• Citigroup said it has already recorded about $800 million in severance expenses in the first half of the year and may add further severance charges in the second half as it works toward cutting 20,000 jobs by year end.
• Management indicated the cost-cutting and restructuring are intended to free up funds for about $5 billion of spending through 2028 on marketing, targeted hiring and branch refreshes. This is expected to weigh on full year return on tangible common equity compared with the second quarter.
• Citigroup shares trade at $131.71, with the stock still up 11.0% year to date despite recent pressure.

The read-through is that Citigroup is in the middle of a large and costly overhaul, and the risk for investors is that near-term profitability is hit by severance and investment spending before any efficiency benefits show up in the reported metrics.

• Meta Platforms is in early talks with AI startup Anthropic about a potential agreement worth up to US$10 billion over two years to lease Meta’s computing power and data center capacity, with no guarantee yet that a deal will be finalized.
• Such an arrangement would turn Meta’s heavy AI and data center spending into a direct revenue stream from an enterprise customer, adding a possible second leg to its business model alongside advertising if the talks progress.
• Meta’s share price is US$646.01, with the stock down 2.8% over the past day, even as the company and its peers continue to face questions about the scale of AI infrastructure spending.

If a deal with Anthropic proceeds, investors would gain a clearer view of how Meta’s AI buildout could support future cash generation and potentially influence capital allocation priorities.