News

Gelonghui March 5th｜Cybersecurity company Okta announced its fourth quarter results, with revenue increasing by more than 11% year-on-year to $761 million, surpassing analysts' expectations of $749 million; adjusted earnings per share were $0.9, higher than analysts' forecast of $0.85. During the period, subscription revenue was $747 million. Looking ahead to the first quarter, the company expects revenue to be between $749 million and $753 million, representing a year-on-year growth of about 9%, marking the first single-digit growth since its IPO in 2017. Analysts expect revenue to be $755 million; adjusted earnings per share are expected to be between $0.84 and $0.86, while analysts forecast $0.87. Although identity management is generally considered a resilient area of IT spending, Okta is facing pressure as enterprise clients postpone projects and scrutinize costs more strictly.

Golden Ten Data reported on March 5 that one of Japan's largest labor unions will demand wage increases higher than last year's levels from employers. The Bank of Japan is closely monitoring wage trends to assess the situation ahead of its policy meeting later this month. According to statistics released on Thursday, 466 unions affiliated with UA Zensen are seeking an average wage increase of 6.46% for regular employees. Last year, the union demanded a 6.11% increase, with the final agreement reached at 4.75%. UA Zensen represents about 1.9 million members, covering industries such as retail, catering, materials, and services. The organization plans to announce the first batch of wage agreement statistics on March 19. The Bank of Japan is closely watching the negotiations to see if strong wage growth will boost consumption, thereby providing signs of sustained price increases driven by demand—a key condition for its gradual policy normalization through interest rate hikes.

BlockBeats News, March 5th, according to Wall Street News, amid global market turbulence, Goldman Sachs goes against the trend and believes that the recent market pullback is a buying opportunity rather than the beginning of a long-term bear market, behind this is the firm's optimistic expectation for the "four-week recovery" of the Strait of Hormuz circulation. Goldman Sachs' strategy team, led by Peter Oppenheimer, wrote in a report on Wednesday that although risk assets are facing "significant resistance" from concerns arising from the Middle East conflict and AI disruptive impact, the resilience of economic fundamentals and strong corporate profit growth mean that the depth and duration of this pullback will be limited. Goldman's optimism about the global market is largely based on the expectation of a rapid recovery in the energy supply chain. Goldman's Chief Oil Strategist, Daan Struyven, expects that blocked oil shipments in the Strait of Hormuz will remain at the current extremely low level in the next 5 days, then recover to 70% of normal volumes within two weeks, and achieve 100% full normalization in four weeks.