*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)
Proctor & Gamble is raising prices on a range of goods as higher commodity and freight costs are set to take a bite out of its profits.
Stocks ended higher on Wall Street Wednesday, bringing the S&P 500 to the brink of another record high.
Netflix has posted sharply higher third-quarter earnings thanks to a stronger slate of titles. Those include “Squid Game,” the dystopian show from South Korea that the company says became its biggest-ever TV show.
In the latest milestone for the cryptocurrency industry, an easy-to-trade fund tied to Bitcoin began trading on Tuesday.
The stock market certainly shook when hundreds of thousands of regular people suddenly piled into GameStop early this year, driving its price to heights that shocked professional investors. But it didn’t break.
Stocks are closing higher on Wall Street Tuesday, giving the S&P 500 its fifth straight gain and getting it closer to the record high it set in early September.
The global energy crisis is about to hit home in the U.S. this winter as high energy prices and expectations of a colder winter than last year put pressure on common heating fuels.
Facebook says it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform.
Stocks wobbled to a mixed finish on Wall Street Monday as the market’s momentum slowed down following its best week since July.
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.
