Mexican surprise

Mexico stunned markets Thursday by increasing interest rates by half a percentage point, in a move by the central bank that no top economist predicted. Inflation in Latin America’s second-largest economy has made only minimal progress back to target. After initially slowing, price growth ticked up slightly in December and again in January to 7.91%.

The S&P 500 finished the day lower after wiping out a 1% rally. Options traders continued piling into bets targeting a 6% Fed peak rate, almost a percentage point higher than consensus. And Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin added to the drumbeat of officials signaling the central bank has a ways to go before declaring victory. Here’s your markets wrap. —David E. Rovella

Tesla shares extended their rally Thursday, helped by a rising appetite for growth and technology stocks. The shares are bouncing off a 65% plunge in 2022 as riskier growth stocks, beaten down hard last year, have made a strong comeback in 2023 as optimism about the US economy returns.

Thousands of foreign aid workers have arrived in Turkey and the first United Nations aid convoy has entered Syria after this week’s twin earthquakes. The World Bank announced a $1.78 billion relief package as well. The death toll surpassed 20,000 across Turkey and neighboring Syria, with thousands still missing.

China, which in recent days has been critical of the US for shooting down what the Pentagon says was a sophisticated spy balloon, lashed out at President Joe Biden for saying leader Xi Jinping faces “enormous problems.” Biden said Xi has “great potential” but has “an economy that’s not functioning very well.” He also suggested that Beijing’s ties with Moscow weren’t helping matters. And speaking of the balloon, it turns out some of its parts were made in the West.

German defense contractor Rheinmetall is in talks to supply Ukraine with its most sophisticated battle tanks and fighting vehicles. On the ground in eastern Ukraine, it’s beginning to look like the Kremlin’s long-feared winter offensive has begun.

Commodity trader Trafigura Group is facing more than half a billion dollars in losses after discovering metal cargoes it bought didn’t contain the nickel they were supposed to. Trafigura has spent the past two months uncovering what it believes is a systematic fraud against it.

It wasn’t too long ago that Jorge Paulo Lemann was arguably the most respected—and feared—corporate baron around. The Brazilian magnate and his two longtime business partners were scooping up multinational giants at a fast clip and folding them into the vast empire they built from Rio de Janeiro. Those days may be coming to an end, however: Brazil’s richest man is losing billions of dollars.

The pandemic isn’t over, America. Covid is killing 500 Americans every day—mostly the oldest, frailest members of society. Indeed, about 9 in 10 US coronavirus deaths are among people over 65. Older people, Faye Flam writes in Bloomberg Opinion, feel left behind by 2023’s “back-to-normal” attitude. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, on a recent podcast, echoed the sentiments of America’s senior citizens, she writes. “We feel like our lives are almost seen as disposable,” he said.

Bloomberg continues to track the global coronavirus pandemic. Click here for daily updates.

Can crypto mining ever be green, or will it always be a big contributor to fossil fuel emissions? On the second episode of Getting Warmer With Kal Penn, we meet “crypto cowboy” Justin Ballard, who claims Bitcoin mining can stabilize the delicate Texas power grid while using up surplus energy.

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