E-commerce sales decreased gradually in April

News of the day, Thursday, May 12

Meta Platforms Inc, a Facebook owner, is planning cutbacks in the Reality Labs branch, the center for hardware products and metaverse projects. The Meta spokesman has confirmed that the branch can no longer support some projects and needs to postpone them.

The electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors said it has completed a $230 million deal to sell its production plant in Ohio to the Taiwanese Foxconn company. The startup’s shares increased more than 35% after the announcement.

The Chinese developer Sunac has missed the deadline to pay for its coupons for $742 million and does not expect further payment executions. The company has declined to comment on the default case. 

Morgan Stanley has announced forecasts for 2022 economic growth be less than a half of 2021, due to military tensions in Europe, COVID-19 lockdowns in China, and global monetary policy tightening. Analysts expect global growth this year to score 2.9%, while it was 6.2% in 2021.

The tech company Adobe has announced that online prices decreased by 0.5% in April as consumer behavior in electronic commerce has changed, and the Federal Reserve has been tightening monetary policy in recent months. Online sales of 100 million goods monitored by Adobe decreased to $77.8 billion in April from approx. $83 billion in March.

The price of Brent crude is $106.03, WTI — $104.00, GBP/USD — 1.2209, EUR/USD — 1.0504, and gold costs $1851.00 per ounce.