Economy
Economy
Apple airlifted 600 tons of iPhones from India to US in three days during the final week of March to avoid the Trump administration's announced tariffs, the company is analyzing how different tariff structures across manufacturing locations affect the supply chain
Arla Foods and DMK Group announce intention to merge under the Arla name to create the strongest dairy cooperative in Europe with more than 12,000 farmers and a combined pro forma revenue of EUR 19 billion, Arla Foods CEO Peder Tuborgh comments that the joint market presence ensures stable food production in Europe, the merger is subject to approval from the Board of Representatives in the cooperatives as well as regulatory approval
Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan leaves the company effective immediately, 74-year-old Håkan Samuelsson who served as CEO of the company between 2012 and 2022 will serve a two-year term while the group prepares to appoint a long-term successor, the move follows a statement from the company that 2025 will be a tumultuous and competitive year during which it might struggle to match its 2024 sales performance and profitability
Elon Musk says xAI merges with X in a transaction that values the AI company at USD 80 billion and the social media company at USD 33 billion, says the merger will unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach
Cryptocurrency industry leaders meet with Donald Trump in the White House after Thursday's executive order creating a strategic reserve of cryptocurrency for the US following his vision of making the country the crypto capital of the world, Trump comments that there are high-IQ individuals around the table and that they feel like pioneers
European defence stocks soar during Monday, British BAE Systems rose 15%, German Rheinmetall 14% and French Thales as well as Italian Leonardo gained 16%, shares in aerospace companies with significant defence revenues such as Airbus and Safran also rose while Rolls-Royce gained 4% to a record high
Argentina's annual inflation rate falls from record high 211.4% in 2023 to 117.8% in 2024 due to President Javier Milei's austerity program, December marked the third consecutive month with less than 3% inflation, Argentina's Economy Ministry posts that they pulverized inflation in just 12 months
European wind power stocks fall after Donald Trump states that his administration will not build windmills as it's the most expensive energy there is and that it litters the country as they are rusting and rotting, wind farm developers such as Orsted and RWE as well as turbine makers such as Siemens Energy and Vestas close lower
Indonesia admitted as full BRICS member, was endorsed by BRICS leaders in 2023 but opted to wait for the elected government in 2024 to make the decision, the Brazilian government says that Indonesia with the largest population and economy in Southeast Asia will contribute positively to deepening South-South cooperation, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates joined the alliance in 2024 while Saudia Arabia was invited but so far has opted out
The EU car industry needs sharp increase in electric vehicle sales to avoid threat of EUR 15 billion fines, must sell 20% electric cars to avoid penalties according to regulations that came into force on 1 January 2025, sold 13% EVs in 2024 down from 23% in 2023
Turkish defense giant Baykar with 60% of the global UAV export market acquires Italy's aviation giant Piaggio Aerospace which was established in 1884, Italy's Minister for Business and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso says the sale gives the strategic asset a future with a long-term production perspective, Turkey's Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır comments that the collaboration strengthens the bonds of friendship and economic relations between the countries
Qatar threatens to halt LNG deliveries to the EU if the new Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive is incorporated, Energy Minister Saad Al Kaabi says the threat of being fined 5% of the global turnover is enough to not deliver to Europe, energy expert Mamdouh Salameh says the EU is hellbent on harming its economy because of its militant adherence to climate change goals
World coal use projected to reach new record levels during 2024 according to the International Energy Agency, China alone uses more than half the world's coal and is expected to reach a record 4.9 billion tonnes, emerging economies such as India and Indonesia also contribute to the increase which offsets decreases in the EU and the US
US federal appeals court blocks Nasdaq's 2021 boardroom diversity rules as the Securities and Exchange Commission did not have the authority to approve them, the rules required companies to yearly report the diversity of their corporate directors and explain if there was not at least one woman, person of color or LGBTQ member on their boards, Nasdaq comments that they maintain that the rule simplified and standardized disclosure requirements to the benefit of both corporates and investors
Argentina eliminates its fiscal deficit for the first time in 123 years thanks to President Javier Milei's aggressive economic reforms and austerity measures where among other things several government agencies were dissolved, inflation rate at 4-year low 2.4% in November
Unions threaten Volkswagen with continued strikes in 2025 if a deal is not done, 100,000 employees across Germany stopped work for two hours during Monday and 38,000 employees demonstrated in front of the headquarters in Wolfsburg – the company wants to save EUR 10 billion by closing German plants, slashing thousands of jobs and cutting pay by 10%
China bans US exports of gallium, germanium, antimony among other key high-tech materials with potential military applications in response to Washington's expanded list of Chinese companies subject to computer chip export controls, Beijing's Foreign Ministry comments that they lodge stern protests regarding the malicious suppression of China's technological progress and firmly opposes the illegal unilateral sanctions
Thousands of Volkswagen workers went on strike Monday, want a pay hike while the company plans mass layoffs and closing factories, Mercedes, Continental, Bosch, Ford, ZF and Schaeffler Group among other auto-industry companies planning large workforce reductions and cost-cutting
Google starts cooperating with the small modular nuclear reactor developer Kairos Power and says that the first reactor will be online in 2030, Microsoft and Amazon have also recently invested in nuclear power and OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman is already an investor in the nuclear power company Oklo
Japan's Nikkei stock market falls 12.4 percent on Monday, which is the biggest fall in 37 years, and rises 10.2 percent on Tuesday, July 31 Bank of Japan raised interest rates and on Friday US jobs data came in worse than expected
Nvidia becomes the world's most valuable company with a market capitalization of more than 3.3 trillion dollars when it surpasses Microsoft earlier this week, the company has around 80 percent market share of the chips used for the development of artificial intelligence
EU imposes additional tariffs of up to 38.1% on Chinese electric vehicles from July, the move follows a nine-month investigation finding that unfair Chinese battery electric vehicles subsidies threaten EU industry, the EU braces for trade war with Beijing but argues that Chinese manufacturers can easily absorb the increased levies
Saudi Arabia decides not to extend its 50-year agreement with the US on economic and military cooperation which means that the Arab nation can now sell oil in a currency other than the dollar
The world's largest federation of worker-owned cooperatives, Mondragon Corporation, in the Basque Country of Spain, sees itself not as an alternative to capitalism but as an alternative approach, one of the 70,000 members, Mr. Montalvo, says no one is rich there but no one is poor either and Hugo Montalvo thinks he could earn more from a regular multinational company but doesn't want to trade away his middle-class status or the small village where he is raising his children
Central bank of Zimbabwe launches the new currency Zimbabwean Gold, ZiG, said to be backed by USD 100 million in foreign currency reserves as well as 2,522 tonnes of gold, according to the head of the central bank the currency is being launched because of the instability of the Zimbabwean dollar exchange rate and the inflation and he says there is a need to restore trust
Donald Trump's media company Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns the social media platform TRUTH Social and went public on March 26 this year, reports a 2023 loss of USD 58 million and its stock is down as much as 26 percent on Monday, the IPO added nearly USD 4 billion to the former president's fortune
US production of oil in 2023 highest ever for a country for the sixth year in a row, according to a report by The Energy Information Administration, despite the fact that Joe Biden, as part of trying to accomplish his campaign promise to eliminate fossil fuels has signed 200 executive orders in regards to that
Sam Bankman-Fried is sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the fall of the crypto exchange FTX and the company Alameda Research in which clients lost deposits of 8 to 11 billion USD, lawyer Mark Mukasey said, among other things, that his client does not make decisions with malice in his heart but that he makes them with math in his head
American hamburger chain Wendy's will in 2025 start experimenting with changing prices daily based on demand, as all restaurants are planned to have digital menus by then
Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman for violating the company's founding agreement to prioritize humanity over profit, the lawsuit says the company has turned into a de facto closed-source subsidiary of Microsoft, Musk co-founded the company and served on the board until 2018
Empty freight wagon with reduced speed derails on the Iron Ore Line in North of Sweden near the Norwegian border four days after the route was reopened after a similar accident two months ago six kilometers away, LKAB's logistics manager Linda Bjurholt said at the time that the loss of revenue due to the closure of the railway is close to SEK 100 million a day
For SEK 13 billion the Stenbeck family's investment company Kinnevik sells its entire holding in the telecom company Tele2, which was founded in the early 1980s by Jan Stenbeck and according to CEO Georgi Ganev was fundamental to the creation of today's Kinnevik, the buyer is Freya Investissement, which is controlled by the European telecom group iliad and its chairman of the board and founder Xavier Niel
The World Economic Forum predicts 44 percent of human skills will have been replaced by artificial intelligence by the year 2027 and has coined the term FOBO (Fear of Becoming Obsolete)
The CEO of the American bank JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, says that if he were the government, he would shut down cryptocurrencies and that their only real use is for criminals and drug dealers, as well as for money laundering and tax avoidance
Twitch's former CEO, Emmett Shear, will become the new CEO of OpenAI and Sam Altman will lead innovative AI-team at Microsoft, 505 of OpenAI's 700 employees, including co-founder Ilya Sutskever who was involved in dismissing Altman, write in an open letter that they lack confidence in the board
The US central bank Federal Reserve leaves the interest rate unchanged in the range of 5.25 to 5.50 percent which is the highest level in 22 years
FTX founder and cryptocurrency profile Sam Bankman-Fried is in custody awaiting trial as his bail is revoked by Judge Lewis Kaplan on suspicion of trying to intimidate witness Caroline Ellison in connection with his New York Times interview
Vladimir Putin signs a law that entails a one-time tax of 10 percent of the company profits he believes are excess profits, but certain companies are exempt, such as oil and gas companies and coal mines, will come into effect from January 1, 2024
The European Central Bank raises key interest rates by 0.25 percentage points, communicates that future decisions will be set at sufficiently restrictive levels as long as necessary to reach the inflation target of 2 percent
Asset manager BlackRock appoints Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco's CEO Amin Hassan Ali Nasser as a board member, Nasser overlooked the world's largest IPO ever when the oil company, which is the world's largest, went public
Elon Musk announces the formation of a new company called xAI, which according to its own statement aims to understand the true nature of the universe, Musk early supported OpenAI which launched the product ChatGPT, but has since its launch been critical, among other things, because the platform took to much account for political correctness
Price increases in the US economy lower than the previous month as the consumer price index in June comes in at a 3.0 percent annual rate according to new figures published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, smallest increase since March 2021 but still an increase
American technology giant Intel is investing USD 4.6 billion in a new semiconductor factory in Poland's fourth largest city, Wrocław, to be part of a planned European supply chain along with an existing facility in Ireland and a planned one in Germany, CEO Pat Gelsinger points to Poland's infrastructure, workforce and its competitiveness in terms of cost level
Argentina's central bank raises interest rates from 81 percent to 91 percent, second hike in two weeks to tackle inflation near 100 percent
Saudi Arabia announces oil production cuts of 500,000 barrels per day starting in May until the end of 2023, roughly 5 percent of the country's daily production, US wants increased production to ease inflation and put pressure on Russia's finances
China makes its first-ever trade in liquefied natural gas with its currency yuan in a sale to French company TotalEnergies of 65,000 tonnes imported from the United Arab Emirates, according to the Shanghai Oil and Natural Gas Exchange
Ericsson cuts 8,500 roles globally amounting to 8% of the total headcount, 1,400 of the jobs cut in Sweden, action taken as part of a 0.9 billion USD cost reduction effort
US consumer price index up 6.4 percent in January compared to last year and rose 0.5 percent on a monthly basis, which was higher than expected, in December 2022 the same statistics were at 6.5 percent and 0.1 percent respectively, earlier this month the Federal Reserve raised interest rate
Pfizer reports record revenue for 2022 but expects it will be lower this year as the US government stops spending taxpayer money on covid-19 vaccines and fewer people take shots to fight the disease, half of its $100 billion revenue came from the covid-19 vaccine and the oral coronavirus drug
Google's parent company Alphabet to cut 12,000 jobs representing 6% of its worldwide workforce, the announcement comes days after Microsoft announced 10,000 job cuts and weeks after Amazon announced axing 18,000 jobs
Ant Group says that Jack Ma will cede control of the company, Ma who has withdrawn from the public spotlight after criticizing government regulators in 2020 currently indirectly owns 53.46% of the shares but will only possess 6.2% of the voting rights after the adjustment, the company says the
Amazon plans to lay off 18,000 employees, CEO Andy Jassy writes that they usually wait to communicate similar decisions externally after being able to speak with those directly affected, but because employee leaked information, they decided to make the news public earlier
H&M to lay off 1,500 employees, applies worldwide but will not affect store employees, has closed 200 stores during the year
Quoth the Raven: Sam Bankman-Fried is still not in handcuffs despite everything pointing towards him committing fraud of 30 billion dollars, is being compared to Enron and Bernie Madoff, instead of being brought to justice now he will be questioned in congressional hearing in US in December, while The New York Times and The Washington Post write laudatory articles downplaying his responsibilities and Democrats and their friends in the media are clearly taking it easy on him despite their loathing of billionaires
Sam Bankman-Fried admits that the ethics were only a surface and feels guilty for those who are deceived by the stupid game of saying the right thing just to be liked that he says is played by woke westerners with whom he associates himself, regrets that he filed for bankruptcy for his crypto exchange FTX and says his goal is now to raise $8 billion within two weeks
Crypto exchange FTX's liquidity crisis and loss of confidence probably mean that the Democratic Party will miss out on further donations from founder Sam Bankman-Fried, 30, who was the party's second largest donor after Georg Soros, the company is threatened with bankruptcy, possible investigations by regulatory authorities and on Sunday, customers made withdrawals of USD 5 billion
Meta announces layoff of 11,000 employees, NBC News reviews posts that appear to be from recently fired employees including senior researcher Alex Leavitt, who uses the plural pronouns they/them and, according to LinkedIn, helped lead research on hate speech, misinformation and trust, who says that they might write a book after a trip abroad
India's central bank launches a pilot study of the e-rupee, allows nine banks to carry out interbank transactions with the digital currency, said to have the same value and legitimacy as a note or coin except that it does not take physical form, stresses that while the currency will be controlled by the central bank, it unlike cryptocurrencies which are decentralized and difficult to control
Croatia will adopt the euro on January 1, 2023, joined the EU nearly ten years ago, had an inflation rate of 13 percent in September compared to the euro zone's 10, the Croatian central bank's Ana Sabic says the currency provides resilience and claims that they now will have access to more favorable loan terms
Eurozone inflation reaches new record high of 10.7% in October, up from 9.9% in September, 41.9% increase in energy prices and 13.1% in food, alcohol and tobacco, Estonia worst hit with a 22.4% estimate and France least impacted with 7.1%