Facebook’s parent firm Meta on Wednesday delivered a gloomy mix of a sharper-than-expected drop in profit, a decrease in users and threats to its ad business that plunged shares some 22 per cent in after-hours trading.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Wednesday called for a peaceful resolution to the standoff between Russia and Ukraine, noting it is already contributing to a spike in energy prices and hurting global growth.

Google’s parent firm Alphabet announced quarterly profits Tuesday that beat expectations and nearly doubled in 2021 -- after a booming holiday season for the online ads giant facing anti-trust regulation scrutiny.

The IMF and World Bank once again postponed the annual meetings set to take place in Morocco, pushing them back another year to October 2023, the institutions announced Monday.

The US Federal Reserve is not ruling out raising rates by half a percentage point if inflation remains high, Fed official Raphael Bostic said in an interview with the Financial Times.

US stocks maintained gains Wednesday even after the Federal Reserve signaled an interest rate hike could be coming soon, while tension between Russia and Ukraine pushed oil prices to highs not seen since 2014.

The US trade deficit in goods widened to a record high in December as imports increased for a fifth straight month amid strong domestic demand, suggesting that trade likely remained a drag on economic growth in the fourth quarter.

Microsoft beat market expectations Tuesday with strong quarterly performance in cloud computing and software, still benefitting from the pandemic’s online shifting of work, play, shopping and learning.

General Motors announced Tuesday plans to invest $7 billion in the US state of Michigan as it converts assembly plants and builds batteries for the transition to electric vehicles (EV).

The Federal Reserve’s first policy meeting of the year hasn’t even concluded but Wall Street already is unhappy, wary of what central bank chief Jerome Powell might say on Wednesday about his inflation-fighting plans.

The US Commerce Department said Tuesday a global survey of semiconductor chip producers and users shows a shortage will persist, sparked primarily by wafer production capacity constraints.

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is creating an obstacle course for the global economy, which will slow growth this year, notably in the world’s two largest economies, the IMF said Tuesday.

Bitcoin dropped again on Saturday and was last down around 4 per cent for the day, hovering around the $35,000 level.

The Federal Reserve has its inflation-fighting weapons ready to fire, and when the US central bank’s policy committee convenes this coming week, the focus will not be on whether they will pull the trigger but rather how many times.

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Friday she had raised the Joe Biden administration’s “real concerns” about Mexico’s planned energy sector reforms, stepping up pressure on the major trading partner.

President Joe Biden on Friday praised Intel’s plans to spend $20 billion on a new US semiconductor facility, hailing the “historic” investment even as a global chip shortage fans the inflation wave weighing on his leadership.

With his party splintered and Democrats across the coalition that elected him in 2020 unhappy, President Joe Biden has just a few months to try to chart a path out of the malaise or risk getting swamped in the looming midterm elections in which Republicans are seeking to regain control of Congress.

Lowering the record rate of US inflation will  “be a haul,” President Joe Biden said Wednesday, but he insisted the price increases will subside if supply chain snarls and component shortages are resolved.

ExxonMobil pledged Tuesday to reach  “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions in its operations by 2050, but stopped short of extending the promise to products it sells throughout the global economy.

Phillip Howard pointed toward a stack of black ski pants piled atop a counter in his winter sports shop as evidence of the hurdles small business owners still face as the pandemic drags on.