Tag: feb 8 2022

RETAIL PRICES RISING MORE QUICKLY Retailers, both online and in physical spaces, are updating prices often, sometimes more than once a day, in responses to price hikes triggered by product shortages and shipping difficulties, The Wall Street Journal reported. Quicklizard, which makes software that helps retailers automate pricing strategies, reported that about a third of...

FRONTIER, SPIRIT AIRLINES AGREE TO $6.6-BILLION MERGER  The U.S.’s two largest discount airlines have agreed to merge to create the country’s fifth-largest air passenger carrier. The merger will “create America’s most competitive ultra-low fare airline,” the companies said in a statement, and help make the new entity a stronger player in the post-COVID air travel...

On 2 February, Brazil’s central bank lifted its overnight interest rate by 1.5 percentage points, the third recent increase of that size, raising it to 10.75 percent as the bank struggles to contain an inflation rate that rose to 10.2  percent last month. The bank has raised the rate by 8.75 percent points in the...

Foreign investors rid themselves of $4.5 billion worth of Indian stocks in January, the largest flight since the COVID War began, reversing gains that the flagship Sensex index had made in the early days of this year. “The Ukraine crisis and impending Federal Reserve rate hikes have made more opportunistic global investors nervous, triggering a...

On 3 February, shortly after the European Central Bank announced it would not raise rates yet, the Europe-wide Stoxx 600 equities index dipped 0.5 percent below its recent narrow trading range, what traders call a “flatline.” Tech stocks pushed the market down, losing 1.8 percent, while telecom stocks rose 0.7 percent. Prices slumped partly on...

The Bank of England’s (BOE’s) monetary policy committee added another quarter of a percentage point to its prime rate, boosting it to 0.5 percent as the bank predicted the nation’s inflation rate will climb to 7.25 percent in April. Four of the committee’s nine members pressed for a half-percent hike, which would have been the...

Inflation in Turkey reached an annual rate of 48.7 percent in January, speeding past December’s pace of 36.1 percent, according to the government’s statistics agency, and notching the worst mark since 2002. Electricity, food, and gas costs were key drivers of price increases, meaning that inflation is hitting the poor the hardest. Independent economists gathered...

While the U.S. has been ending its military and political entanglement in Iraq, China has quietly been extending its influence there by funding $10.5 billion in new construction projects in 2021. The initiative is part of China’s strong shift of attention to the Middle East even as it pares back investments in other parts of...

Canada’s economy erased 200,000 jobs in January, almost double the 110,000 economists had forecast, due to far-reaching restrictions on movement and business in the midst of the Omicron surge. Unemployment rose from 6 percent to 6.5 last month, its first tick up in nine months, according to Statistics Canada. Total hours worked had returned to...