Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc has made a last-minute reversal to its plan to ban the use of Visa Inc.’s credit cards issued in the UK. The e-commerce firm emailed UK customers on Monday to say that the ban — set for Wednesday — will no longer take place. Amazon had previously said it was taking this step because of the …

  Bloomberg US home sales in December had their biggest plunge since the early months of the Covid-19 lockdowns as listings sank to record lows. Transactions fall 11% from a year earlier, the biggest annual decline since June 2020, according to a report by Redfin Corp. Demand is still fierce, but what’s holding back deals is a lack of inventory: …

  Bloomberg Stocks were mixed on Monday as traders weighed a global advance in sovereign bond yields and the start of the earnings season. Media, miners and healthcare led an advance in Europe’s Stoxx 600 Index, while Nasdaq 100 futures fall. A dollar gauge was little changed and oil ticked up. US stock and bond markets are shut on Monday …

  Bloomberg The threat of the Omicron variant is becoming real for many of Asia’s biggest countries just as it looks set to subside in some Western nations, and that’s complicating investors’ search for winning share bets in the region. The problem is that Asian governments are carrying out widely diverging coronavirus policies, with strategies ranging from China’s pursuit of …

  Bloomberg GlaxoSmithKline Plc said it rejected an offer from Unilever Plc for the drugmaker’s consumer healthcare unit last year that valued the business at about 50 billion pounds ($68 billion). Glaxo in a statement said that it had received three unsolicited offers from Unilever for its consumer healthcare business, the final one on Dec. 20 for 41.7 billion pounds …

  Bloomberg Russia has nothing to do with the energy crisis in Europe, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said, rejecting allegations from the International Energy Agency this week that it’s holding back supplies and driving up prices of natural gas. “Neither Russia nor our main exporter Gazprom have anything to do with this,” Novak told state television, according to the …

  Bloomberg Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., which supplies almost all of South Africa’s power, will take two of the continent’s largest generating units offline this year for maintenance, increasing the risk of power cuts after the nation had record outages in 2021. The extended unavailability of the units with capacity of 920 megawatts each due to the “planned long outages …

  Bloomberg US retail sales stumbled at the end of 2021, factory output weakened and consumer sentiment deteriorated at the start of the new year, illustrating a loss of traction for the economy that many analysts view as temporary. Friday’s data deluge showed how lingering shipping challenges, supply and labor constraints, the fastest inflation in decades and the Omicron variant …

  Bloomberg Walmart Inc is losing two key executives in its US operation as the retail giant ramps up its online offerings and attempts to reverse last year’s disappointing stock-market performance. Chief Merchandising Officer Scott McCall will retire after almost three decades with the company, according to a memo to employees from John Furner, who heads Walmart’s US business. McCall …

  Bloomberg Spain is considering taking a direct stake in Air Europa as part of a revised plan to rescue the troubled airline after the collapse of its proposed sale to IAG SA, according to people familiar with the matter. Under a new structure under discussion, state-backed coronavirus bailout loans could be converted into a government holding of about 40% …