Asian equity slide, Amazon desktop delivery and sexism in Silicon Valley

An equity sell-off swept across Asia after the S&P 500 index fell overnight on indications the US Federal Reserve is on course to raise short-term interest rates this year. Sam Fleming parsedthe Fed statement to see what to expect out of the next meetings. (FT)

In the news:

Samsung mobile revenues sink

Earnings contracted sharply in the final quarter of 2014. Mobile revenue was down 23 per cent year-on-year, while overall sales dropped 11 per cent to $48.5bn. Qualcomm yesterday cut its outlook for the year because iPhone sales have hit Samsung and other smartphone makers that use its chips. (FT)

McDonald’s flipped its chief

Steve Easterbrook, a veteran of UK high street restaurant chains, will replace Don Thompson, who leaves after a rocky three years and the first annual drop in same-store sales in a dozen years. Easterbrook is a former accountant and spent 18 years at McDonald’s before leaving to run PizzaExpress and then noodle chain Wagamama. (FT)

Facebook results: Like

The userbase on the world’s largest social network overtook the population of China and advertisers flocked to spend money on its digital marketing. But while it beat expectations in its fourth quarter, Facebook’s costs and expenses also rose 87 per cent year on year. (FT)

Amazon’s corporate email service

The company’s latest expansion means it will be delivering to desktops. It hopes to entice office workers to its WorkMail with its promise of stronger encryption services and more control over where data are stored. (WSJ$)

It’s a big day for:

Isis hostages

Jordan and Japan must prepare a prisoner for exchange by sunset today on the Turkish border or the group will kill Muath al-Kasaesbeh, a Jordanian pilot captured last month. The demand was delivered by Japanese hostage Kenji Goto in a recording released online. (FT)

Corporate earnings

Results are coming in from Amazon, Ford Motor, Google, Royal Dutch Shell and Time Warner Cable among others. Head over to FastFT to see the reports as they come.

Deutsche Bank

The Deutsche Bank reports fourth-quarter results today. Investors will be keeping an eye on the retail banking unit, which is expected to miss its revenue target and Deutsche Bank is reported to be considering selling or floating its Postbank retail subsidiary. (WSJ$)

Diageo

The world’s biggest distiller has been struggling with problems in key emerging markets but analysts reckon it’s fortunes are on the turn. Sales are expected to have improved in the three months to December after a 1.7 per cent drop in the previous quarter. (FT)

Food for thought:

Societe Generale and Goldman Sachs are among several banks discussing a plan to back Aztec Money, an emerging peer-to-peer financing platform. (FT)

Afghanistan and the get-out plan

Leaving with 13 years of equipment became one of the most difficult operations the US military had taken and is estimated to have cost some $28bn . It had built up more than 500 bases – some resembling small American cities with cinemas and beauty parlours. (Fast Company)

Sexism in Silicon Valley

Newsweek speaks to women trying to break the glass ceiling and change culture in the tech centre: “The young women don’t seem to understand the reason why they get their calls returned so easily and get small amounts of funding is they are dealing with hungry men.”

The beauty of maths problems

Yitang Zhang worked as a book-keeper for a Subway franchise when he was unable to get an academic position. Now the calculus teacher is a MacArthur Genius – he solved a problem that had been open for more than 150 years with aproof of “renaissance beauty“. (New Yorker)

If Apple were a country it would have grown more rapidly than the world economy over the past few years and would make up one one-thousandth of global output.(FT)

Video of the day:

Linguistic limits

Ravi Mattu, the FT’s technology editor, finds out how well Google’s recently upgraded Translate app works and how far technology has come in catching up with human thought and speech. (FT)

This article is published in collaboration with The Financial Times. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: FirstFT is the Financial Times’ editors curated free daily email of the top global stories from the FT and the best of the rest of the web.

Image: A worker arrives at his office in the Canary Wharf business district. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh.