*By Michael Teich*
Amazon inked a new partnership with American Express, but don't expect the financial industry to be the next area the tech giant jumps into.
"The thing that people misunderstand is that tech companies don't want to manufacture financial products," said Lex Sokolin, Global Director of Fintech Strategy at Autonomous Research. "It's about making the ecosystem and the platform more powerful, and finance is just a feature inside of that."
American Express announced Tuesday it will launch a co-branded Amazon credit card for small businesses. The move accelerates Amazon's foray into financial products and strengthens its position as a lender. The goal, Sokolin said, is to enable small businesses to finance their activities, getting more products on Amazon's platform, and ultimately driving more commerce.
Plus, the opportunity costs of devoting itself to the financial industry are too high.
"Amazon has tremendous high-growth, super interesting, blue oceans to explore,” he said. "They could be investing in building a mortgage business, or they can build artificial intelligence business."
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/amazon-bolsters-financial-prowess-with-new-credit-card)
Stocks ended a wobbly day modestly higher on Wall Street, enough to notch more all-time highs for major indexes.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Stocks are ending higher Friday as Wall Street closed out a milestone-setting week. Health care, communication services and technology companies rose.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta, an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future.
A new study from Fidelity has found that holders of cryptocurrency are disproportionately more charitable as investors, with 45 percent donating $1,000 or more to charity in 2020.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to a pandemic low last week, another sign that the job market and economy continue to recover from last year’s coronavirus recession.
Stocks closed broadly higher on Wall Street Thursday, marking more record highs for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.
A group of prominent academics and activists are calling on banks and insurers to avoid the kind of systemic collapse that crippled the world economy back in 2008.
SpaceX is resolving toilet spills in its capsules before it launches another crew for NASA. Liftoff is currently set for early Sunday from Florida's Kennedy Space Center.
Stocks faded in the last hour of trading and ended mostly lower Wednesday, a day after the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average set their latest record highs
