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AMAZON MAPS CAMPAIGN TO CONQUER BRICK-AND-MORTAR RETAIL On 18 January, Amazon unveiled the newest iteration of its Go stores: a “multimission” convenience store suitable for the suburbs, with upscale food, possibly with wines and craft beers, and lounges with workstations and USB ports. Customers will need an Amazon app on their phones to enter the...

LITHIUM PRICES SOAR ON CHINA’S EV BOOM Lithium prices in China have risen fivefold in the past 12 months on the strength of the country’s electric vehicle boom, Bloomberg reported. The price in China of lithium carbonate, the active ingredient in EV batteries, notched a new record on 17 January, according to data from Asian...

The Turkish lira lost about 44 percent of its value against the dollar last year but recently has stabilized after the government unveiled a new savings scheme and the central bank flooded the economy with cash. Under the savings program, the government guarantees to make up any loss to savings accounts’ value due to inflation...

Chile’s central bank raised its overnight interest rate by 1.5 percentage points to 5.5 percent, surprising analysts’ expectations of no more than a 1.25-percent bump. In its December meeting, the bank had indicated that rate increases would be no more than 1.25 percentage points at a time. It was the bank’s biggest rate hike since...

The prospect of imminent higher interest rates has spun the world’s junk bond markets into turmoil, with overborrowed companies facing higher costs to refinance debt and other businesses seeking new financing seeing their prospects dim. In the U.S., new sales of high-yield or “junk” bonds have fallen 45 percent, year over year, Bloomberg reported; in...

France’s GDP expanded by 7 percent last year, topping pre-COVID output as consumer spending drove the economy’s best annual growth in 52 years. In December, the economy grew 0.7 percent above November’s level. “There are still some sectors having trouble, like tourism and hotels, but most are recovering very strongly and that’s creating jobs,” finance...