Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Thousands dead

Some of the most powerful Middle East earthquakes in decades killed more than 2,500 people in Turkey and Syria while leaving millions in the cold as night fell and snow moved in. A pre-dawn earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 hit the Turkish city of Gaziantep on Monday and a second measured at 7.6 struck nearby just nine hours later, according to Turkey’s disaster response management agency. Survivors face a night without heating gas, electricity or fuel. Authorities halted flows of crude to a regional export terminal as they searched for signs of damage along a major oil pipeline. —Natasha Solo-Lyons

Economists at Goldman Sachs said the risk of a US recession is receding amid a strong job market and signs of improving business sentiment. For President Joe Biden, it’s more welcome news as he prepares for his State of the Union address Tuesday—and a planned call to quadruple the levy on corporate stock buybacks. 

The US is said to be preparing a 200% tariff on Russian-made aluminum as soon as this week to keep pressure on Moscow as the one-year anniversary of its war on Ukraine nears. Biden has yet to give the official go-ahead, as there have been concerns about collateral damage on US industries, including aerospace and automobiles. 

A “Made in Russia” tag on a bound stack of aluminum ingots in Sayanogorsk, Russia. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

Despite all the good economic news of late, most Americans expect a stock-market slump in 2023 and see inflation accelerating again, according to a Gallup poll of economic expectations. The survey, which ran from Jan. 2 to Jan. 22, showed their outlook on five economic metrics—economic growth, the stock market, unemployment, interest rates and inflation.  

Stocks gave back some of this year’s gains on Monday. Concerns run the gamut from those fearing markets flew too high last month to others who suspect the Fed, seeing recent historic employment numbers, will keep pounding away with rate hikes for longer. Here’s your markets wrap.

Dell Technologies is firing about 6,650 of its employees, saying it faces plummeting demand for personal computers. It becomes the latest technology company to announce thousands of terminations. The reduction amounts to about 5% of Dell’s global workforce. 

Advanced artificial intelligence systems are expected to eventually replace some jobs in the financial, media, legal and technology sectors, according to the latest Bloomberg MLIV Pulse survey. But nobody’s really worried about their own redundancy: More than two-thirds of the 292 respondents, predominantly in finance, say their jobs are safe.

Photographer: Bloomberg Daybreak/Getty Images

Move over crypto. Booze is back for the Super Bowl. For the first time in more than three decades, Super Bowl viewers will see ads from alcohol brands other than Anheuser-Busch. In June, the Budweiser brewer gave up its rights as the exclusive alcohol brand in the big game.

Bloomberg continues to track the global coronavirus pandemic. Click here for daily updates.

• MIT alum builds $800 million fortune making scanners to fix teeth.
• Side hustles are twice as common as US jobs data suggest, survey finds.
• The Senate is getting sidelined as House Speaker seeks to cut deals.
• That Zoom meeting really could have been a simple phone call.
• Bloomberg Opinion: How to talk to ChatGPT? Your user’s guide.
• From career cushioning to rage applying, a guide to business buzzwords.
• The 2023 Corvette Z06 is an absolute beast, but hardly a bargain.

It’s rush hour on Wall Street, and Nathan Berman is at its very center: 55 Broad, the former offices of Goldman Sachs. But like many buildings in this age of working from home (not to mention the long-ago exodus north to Park Avenue and elsewhere), this onetime hub of capitalism is largely empty. Many of Berman’s rivals would be discouraged, but he’s thrilled. Berman transforms vacant office buildings into top-of-the-line apartments. At 63, he’s the king of office conversion. 

Nathan Berman at 55 Broad Street Photographer: Alex Fradkin for Bloomberg Markets

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