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Indian indices were trading sharply lower on Thursday as selling continued mainly dragged by banks, auto and IT stocks.&nbsp;

Rising Covid-19 cases across the country have sparked fears of fresh lockdowns which may impact the economic recovery, analysts said.

The S&amp;P BSE Sensex fell 800 points, or 1.5 per cent, at 48,380 levels and the Nifty50 index gave up the 14,350-mark. IndusInd Bank fell 2 per cent and was the top Sensex laggard, followed by Axis Bank, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finance, and Maruti Suzuki (all down over 1%).

Meanwhile, Asian equities were also lower as a selloff in Chinese technology shares due to concerns they will be de-listed from U.S. bourses.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

Indian indices were trading sharply lower on Thursday as selling continued mainly dragged by banks, auto and IT stocks. Rising Covid-19 cases across the country have sparked fears of fresh lockdowns which may impact the economic recovery, analysts said.

Indian indices were trading sharply lower on Thursday as selling continued mainly dragged by banks, auto and IT stocks. Rising Covid-19 cases across the country have sparked fears of fresh lockdowns which may impact the economic recovery, analysts said. The S&P BSE Sensex fell 800 points, or 1.5 per cent, at 48,380 levels and the Nifty50 index gave up the 14,350-mark. IndusInd Bank fell 2 per cent and was the top Sensex laggard, followed by Axis Bank, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finance, and Maruti Suzuki (all down over 1%). Meanwhile, Asian equities were also lower as a selloff in Chinese technology shares due to concerns they will be de-listed from U.S. bourses. (With inputs from agencies)

Sensex falls nearly 800 points; Nifty near 14,300; auto bleeds

Anger with Nike Inc erupted on Chinese social media late on Wednesday after China`s netizens spotted a statement from the sporting goods giant saying it was "concerned" about reports of forced labour in Xinjiang and that it does not use cotton from the region.

Topics around the Nike statement were among the highest trending on China`s Twitter-like social media Weibo on Thursday, and the social media backlash had a wider fallout.

Popular Chinese actor Wang Yibo terminated his contract as a representative for Nike in response to social media criticism over the company`s Xinjiang statement, his agency said on Weibo on Thursday.

It was unclear when Nike had put out the statement, which did not have a date on it. Nike did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We are concerned about reports of forced labor in, and connected to, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)," Nike said in the statement.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-which-global-brands-are-using-uighur-labour-373196">Watch |</a>

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-which-global-brands-are-using-uighur-labour-373196/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

"Nike does not source products from the XUAR and we have confirmed with our contract suppliers that they are not using textiles or spun yarn from the region."

The social media fallout comes as relations between the United States and China have deteriorated in recent years.

In the latest development, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada on Monday imposed sanctions on Chinese officials for alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. China retaliated with sanctions on European lawmakers and institutions.

Earlier this week, at least one Chinese online retailer appeared to drop H&amp;M`s products amid social media attacks on the Swedish company for saying it was "deeply concerned" about reports of forced labour in Xinjiang.

Activists and some Western politicians accuse China of using torture, forced labour and sterilisations in Xinjiang. China has denied these claims and says it is providing vocational training, and that its measures are needed to fight extremism.

Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times urged Western companies on Wednesday to be "highly cautious" and not to "suppress China`s Xinjiang" in a social media post.

To do so would "undoubtedly arouse the anger of the Chinese public," he added. He did not single out any companies.

Anger with Nike Inc erupted on Chinese social media late on Wednesday after China`s netizens spotted a statement from the sporting goods giant saying it was "concerned" about reports of forced labour in Xinjiang and that it does not use cotton from the region.

Anger with Nike Inc erupted on Chinese social media late on Wednesday after China`s netizens spotted a statement from the sporting goods giant saying it was "concerned" about reports of forced labour in Xinjiang and that it does not use cotton from the region. Topics around the Nike statement were among the highest trending on China`s Twitter-like social media Weibo on Thursday, and the social media backlash had a wider fallout. Popular Chinese actor Wang Yibo terminated his contract as a representative for Nike in response to social media criticism over the company`s Xinjiang statement, his agency said on Weibo on Thursday. It was unclear when Nike had put out the statement, which did not have a date on it. Nike did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "We are concerned about reports of forced labor in, and connected to, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)," Nike said in the statement. Watch | "Nike does not source products from the XUAR and we have confirmed with our contract suppliers that they are not using textiles or spun yarn from the region." The social media fallout comes as relations between the United States and China have deteriorated in recent years. In the latest development, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada on Monday imposed sanctions on Chinese officials for alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. China retaliated with sanctions on European lawmakers and institutions. Earlier this week, at least one Chinese online retailer appeared to drop H&M`s products amid social media attacks on the Swedish company for saying it was "deeply concerned" about reports of forced labour in Xinjiang. Activists and some Western politicians accuse China of using torture, forced labour and sterilisations in Xinjiang. China has denied these claims and says it is providing vocational training, and that its measures are needed to fight extremism. Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times urged Western companies on Wednesday to be "highly cautious" and not to "suppress China`s Xinjiang" in a social media post. To do so would "undoubtedly arouse the anger of the Chinese public," he added. He did not single out any companies.

Nike faces social media storm in China over Xinjiang statement

Indian benchmark equity indices, Sensex and Nifty ended sharply lower Thursday dragged by heavy selling across the board with auto, PSU banks, energy, IT and FMCG indices falling the most.

S&amp;P BSE Sensex closed 740 points lower at 48,440 points while the 50-stock NSE Nifty was at 14,324 — each falling 1.5% today.&nbsp;

Maruti Suzuki, Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever, Bajaj Finance, ONGC, UltraTech Cement, and Reliance Industries were the top laggards on the Sensex, while Indian Oil Corporation, Hero MotoCorp, Coal India, Eicher Motors, and Britannia were the additional losers on the Nifty. These stocks were down between 3 per cent and 4 per cent.

Global markets

Global equities languished close to two-week lows on Thursday, while the dollar cruised to near a four-month high against the euro as investors worried that Europe's Covid-19 response was falling behind that in the United States.

European markets opened lower, with the STOXX index of 600 European shares down 0.1 per cent in early trade. MSCI’s gauge of world stocks, meanwhile, was 0.03 per cent lower. Its broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.2 per cent.

Weighing on sentiment was a selloff in Chinese technology shares due to concerns they will be delisted from US bourses and worries about a semiconductor shortage.

In Hong Kong, companies with US listings led declines. China’s blue-chip CSI300 index edged 0.05 per cent lower.

(With inputs from Reuters)

Indian benchmark equity indices, Sensex and Nifty ended sharply lower Thursday dragged by heavy selling across the board with auto, PSU banks, energy, IT and FMCG indices falling the most.

Indian benchmark equity indices, Sensex and Nifty ended sharply lower Thursday dragged by heavy selling across the board with auto, PSU banks, energy, IT and FMCG indices falling the most. S&P BSE Sensex closed 740 points lower at 48,440 points while the 50-stock NSE Nifty was at 14,324 — each falling 1.5% today. Maruti Suzuki, Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever, Bajaj Finance, ONGC, UltraTech Cement, and Reliance Industries were the top laggards on the Sensex, while Indian Oil Corporation, Hero MotoCorp, Coal India, Eicher Motors, and Britannia were the additional losers on the Nifty. These stocks were down between 3 per cent and 4 per cent. Global markets Global equities languished close to two-week lows on Thursday, while the dollar cruised to near a four-month high against the euro as investors worried that Europe's Covid-19 response was falling behind that in the United States. European markets opened lower, with the STOXX index of 600 European shares down 0.1 per cent in early trade. MSCI’s gauge of world stocks, meanwhile, was 0.03 per cent lower. Its broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.2 per cent. Weighing on sentiment was a selloff in Chinese technology shares due to concerns they will be delisted from US bourses and worries about a semiconductor shortage. In Hong Kong, companies with US listings led declines. China’s blue-chip CSI300 index edged 0.05 per cent lower. (With inputs from Reuters)

Sensex ends 740 points down at 48,440; Nifty at 14,325

Fitch has revised India's GDP growth forecast to 12 .8 % for the fiscal year beginning April 1st from its previous estimate of 11%.

World Business Watch: Fitch raises India's FY22 GDP growth projection to 12.8%

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A group of New York City business leaders has urged officials to refrain from raising taxes as it could jeopardize the state’s recovery from the pandemic and pressure companies to relocate their operations, triggering major economic losses.

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The COVID-19 vaccine rollout and the impact of the United States’ $1.9 trillion stimulus package should boost the economy, said Finance Minister Arturo Herrera

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WeWork is now in talks with BowX Acquisition Corp, a blank-check company that raised $420 million in August,

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Microsoft Corp is in talks to buy messaging platform Discord Inc for more than $10 billion, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. 
 
Discord has reached out to potential buyers and Microsoft is one of them, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. One person said it was more likely to go public than sell itself. 
 
Earlier in the day, VentureBeat reported that Discord was exploring a sale and it was in final talks with a party.&nbsp; 
 
Microsoft declined to comment, while Discord did not immediately respond to Reuters request. 
 
Discord, which is valued at around $7 billion as of last December, is a platform on which users coordinate group activities such as games, discussions and even virtual parties. 
 
The Xbox maker has been seeking to strengthen its video game offerings with $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media last year, its biggest gaming acquisition ever. 
 
The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the prospects of gaming companies as people stayed at home and turned to video games for entertainment during lockdowns. 
 
With its strong gaming business, Microsoft has also been looking to own mass social media platforms. Its last big social media deal was the $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016, while it failed in its bid for short video app TikTok`s US&nbsp;assets in September last year. 
 
Recently, the Financial Times reported about Microsoft`s interest in buying social media platform Pinterest Inc.

Microsoft Corp is in talks to buy messaging platform Discord Inc for more than $10 billion, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Discord has reached out to potential buyers and Microsoft is one of them, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft Corp is in talks to buy messaging platform Discord Inc for more than $10 billion, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Discord has reached out to potential buyers and Microsoft is one of them, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. One person said it was more likely to go public than sell itself. Earlier in the day, VentureBeat reported that Discord was exploring a sale and it was in final talks with a party. Microsoft declined to comment, while Discord did not immediately respond to Reuters request. Discord, which is valued at around $7 billion as of last December, is a platform on which users coordinate group activities such as games, discussions and even virtual parties. The Xbox maker has been seeking to strengthen its video game offerings with $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media last year, its biggest gaming acquisition ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the prospects of gaming companies as people stayed at home and turned to video games for entertainment during lockdowns. With its strong gaming business, Microsoft has also been looking to own mass social media platforms. Its last big social media deal was the $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016, while it failed in its bid for short video app TikTok`s US assets in September last year. Recently, the Financial Times reported about Microsoft`s interest in buying social media platform Pinterest Inc.

Microsoft in talks to acquire Discord for more than $10 billion: Report

A survey by Microsoft has revealed that 40 per cent of global workers are considering leaving their employers this year. The survey, published on Monday, also found that 61 per cent of employers feel that they are “thriving” right now.

The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the route of work culture, with new struggles in the way of many. Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index adds how people&nbsp;“now more than ever” expect their employers and leaders to show empathy, given the “unique challenges”.

The index surveyed 30,000 people from 31 countries. In addition, it factored in trends from Microsoft 365 and LinkedIn. The survey found that those who claimed to be “thriving” were male leaders from Generation X or the millennial generation.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/business-economy/over-70000-uber-drivers-in-uk-now-entitled-to-minimum-wage-other-workers-rights-371005" hreflang="en">Over 70,000 Uber drivers in UK now entitled to minimum wage, other workers' rights</a>

On the other hand, employees who claimed that they were struggling included married folks (54 per cent), working moms (56 per cent), Generation Z (60 per cent), frontline employees (61 per cent), employees who recently joined their jobs - less than a year ago (64 per cent), and single people (67 per cent).

The trend posits that the major burdens in the aftermath of COVID-19 have been put on members of Generation Z, most of whom recently started out their careers.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/technology/google-to-provide-25-million-to-social-enterprises-working-on-women-empowerment-368934" hreflang="en">Google to provide $25 million to social enterprises working on women empowerment</a>

In addition, working mothers are also negatively impacted, many of whom have had to leave their jobs owing to new social arrangement put in place by the pandemic. 73 per cent of the surveyed claim that they endorse flexible working hours, and remote working. 67 per cent said that they want to return to the pre-COVID mode of working from office.

The report also found that 54 per cent employees feel “overworked” and 39 per cent feel “exhausted”. Some 54 percent of employees feel “overworked” and 39 percent feel “exhausted”. One of the worst-affected groups - 66 per cent of Generation Z employees said they were merely “surviving” or “struggling”.

A survey by Microsoft has revealed that 40 per cent of global workers are considering leaving their employers this year. The survey, published on Monday, also found that 61 per cent of employers feel that they are “thriving” right now.

A survey by Microsoft has revealed that 40 per cent of global workers are considering leaving their employers this year. The survey, published on Monday, also found that 61 per cent of employers feel that they are “thriving” right now. The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the route of work culture, with new struggles in the way of many. Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index adds how people “now more than ever” expect their employers and leaders to show empathy, given the “unique challenges”. The index surveyed 30,000 people from 31 countries. In addition, it factored in trends from Microsoft 365 and LinkedIn. The survey found that those who claimed to be “thriving” were male leaders from Generation X or the millennial generation. Also read: Over 70,000 Uber drivers in UK now entitled to minimum wage, other workers' rights On the other hand, employees who claimed that they were struggling included married folks (54 per cent), working moms (56 per cent), Generation Z (60 per cent), frontline employees (61 per cent), employees who recently joined their jobs - less than a year ago (64 per cent), and single people (67 per cent). The trend posits that the major burdens in the aftermath of COVID-19 have been put on members of Generation Z, most of whom recently started out their careers. Also read: Google to provide $25 million to social enterprises working on women empowerment In addition, working mothers are also negatively impacted, many of whom have had to leave their jobs owing to new social arrangement put in place by the pandemic. 73 per cent of the surveyed claim that they endorse flexible working hours, and remote working. 67 per cent said that they want to return to the pre-COVID mode of working from office. The report also found that 54 per cent employees feel “overworked” and 39 per cent feel “exhausted”. Some 54 percent of employees feel “overworked” and 39 percent feel “exhausted”. One of the worst-affected groups - 66 per cent of Generation Z employees said they were merely “surviving” or “struggling”.

40% of global workers considering leaving their employers this year, finds survey

Renesas said it will take at least a month to restart production on a 300mm wafer line at its Naka plant in northeast Japan after a fire on Friday caused by an electrical fault

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The Turkish lira stood at 8.0990 per dollar in Asia, down 11 per cent from its close on Friday. At one point the lira fell by as much as 14.9 per cent to 8.4850

Turkish lira hit by sacking of central bank chief

Equity benchmark Sensex tumbled over 300 points in early trade on Monday, tracking losses in index majors Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank amid a weak trend in global markets.

The 30-share BSE index was trading 305.33 points or 0.61 per cent lower at 49,552.91, and the broader NSE Nifty fell 76 points or 0.52 per cent to 14,668.

PowerGrid was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding around 2 per cent, followed by Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and IndusInd Bank.

On the other hand, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's, Asian Paints and Infosys were among the gainers.

In the previous session, Sensex ended 641.72 points or 1.30 per cent higher at 49,858.24, and Nifty surged 186.15 points or 1.28 per cent to finish at 14,744.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers in the capital market on Friday as they bought shares worth Rs 1,418.43 crore, as per exchange data.

V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said the market is in an excessively volatile zone. Support comes from sustained FII buying which has crossed Rs 7,000 crore during the last four trading days.

"But, there is a major dampener in the form of fast-rising COVID-19 cases, especially in some economically significant cities. Restricted economic activity in these regions might impact the optimistic growth projections for FY 22," he added.

Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Shanghai and Seoul were trading on a positive note in mid-session deals, while Hong Kong and Tokyo were in the red.

Meanwhile, the global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.50 per cent lower at $64.21 per barrel.

Equity benchmark Sensex tumbled over 300 points in early trade on Monday, tracking losses in index majors Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank amid a weak trend in global markets.

Equity benchmark Sensex tumbled over 300 points in early trade on Monday, tracking losses in index majors Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank amid a weak trend in global markets. The 30-share BSE index was trading 305.33 points or 0.61 per cent lower at 49,552.91, and the broader NSE Nifty fell 76 points or 0.52 per cent to 14,668. PowerGrid was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding around 2 per cent, followed by Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and IndusInd Bank. On the other hand, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's, Asian Paints and Infosys were among the gainers. In the previous session, Sensex ended 641.72 points or 1.30 per cent higher at 49,858.24, and Nifty surged 186.15 points or 1.28 per cent to finish at 14,744. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers in the capital market on Friday as they bought shares worth Rs 1,418.43 crore, as per exchange data. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said the market is in an excessively volatile zone. Support comes from sustained FII buying which has crossed Rs 7,000 crore during the last four trading days. "But, there is a major dampener in the form of fast-rising COVID-19 cases, especially in some economically significant cities. Restricted economic activity in these regions might impact the optimistic growth projections for FY 22," he added. Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Shanghai and Seoul were trading on a positive note in mid-session deals, while Hong Kong and Tokyo were in the red. Meanwhile, the global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.50 per cent lower at $64.21 per barrel.

Sensex drops over 300 points in early trade; Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank slip

The Turkish lira tumbled on Monday as President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/president-erdogan-removes-turkeys-third-central-bank-governor-in-less-than-two-years-371863">Erdogan</a> sacked the country's central bank chief Naci Agbal.

Watch:

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/erdogan-pulls-turkey-out-of-istanbul-convention-372144/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

The Turkish lira fell 17 per cent sliding&nbsp;8.47 per US dollar in early trade on Monday even though it recovered slightly later at 8.09.&nbsp;

Agbal's sacking came just a day after the country's central bank hiked interest rates by more than two percentage points to 19 per cent in a bid to fight inflation.

Agbal was appointed less than five months ago but has been replaced by Sahap Kavcioglu who has been an open critic of Agbal's policies.

In July 2019, President Erdogan had sacked central bank chief Murat Cetinkaya for not bringing interest rates down swiftly and had replaced Murat Uysal after the currency slumped to a record low.

Kavcioglu is the fourth central bank chief in five years in Turkey as the country battles economic crisis amid the pandemic.

Kavcioglu asserted that the bank would focus on lowering the double-digit inflation even though Agbal's rate hike of 200 basis-points on Thursday had sparked an over 3 per cent lira rally.

The lira has reportedly lost half its value since the 2018 currency crisis.

The Turkish lira tumbled on Monday as President Erdogan sacked the country's central bank chief Naci Agbal. Watch: The Turkish lira fell 17 per cent sliding 8.47 per US dollar in early trade on Monday even though it recovered slightly later at 8.

The Turkish lira tumbled on Monday as President Erdogan sacked the country's central bank chief Naci Agbal. Watch: The Turkish lira fell 17 per cent sliding 8.47 per US dollar in early trade on Monday even though it recovered slightly later at 8.09. Agbal's sacking came just a day after the country's central bank hiked interest rates by more than two percentage points to 19 per cent in a bid to fight inflation. Agbal was appointed less than five months ago but has been replaced by Sahap Kavcioglu who has been an open critic of Agbal's policies. In July 2019, President Erdogan had sacked central bank chief Murat Cetinkaya for not bringing interest rates down swiftly and had replaced Murat Uysal after the currency slumped to a record low. Kavcioglu is the fourth central bank chief in five years in Turkey as the country battles economic crisis amid the pandemic. Kavcioglu asserted that the bank would focus on lowering the double-digit inflation even though Agbal's rate hike of 200 basis-points on Thursday had sparked an over 3 per cent lira rally. The lira has reportedly lost half its value since the 2018 currency crisis.

Turkish Lira tumbles after Erdogan fires central bank chief

It did not look like a very promising investment opportunity.

SpectraScience’s phone number was out of service. So was its website. And it had not disclosed financial results since late 2017, when the San Diego medical equipment company reported a quarterly loss — its 12th in a row.

But early this year, SpectraScience’s nearly worthless shares — priced in hundredths of a penny and too minor to trade on a major stock exchange — sprang to life.

On Jan. 27, their price doubled, with more than 900 million shares traded. The next day, amid a flurry of social media cheerleading, more than 3.5 billion shares of the company changed hands — a volume roughly equal to half that day’s trading on the New York Stock Exchange. After soaring 500% as trading opened, just as quickly SpectraScience collapsed.

Penny stocks — the name given to more than 10,000 tiny companies like SpectraScience — have been around forever, but they are booming as small investors flood the market. And this time around, social media is fueling the craze. Whether traded to fend off the boredom of pandemic living or to turn a quick profit, these dirt-cheap but risky shares are another frontier in a world where meme stocks such as GameStop gained overnight stardom; Dogecoin morphed from a joke cryptocurrency to a hot investment; and a digital artwork known as a nonfungible token, or NFT, sold for $69 million.

It is part of a “massive surge” in retail trading reminiscent of the 1920s, when amateurs flooded into the stock market before the 1929 crash, said Tyler Gellasch, a former Securities and Exchange Commission official who leads the nonprofit Healthy Markets Association.

“The only relevant historical precedent seems to increasingly be the days before the Great Depression,” he said.

Penny stocks occupy a low-rent district of Wall Street, a world rife with fraud and chicanery where companies that do not have a viable product or are mired in debt often sell their shares. Traded on the lightly regulated over-the-counter, or OTC, markets, penny stocks face fewer rules about publishing information on financial results or independent board members. Wall Street analysts do not usually follow them. Major investors do not buy them.

But last month, there were 1.9 trillion transactions on OTC markets, an increase of more than 2,000% from a year earlier, according to data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a self-regulatory group that oversees brokerage firms.

The lack of oversight that makes penny stocks easy targets for scammers has long accounted for penny stocks' unsavory reputation. But risk can also be a draw for thrill-seekers or those who fear they have missed a market boom that is creating wealth all around them.

And now it is easier than ever to get in on these stocks; commission-free trades and the proliferation of online trading platforms mean small investors do not have to go through a traditional broker.

Because these stocks are so small and lightly traded, a sudden surge of interest can make their prices go berserk. Since the start of the year, shares have soared for companies such as Healthier Choices Management, which operates vape stores; For the Earth, which makes cannabis-based sunscreen; and Garb Oil &amp; Power, which, despite its name, spotlighted its planned purchase of a manufacturer of marijuana pipes in one of its most recent business operation updates. (It was published in 2014.)

“Everyone wants to get rich,” said Jordan Belfort, whose memoir, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” detailed his debauched life as cheap-stock kingpin, complete with helicopter crashes, sunken yachts and copious quaaludes. “And they want to get rich quick.”

Belfort, now a motivational speaker and writer living in Los Angeles, presided over Stratton Oakmont, one of the notorious “boiler rooms” that manipulated penny stocks to prey on unwitting retail investors before it went out of business in 1996.

“We all want to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and Bernie Madoff,” he said.

Just as they were in Belfort’s heyday, penny stocks remain the backbone of schemes to part newbie traders from their cash. Consider one perennially popular racket: the pump and dump.

First, fraudsters load up on ultracheap shares of a small stock hardly anyone trades. Then comes the pump: They pitch the stock as one with hot prospects, spreading around positive information to push up its price. Finally, there is the dump: After the price jumps higher, the perpetrator sells and leaves the new buyers holding a mostly empty bag.

“It’s all just a pool filled with sharks,” said Urska Velikonja, a law professor who studies securities regulation at Georgetown University Law Center. “It’s where the unwary go to get eaten.”

Booms in penny stock tend to occur during raging bull markets, when greed abounds. They were hot in the 1980s, when the arrival of cheap, long-distance telephone service gave rise to brokerage firms that specialized in high-pressure, cold-call pitches of worthless stocks.

That was the specialty of Blinder, Robinson &amp; Co., which was led by Meyer Blinder, a New York broker with a flamboyant reputation. In the mid-1980s, it became the largest penny stock brokerage in the country. But by 1990, it had been liquidated, and by 1992, Blinder had been convicted of racketeering and securities fraud. After his conviction was announced, he lunged at a prosecutor, threatening to kill him.

But stock-touting technology changes with the times. Cold-calling went out, followed by faxes and email spam. Today, social media sites such as Twitter and Reddit, which powered the rise of GameStop and other meme stocks, are the preferred method for building unwarranted hype.

According to a civil complaint filed this month by the SEC, Andrew Fassari of Irvine, California, used his Twitter account — OCMillionaire — to pump up the price of Arcis Resources, a company that has not conducted business since at least 2016 but whose stock still trades. Fassari, regulators said, bought 41 million shares of the company and then posted misleading information, including fictitious emails from the company’s purported CEO about expansion plans. Over nine days in December, the share price skyrocketed more than 4,000% — to more than a nickel. Fassari’s gains were $929,000, according to the agency.

Fassari’s lawyer, Jessica Munk, said he denied wrongdoing. “It appears Mr. Fassari has been hit with fallout from the GameStop, Robinhood, Reddit controversy,” Munk said in a statement, including a reference to the Robinhood trading app. She also noted the SEC action’s “lightning pace.”

Art Hutchinson, a 50-year-old construction services salesperson in Fort Worth, Texas, has been making bets on penny stocks — companies that he acknowledges are “absolute garbage” — for about two years. And the activity he watches closely is increasingly being driven by social media, he said.

“Everybody is on Twitter, whatever, these social media accounts, and they’re all lying,” he said. “They’re preying upon people not doing any research on their own or not understanding it.”

A 2017 paper from Thomas Renault, a finance professor at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, analyzed millions of Twitter messages about low-priced stocks. A surge in tweets about a small stock led to big price increases followed by sudden collapses, he found, saying the pattern was consistent with pump-and-dump schemes.

Regulators appear to be taking some steps to tamp down on such activity. Weeks after SpectraScience crashed, the SEC temporarily suspended trading of the stock, citing “potentially manipulative trading activity.” It was one of nearly two dozen stock tickers sidelined for similarly suspicious trading by late February.

“We proactively monitor for suspicious trading activity tied to stock promotions on social media, and act quickly to stop that trading when appropriate to safeguard the public interest,” Melissa Hodgman, acting director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in an announcement.

Current and former regulators say penny stock fraud will remain as long as penny stocks are traded.

“Whatever you do, don’t claim victory, because it’ll come back,” said Joseph Goldstein, a partner at Murphy &amp; McGonigle, a financial services law firm. In the late 1980s, Goldstein led the SEC’s task force on penny stocks amid a surge of frauds in the market.

“It’s not going away, basically, because it’s greed,” he said. “I don’t think there will be a successful effort to end greed in this world.”

It did not look like a very promising investment opportunity. SpectraScience’s phone number was out of service. So was its website. And it had not disclosed financial results since late 2017, when the San Diego medical equipment company reported a quarterly loss — its 12th in a row.

It did not look like a very promising investment opportunity. SpectraScience’s phone number was out of service. So was its website. And it had not disclosed financial results since late 2017, when the San Diego medical equipment company reported a quarterly loss — its 12th in a row. But early this year, SpectraScience’s nearly worthless shares — priced in hundredths of a penny and too minor to trade on a major stock exchange — sprang to life. On Jan. 27, their price doubled, with more than 900 million shares traded. The next day, amid a flurry of social media cheerleading, more than 3.5 billion shares of the company changed hands — a volume roughly equal to half that day’s trading on the New York Stock Exchange. After soaring 500% as trading opened, just as quickly SpectraScience collapsed. Penny stocks — the name given to more than 10,000 tiny companies like SpectraScience — have been around forever, but they are booming as small investors flood the market. And this time around, social media is fueling the craze. Whether traded to fend off the boredom of pandemic living or to turn a quick profit, these dirt-cheap but risky shares are another frontier in a world where meme stocks such as GameStop gained overnight stardom; Dogecoin morphed from a joke cryptocurrency to a hot investment; and a digital artwork known as a nonfungible token, or NFT, sold for $69 million. It is part of a “massive surge” in retail trading reminiscent of the 1920s, when amateurs flooded into the stock market before the 1929 crash, said Tyler Gellasch, a former Securities and Exchange Commission official who leads the nonprofit Healthy Markets Association. “The only relevant historical precedent seems to increasingly be the days before the Great Depression,” he said. Penny stocks occupy a low-rent district of Wall Street, a world rife with fraud and chicanery where companies that do not have a viable product or are mired in debt often sell their shares. Traded on the lightly regulated over-the-counter, or OTC, markets, penny stocks face fewer rules about publishing information on financial results or independent board members. Wall Street analysts do not usually follow them. Major investors do not buy them. But last month, there were 1.9 trillion transactions on OTC markets, an increase of more than 2,000% from a year earlier, according to data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a self-regulatory group that oversees brokerage firms. The lack of oversight that makes penny stocks easy targets for scammers has long accounted for penny stocks' unsavory reputation. But risk can also be a draw for thrill-seekers or those who fear they have missed a market boom that is creating wealth all around them. And now it is easier than ever to get in on these stocks; commission-free trades and the proliferation of online trading platforms mean small investors do not have to go through a traditional broker. Because these stocks are so small and lightly traded, a sudden surge of interest can make their prices go berserk. Since the start of the year, shares have soared for companies such as Healthier Choices Management, which operates vape stores; For the Earth, which makes cannabis-based sunscreen; and Garb Oil & Power, which, despite its name, spotlighted its planned purchase of a manufacturer of marijuana pipes in one of its most recent business operation updates. (It was published in 2014.) “Everyone wants to get rich,” said Jordan Belfort, whose memoir, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” detailed his debauched life as cheap-stock kingpin, complete with helicopter crashes, sunken yachts and copious quaaludes. “And they want to get rich quick.” Belfort, now a motivational speaker and writer living in Los Angeles, presided over Stratton Oakmont, one of the notorious “boiler rooms” that manipulated penny stocks to prey on unwitting retail investors before it went out of business in 1996. “We all want to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and Bernie Madoff,” he said. Just as they were in Belfort’s heyday, penny stocks remain the backbone of schemes to part newbie traders from their cash. Consider one perennially popular racket: the pump and dump. First, fraudsters load up on ultracheap shares of a small stock hardly anyone trades. Then comes the pump: They pitch the stock as one with hot prospects, spreading around positive information to push up its price. Finally, there is the dump: After the price jumps higher, the perpetrator sells and leaves the new buyers holding a mostly empty bag. “It’s all just a pool filled with sharks,” said Urska Velikonja, a law professor who studies securities regulation at Georgetown University Law Center. “It’s where the unwary go to get eaten.” Booms in penny stock tend to occur during raging bull markets, when greed abounds. They were hot in the 1980s, when the arrival of cheap, long-distance telephone service gave rise to brokerage firms that specialized in high-pressure, cold-call pitches of worthless stocks. That was the specialty of Blinder, Robinson & Co., which was led by Meyer Blinder, a New York broker with a flamboyant reputation. In the mid-1980s, it became the largest penny stock brokerage in the country. But by 1990, it had been liquidated, and by 1992, Blinder had been convicted of racketeering and securities fraud. After his conviction was announced, he lunged at a prosecutor, threatening to kill him. But stock-touting technology changes with the times. Cold-calling went out, followed by faxes and email spam. Today, social media sites such as Twitter and Reddit, which powered the rise of GameStop and other meme stocks, are the preferred method for building unwarranted hype. According to a civil complaint filed this month by the SEC, Andrew Fassari of Irvine, California, used his Twitter account — OCMillionaire — to pump up the price of Arcis Resources, a company that has not conducted business since at least 2016 but whose stock still trades. Fassari, regulators said, bought 41 million shares of the company and then posted misleading information, including fictitious emails from the company’s purported CEO about expansion plans. Over nine days in December, the share price skyrocketed more than 4,000% — to more than a nickel. Fassari’s gains were $929,000, according to the agency. Fassari’s lawyer, Jessica Munk, said he denied wrongdoing. “It appears Mr. Fassari has been hit with fallout from the GameStop, Robinhood, Reddit controversy,” Munk said in a statement, including a reference to the Robinhood trading app. She also noted the SEC action’s “lightning pace.” Art Hutchinson, a 50-year-old construction services salesperson in Fort Worth, Texas, has been making bets on penny stocks — companies that he acknowledges are “absolute garbage” — for about two years. And the activity he watches closely is increasingly being driven by social media, he said. “Everybody is on Twitter, whatever, these social media accounts, and they’re all lying,” he said. “They’re preying upon people not doing any research on their own or not understanding it.” A 2017 paper from Thomas Renault, a finance professor at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, analyzed millions of Twitter messages about low-priced stocks. A surge in tweets about a small stock led to big price increases followed by sudden collapses, he found, saying the pattern was consistent with pump-and-dump schemes. Regulators appear to be taking some steps to tamp down on such activity. Weeks after SpectraScience crashed, the SEC temporarily suspended trading of the stock, citing “potentially manipulative trading activity.” It was one of nearly two dozen stock tickers sidelined for similarly suspicious trading by late February. “We proactively monitor for suspicious trading activity tied to stock promotions on social media, and act quickly to stop that trading when appropriate to safeguard the public interest,” Melissa Hodgman, acting director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in an announcement. Current and former regulators say penny stock fraud will remain as long as penny stocks are traded. “Whatever you do, don’t claim victory, because it’ll come back,” said Joseph Goldstein, a partner at Murphy & McGonigle, a financial services law firm. In the late 1980s, Goldstein led the SEC’s task force on penny stocks amid a surge of frauds in the market. “It’s not going away, basically, because it’s greed,” he said. “I don’t think there will be a successful effort to end greed in this world.”

Penny stocks are booming, which is good news for swindlers

In making the case against a union at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon has touted its compensation package. The company notes that base pay at the facility, around $15.50 an hour for most rank-and-file workers, is more than twice the local minimum wage and that it offers comprehensive health insurance and retirement benefits.

But to many of Amazon’s Bessemer employees, who are voting this month on whether to unionize, the claims to generosity can ring hollow alongside the demands of the job and local wage rates. The most recent figure for the median wage in greater Birmingham, a metropolitan area of roughly 1 million people that includes Bessemer, was nearly $3 above Amazon’s pay there, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“If you go into certain rural areas in the South, where wages are suppressed and there’s no industry, that may seem attractive,” said Joshua Brewer of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, who is the campaign’s lead organizer. “For our folks here in Bessemer and Birmingham, it’s barely enough to keep the lights on. To tote it in front of them like it’s something to be prized is mildly offensive.”

It is common for employers facing a union vote to emphasize the generosity of their wages and to suggest that workers could be worse off if they unionize. But the message takes on added resonance in the South, where incomes are lower and jobs with good pay can be harder to find. As a result, organizers say, employers and their surrogates in the region often use such tactics more aggressively.

A commercial during a 2017 union campaign at a Boeing plant in South Carolina showed a casino boss urging workers to roll dice at a craps table to make the point that joining a union could put their livelihood at risk. Union campaigns at a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, and a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, featured similar appeals.

The catch is that wages at these plants tended to be substantially higher than the typical wage in their areas, reinforcing workers’ sense that they had something valuable to lose.

Veteran production workers made $23.50 an hour at the Volkswagen plant in 2019, the year of the most recent campaign there. The comparable figure was $23 at Boeing’s South Carolina facility when workers voted on a union and $26 at Nissan’s Mississippi plant during the vote there, also in 2017. The union lost in all three cases.

“The global manufacturing companies took more steps to pre-empt unionization by offering better pay,” Richard Bensinger, a former organizing director for the United Automobile Workers and the AFL-CIO, said in an email.

Bensinger, who was involved in the Nissan and Volkswagen campaigns and is helping workers organize at other Amazon facilities, held up Mercedes-Benz as a telling example. The UAW tried to organize the company’s plant in Vance, Alabama, about 25 miles from Bessemer, for several years during the last decade. But it could never quite get a majority of workers to sign cards, Bensinger said, partly because wages at the plant were so high — $28 an hour for veteran workers, and even more today.

“They paid UAW scale to try to keep the UAW out,” Bensinger said. (Mercedes, like other automakers, also used temporary workers whom it paid far less.)

By contrast, unions have been successful when companies have held down wages. During the first half the 2010s, workers unionized at several auto parts suppliers in Alabama and elsewhere in the South, often citing low pay and benefits as the impetus.

In 2015, employees at Commercial Vehicle Group in Piedmont, Alabama, which made seats for trucks, voted to join the UAW by a roughly 2-to-1 ratio. Workers at the plant complained of wages that started as low as $9.70 an hour for temporary workers and topped out at $15.80 for full-time employees. The company laid off many of the workers when it later consolidated its operations.

“Workers always say this: It’s about respect, recognition,” said Gary Casteel, the UAW’s former second-ranking official, who helped oversee much of its organizing in the South. “That’s not the case. It is about the money. Everybody wants to get paid more.”

Darryl Richardson, an Amazon employee in Alabama, knows firsthand the catalyzing effect of low wages. In 2012, he was part of a group of workers that voted overwhelmingly to unionize at Faurecia Interior Systems in Cottondale, Alabama, which made seats for the nearby Mercedes plant.

Richardson said that he had made around $12.50 an hour when he started at the plant but that, thanks to the union, his hourly pay had nearly doubled by the time he left in 2019, after the plant lost its contract with Mercedes. He said several of his co-workers at Faurecia were now working at Amazon and had seen the power of a union to raise wages.

“From Faurecia to Amazon, it’s a big pay difference,” said Richardson, who now makes $15.55.

Heather Knox, an Amazon spokeswoman, said workers in Bessemer were eligible for raises every six months and that they had received a $2-an-hour bonus during much of last spring. Full-time rank-and-file employees received $300 bonuses during the holiday season and $500 last June. The company also provides significant tuition reimbursement for employees who take classes in certain fields.

Some workers at the Bessemer facility, which opened just as COVID-19 was bearing down last March, regard the pay as more than adequate, especially younger employees.

“I feel like it is fair,” said Roderick Crocton, 24, who previously made $11.25 as an overnight stocker at a local retailer. “In my old job, I lived in my apartment, never got to go anywhere, paid my bills. Today I’m able to go out and experience being in the city.”

But other workers emphasize that pay at Amazon isn’t particularly high for the Birmingham area, even if the pandemic has reduced their job options. An Amazon employee named Clint, a union backer who declined to give his last name for fear of retaliation, said he had stood to make about $40,000 a year installing satellite dishes before the pandemic left him unemployed. He said he made his finances work partly by living with his mother.

The retail workers’ union said it represented employees at nearby warehouses where pay is $18 to $21 an hour, including an ice cream facility and a grocery warehouse not far from Amazon.

At a plant owned by NFI Group, a Canadian bus manufacturer, about an hour east of Birmingham, hourly pay for rank-and-file workers ranges from $14.79 to $23.31, according to the company.

A survey of about 100 workers at the NFI plant by Emily Erickson, a professor at Alabama A&amp;amp;M University, found that white workers earned about $3 an hour more than Black workers on average. One former employee who currently works for a labor group in the area, Charles Crooms, said this made it more difficult to persuade white workers to join a union organizing effort. (The company said all employees with the same job grade and tenure were paid the same.)

Workers and organizers said the dissatisfaction over wages at the Amazon warehouse was heightened by the vast wealth of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder.

“He’s one of the richest men in the world, yet you treat employees like scavengers,” said Jennifer Bates, an Amazon employee who earned more in her previous job at a pipe factory but joined Amazon hoping it would provide an opportunity to grow.

Bates was mystified that the company was urging Congress to match its pay efforts by raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. “It looks to me like Amazon is admitting it’s only paying a minimum wage, and this is not a minimum-wage job,” she said. Amazon has said its starting wage is higher than $15 an hour in most of the country.

Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the retail workers’ union, noted that Bezos could have given each of Amazon’s more than 1 million global employees last year a bonus larger than the annual pay of a warehouse worker just from the wealth he accumulated during the pandemic.

All of which raises a question: Why didn’t Amazon, which regards unions as a threat, follow the example of Nissan and Mercedes and pay its Alabama employees more as a way to pre-empt a union?

The company did not respond to a request to address that question.

Appelbaum, the union president, said the company had underestimated its workers.

“I think they took it for granted that we’d be out there for a few days leafleting, then go away,” he said. “They didn’t believe there was any possibility that we’d be able to get enough cards from employees to get to an election.”

In making the case against a union at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon has touted its compensation package. The company notes that base pay at the facility, around $15.

In making the case against a union at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon has touted its compensation package. The company notes that base pay at the facility, around $15.50 an hour for most rank-and-file workers, is more than twice the local minimum wage and that it offers comprehensive health insurance and retirement benefits. But to many of Amazon’s Bessemer employees, who are voting this month on whether to unionize, the claims to generosity can ring hollow alongside the demands of the job and local wage rates. The most recent figure for the median wage in greater Birmingham, a metropolitan area of roughly 1 million people that includes Bessemer, was nearly $3 above Amazon’s pay there, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “If you go into certain rural areas in the South, where wages are suppressed and there’s no industry, that may seem attractive,” said Joshua Brewer of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, who is the campaign’s lead organizer. “For our folks here in Bessemer and Birmingham, it’s barely enough to keep the lights on. To tote it in front of them like it’s something to be prized is mildly offensive.” It is common for employers facing a union vote to emphasize the generosity of their wages and to suggest that workers could be worse off if they unionize. But the message takes on added resonance in the South, where incomes are lower and jobs with good pay can be harder to find. As a result, organizers say, employers and their surrogates in the region often use such tactics more aggressively. A commercial during a 2017 union campaign at a Boeing plant in South Carolina showed a casino boss urging workers to roll dice at a craps table to make the point that joining a union could put their livelihood at risk. Union campaigns at a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, and a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, featured similar appeals. The catch is that wages at these plants tended to be substantially higher than the typical wage in their areas, reinforcing workers’ sense that they had something valuable to lose. Veteran production workers made $23.50 an hour at the Volkswagen plant in 2019, the year of the most recent campaign there. The comparable figure was $23 at Boeing’s South Carolina facility when workers voted on a union and $26 at Nissan’s Mississippi plant during the vote there, also in 2017. The union lost in all three cases. “The global manufacturing companies took more steps to pre-empt unionization by offering better pay,” Richard Bensinger, a former organizing director for the United Automobile Workers and the AFL-CIO, said in an email. Bensinger, who was involved in the Nissan and Volkswagen campaigns and is helping workers organize at other Amazon facilities, held up Mercedes-Benz as a telling example. The UAW tried to organize the company’s plant in Vance, Alabama, about 25 miles from Bessemer, for several years during the last decade. But it could never quite get a majority of workers to sign cards, Bensinger said, partly because wages at the plant were so high — $28 an hour for veteran workers, and even more today. “They paid UAW scale to try to keep the UAW out,” Bensinger said. (Mercedes, like other automakers, also used temporary workers whom it paid far less.) By contrast, unions have been successful when companies have held down wages. During the first half the 2010s, workers unionized at several auto parts suppliers in Alabama and elsewhere in the South, often citing low pay and benefits as the impetus. In 2015, employees at Commercial Vehicle Group in Piedmont, Alabama, which made seats for trucks, voted to join the UAW by a roughly 2-to-1 ratio. Workers at the plant complained of wages that started as low as $9.70 an hour for temporary workers and topped out at $15.80 for full-time employees. The company laid off many of the workers when it later consolidated its operations. “Workers always say this: It’s about respect, recognition,” said Gary Casteel, the UAW’s former second-ranking official, who helped oversee much of its organizing in the South. “That’s not the case. It is about the money. Everybody wants to get paid more.” Darryl Richardson, an Amazon employee in Alabama, knows firsthand the catalyzing effect of low wages. In 2012, he was part of a group of workers that voted overwhelmingly to unionize at Faurecia Interior Systems in Cottondale, Alabama, which made seats for the nearby Mercedes plant. Richardson said that he had made around $12.50 an hour when he started at the plant but that, thanks to the union, his hourly pay had nearly doubled by the time he left in 2019, after the plant lost its contract with Mercedes. He said several of his co-workers at Faurecia were now working at Amazon and had seen the power of a union to raise wages. “From Faurecia to Amazon, it’s a big pay difference,” said Richardson, who now makes $15.55. Heather Knox, an Amazon spokeswoman, said workers in Bessemer were eligible for raises every six months and that they had received a $2-an-hour bonus during much of last spring. Full-time rank-and-file employees received $300 bonuses during the holiday season and $500 last June. The company also provides significant tuition reimbursement for employees who take classes in certain fields. Some workers at the Bessemer facility, which opened just as COVID-19 was bearing down last March, regard the pay as more than adequate, especially younger employees. “I feel like it is fair,” said Roderick Crocton, 24, who previously made $11.25 as an overnight stocker at a local retailer. “In my old job, I lived in my apartment, never got to go anywhere, paid my bills. Today I’m able to go out and experience being in the city.” But other workers emphasize that pay at Amazon isn’t particularly high for the Birmingham area, even if the pandemic has reduced their job options. An Amazon employee named Clint, a union backer who declined to give his last name for fear of retaliation, said he had stood to make about $40,000 a year installing satellite dishes before the pandemic left him unemployed. He said he made his finances work partly by living with his mother. The retail workers’ union said it represented employees at nearby warehouses where pay is $18 to $21 an hour, including an ice cream facility and a grocery warehouse not far from Amazon. At a plant owned by NFI Group, a Canadian bus manufacturer, about an hour east of Birmingham, hourly pay for rank-and-file workers ranges from $14.79 to $23.31, according to the company. A survey of about 100 workers at the NFI plant by Emily Erickson, a professor at Alabama A&amp;M University, found that white workers earned about $3 an hour more than Black workers on average. One former employee who currently works for a labor group in the area, Charles Crooms, said this made it more difficult to persuade white workers to join a union organizing effort. (The company said all employees with the same job grade and tenure were paid the same.) Workers and organizers said the dissatisfaction over wages at the Amazon warehouse was heightened by the vast wealth of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder. “He’s one of the richest men in the world, yet you treat employees like scavengers,” said Jennifer Bates, an Amazon employee who earned more in her previous job at a pipe factory but joined Amazon hoping it would provide an opportunity to grow. Bates was mystified that the company was urging Congress to match its pay efforts by raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. “It looks to me like Amazon is admitting it’s only paying a minimum wage, and this is not a minimum-wage job,” she said. Amazon has said its starting wage is higher than $15 an hour in most of the country. Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the retail workers’ union, noted that Bezos could have given each of Amazon’s more than 1 million global employees last year a bonus larger than the annual pay of a warehouse worker just from the wealth he accumulated during the pandemic. All of which raises a question: Why didn’t Amazon, which regards unions as a threat, follow the example of Nissan and Mercedes and pay its Alabama employees more as a way to pre-empt a union? The company did not respond to a request to address that question. Appelbaum, the union president, said the company had underestimated its workers. “I think they took it for granted that we’d be out there for a few days leafleting, then go away,” he said. “They didn’t believe there was any possibility that we’d be able to get enough cards from employees to get to an election.”

Amazon says it pays Alabama workers well; other local employers pay more

New lockdowns in Europe recently and the absence of tourism might make it difficult for Swatch Group to get back to 2019 sales levels this year but the world’s biggest watchmaker maintains that target, for now, is there.

World Business Watch: New lockdowns to jeopardise Swatch sales

The US auto safety agency disclosed it has opened 25 investigations into crashes of Tesla vehicles, 23 of which remain active, and at least three of the crashes occurred in recent weeks.

World Business Watch: US safety agency reviewing 23 Tesla crashes

Failure to prove that they were not under "undue influence" from Beijing, three Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies could be barred to operate in the United States.&nbsp;

China Unicom America, Pacific Networks, and ComNet had failed to prove that their work in the US was not subject to "undue influence" from China, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said, as quoted by news agency AFP on Wednesday.

Watch |&nbsp;

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/nyse-does-u-turn-on-delisting-three-chinese-telecom-giants-354621/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

The FCC officials voted 4-0 to initiate a probe that could make these companies unable to work within the US.&nbsp;

"The threat to our networks from entities aligned with Communist China is one that we must address head on, and I am pleased that the FCC continues to show the strength and resolve necessary to meet this menace," FCC commissioner Brendan Carr in a statement said.&nbsp;

"When it comes to Communist China, we have set a high bar for action over the last few years," he added.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-subpoenas-chinese-communications-firms-in-probe-on-national-security-risks-371287">US subpoenas Chinese communications firms in probe on national security risks</a>

The move is a further jolt to these firms after a January decision by the New York Stock Exchange to ban them from trading.&nbsp;

Following the FCC's move, China Unicom in a statement stressed that it has never acted illegally and hoped a "thorough, fair and fact-based review of the company’s conduct by the FCC," as reported by Bloomberg.&nbsp;

Failure to prove that they were not under "undue influence" from Beijing, three Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies could be barred to operate in the United States.

Failure to prove that they were not under "undue influence" from Beijing, three Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies could be barred to operate in the United States. China Unicom America, Pacific Networks, and ComNet had failed to prove that their work in the US was not subject to "undue influence" from China, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said, as quoted by news agency AFP on Wednesday. Watch | The FCC officials voted 4-0 to initiate a probe that could make these companies unable to work within the US. "The threat to our networks from entities aligned with Communist China is one that we must address head on, and I am pleased that the FCC continues to show the strength and resolve necessary to meet this menace," FCC commissioner Brendan Carr in a statement said. "When it comes to Communist China, we have set a high bar for action over the last few years," he added. Also read | US subpoenas Chinese communications firms in probe on national security risks The move is a further jolt to these firms after a January decision by the New York Stock Exchange to ban them from trading. Following the FCC's move, China Unicom in a statement stressed that it has never acted illegally and hoped a "thorough, fair and fact-based review of the company’s conduct by the FCC," as reported by Bloomberg.

Three Chinese telecom firms face threat to work in US as regulator begins probe

The vehicle scrappage policy is finally seeing the light of the day in India, after many deliberations and delays.&nbsp;

Customers will get a discount and other benefits on buying new vehicles once they produce the certificate that their old vehicle has been scrapped and disposed of.&nbsp;

The scheme is somewhat like the 'cash for clunkers' scheme introduced by various European countries in the aftermath of the 2008-09 global financial crisis.&nbsp;

Vehicle manufacturers may offer a 4-6% discount against the scrappage certificate presented by the buyer.&nbsp;

Other rebates include a road tax relief of up to 25 per cent for a personal vehicle and 15 per cent for commercial vehicles.&nbsp;

Waiver of registration fees for the purchased vehicle is also one of the options.&nbsp;

The buyer will obtain a certificate after giving their old, dilapidated vehicles for scrappage at centres mandated by the government and a discount can be availed on the new vehicle on presenting this certificate.&nbsp;

The new policy requires all personal vehicles to undergo a fitness test after 20 years, while commercial vehicles would require it after the completion of 15 years.&nbsp;

While vehicle scrappage policy helps customers to dispose&nbsp;off their old vehicles while getting discounts in return, it also helps automobile companies and the economy as the vehicle sales increase.&nbsp;

The policy also helps in combating vehicular pollution in cities as it reduces the population of old and defective vehicles.&nbsp;

Estimates say old vehicles pollute 10-12 times more compared to vehicles that are fit. The road safety will also improve as at many times the old vehicles break down in the middle of the road creating a safety hazard.&nbsp;

According to official statistics, there are around 51 lakh vehicles in India which are older than 20 years, 34 lakh vehicles are more than 15 years old and around 17 lakh vehicles, older than 15 years, but they do not possess vehicle fitness certificate. &nbsp;

Rules for fitness tests and scrapping centres will come into effect from October 1, 2021.&nbsp;

The scrapping of government and PSU vehicles above 15 years will be undertaken from April 1, 2022.

The vehicle scrappage policy is finally seeing the light of the day in India, after many deliberations and delays. Customers will get a discount and other benefits on buying new vehicles once they produce the certificate that their old vehicle has been scrapped and disposed of.

The vehicle scrappage policy is finally seeing the light of the day in India, after many deliberations and delays. Customers will get a discount and other benefits on buying new vehicles once they produce the certificate that their old vehicle has been scrapped and disposed of. The scheme is somewhat like the 'cash for clunkers' scheme introduced by various European countries in the aftermath of the 2008-09 global financial crisis. Vehicle manufacturers may offer a 4-6% discount against the scrappage certificate presented by the buyer. Other rebates include a road tax relief of up to 25 per cent for a personal vehicle and 15 per cent for commercial vehicles. Waiver of registration fees for the purchased vehicle is also one of the options. The buyer will obtain a certificate after giving their old, dilapidated vehicles for scrappage at centres mandated by the government and a discount can be availed on the new vehicle on presenting this certificate. The new policy requires all personal vehicles to undergo a fitness test after 20 years, while commercial vehicles would require it after the completion of 15 years. While vehicle scrappage policy helps customers to dispose off their old vehicles while getting discounts in return, it also helps automobile companies and the economy as the vehicle sales increase. The policy also helps in combating vehicular pollution in cities as it reduces the population of old and defective vehicles. Estimates say old vehicles pollute 10-12 times more compared to vehicles that are fit. The road safety will also improve as at many times the old vehicles break down in the middle of the road creating a safety hazard. According to official statistics, there are around 51 lakh vehicles in India which are older than 20 years, 34 lakh vehicles are more than 15 years old and around 17 lakh vehicles, older than 15 years, but they do not possess vehicle fitness certificate. Rules for fitness tests and scrapping centres will come into effect from October 1, 2021. The scrapping of government and PSU vehicles above 15 years will be undertaken from April 1, 2022.

Get money for your clunkers: India unveils vehicle scrappage policy

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