Women and work: The ability to work remotely could help close the gender pay gap and allow women to be more productive, writes Soumaya Keynes.

Chart of the day

Cattle prices have tumbled this week as the US government steps up measures to contain the spread of a bird flu outbreak among the country’s cow herd. Highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, has been found in dairy herds across nine states, including Texas, where one dairy worker has also tested positive for the virus.

Take a break from the news

Yinka Ilori is a British artist and designer who moved from his native Nigeria to London with his parents in the 1980s. “Everyone has the innate power to dream. Dreams are infinite. No matter where life takes you, they lie with you forever,” he writes for a special edition of HTSI which he is guest editing.

Additional contributions by Tee Zhuo and Benjamin Wilhelm