Business

Ichiro Nakayama, CEO of PayPay, rings the opening bell during his company’s IPO at the Nasdaq Market Site in New York on March 12. © Reuters  PAYPAY’S shares opened roughly 19 percent above their offer price in a widely anticipated Nasdaq debut on Thursday, valuing the Japanese payments app at $12.7 billion …

A tourist watches the MT Desert Kite oil tanker carrying Russian oil at Narara Marine National Park in the Arabian Sea, Gujarat, India, March 11 , 2026 (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters) The US is temporarily easing some sanctions on Russian oil shipments, reflecting global concerns over sharply higher crude prices due …

A man holds a charging lug to charge a car at a Smart Charge electric vehicle (EV) charging station in Beijing, China February 2, 2024. (Florence Lo/Reuters)  GLOBAL electric vehicle (EV) registrations fell 11 percent in February, dragged by China’s largest sales drop since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic …

COPENHAGEN/LOS ANGELES — Container shipping group Maersk said on Wednesday it is redistributing fuel to ensure supplies for its vessels as the Iran war disrupts the flow and storage of maritime fuel in the Middle East. The Danish carrier, one of the world’s biggest container shipping groups, has 10 ships stranded …

Bull statues near screens showing the Hang Seng stock index and stock prices outside Exchange Square, in Hong Kong, China, February 3, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo  HONG KONG/SINGAPORE — Singapore-based logistics company GLP is targeting a valuation of about $20 billion with a Hong Kong initial public offering that could occur …

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios LOS ANGELES — Meta said on Tuesday it is acquiring Moltbook, a social network built exclusively for artificial intelligence agents to make posts and interact with each other. A takeover of the AI experiment by the parent company of Facebook and Instagram comes weeks after Moltbook attracted viral …

  Fuel storage tanks are pictured at the CCMP (Compagnie Commerciale de Manutention Petroliere) petroleum depot in Pauillac, north of Bordeaux, south-western France, on March 10, 2026. (AFP) HONG KONG — Oil prices soared back above $100 Thursday as Iran’s fresh attempts to hit supplies in the Middle East and threats to …

Electric vehicles accounted for 19% of all new cars sold in the EU and Norway in 2025, up from about 14% the previous year. (EPA Images pic) BRUSSELS — The average price of an electric car dropped for the first time since 2020 in Europe last year, which helped sales, a …

Nissan Motor Co. CEO Ivan Espinosa (L) and Wayve Technologies Ltd. CEO Alex Kendall (C) pose with a Nissan Leaf, an electric vehicle that will be used in a robotaxi project by the two companies and U.S. ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc., in Tokyo on March 12, 2026. (Kyodo) TOKYO — …

Image Credit: Getty Images SWISS chocolatier Lindt & Spruengli reported a roughly 10-percent rise in its annual operating profit on Tuesday, beating market estimates, as it successfully passed on higher cocoa prices to customers. The premium chocolate teddy bear producer’s earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) were 971 million Swiss …