Alibaba just got slapped with China’s largest antitrust penalty, with Chinese regulators imposing a USD 2.8 bn fine on the e-commerce group. The State Administration for Market Regulation imposed the fine — equivalent to 4% of Alibaba’s annual sales — after ruling it had abused its position to “punish” sellers that also sold on other platforms following a four-month investigation, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company will also have to submit a compliance report over the next three years. The probe followed comments by Alibaba founder Jack Ma criticizing Chinese regulatory restrictions — comments which ultimately also resulted in regulators halting Alibaba affiliate Ant Group’s USD 37 bn planned IPO days before it was set to go to market last year.

Crypto miner Riot Blockchain will acquire North America’s largest BTC hosting facility, Whinstone, in an almost USD 651 mn stock and cash transaction that would see the former standing as one of the largest listed mining centers in the world, according to a statement (pdf). The acquisition follows bitcoin prices clearing record highs of 60k last month.

US back to a "great economy" soon? Stocks climbed on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's reassurance that the US central bank has the tools to curb inflationary pressures, Bloomberg reports, with Powell vowing to get the US' economy back on track during an IMF panel (watch, runtime: 53:14) over the weekend. The Federal Reserve is likely to keep interest rates stable till at least the end of 2023, according to the Fed’s latest forecast, as the US positively cushions the economic fallout from the pandemic. “We would be monitoring inflation expectations very carefully. If we see them moving persistently and materially above levels we’re comfortable with, then we’d react to that,” Powell said.

The EGX30 rose 0.7% on Thursday on turnover of EGP 692 mn (50.6% below the 90-day average). Foreign investors were net sellers. The index is down 5.0% YTD.

In the green: SODIC (+3.3%), CI Capital (+2.7%) and Telecom Egypt (+2.5%).

In the red: GB Auto (-1.1%), Credit Agricole (-0.4%) and Orascom Development (-0.4%).