Investors and traders are looking ahead to the upcoming US corporate earnings reports, beginning next week, as overall S&P 500 earnings are expected to have surged by 25% in the first quarter.
On Friday, workers at an Amazon.com warehouse in Alabama voted against forming a union in a major win for the world's largest online retailer.
General Motors Co stated on Friday that it would cancel some shifts at two of its plants responsible for truck production because of the ongoing chip shortage.
On Friday, the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen noted that President's tax plan would increase the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) budget by $1.2B or 10.4%.
On Saturday, China instructed Alibaba to pay a $2.75B fine which was equivalent to nearly 4% of the company's revenue for abuse of its dominant position in the market.
The US President Joe Biden proposed $14B in funding initiatives to fight climate changes in the 2020 budget, including capital injections for science research and environmental regulation.
China's antitrust regulator is set to clear Tencent Holdings's plan to take one of the country's search engine Sogou private, sources said.
The government of Spain approved a plan to spend up to €800M until 2023 to encourage electric vehicle sales, the Energy Ministry stated.
As reported by statistics agency IBGE on Friday, the annual rate of consumer inflation in Brazil rose to 6.10% in March, the highest since December 2016.
Canada added 303,100 jobs in March and the unemployment rate fell to 7.5%, Statistics Canada reported on Friday.
Crude oil prices declined on Friday. Brent crude futures fell by 0.32% to $62.88 a barrel at 12:30 GMT, while the US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at $59.43, down 17 cents.
As reported by the US Labor Department on Friday, US producer prices rose more than expected last month.
McDonald's Corp is planning to hire 25,000 new staff in its US restaurants in Texas this month, as lockdown restrictions are easing ahead of summer.
CBS News' executive vice-president Kimberly Godwin has entered the final stages of discussion with Walt Disney over becoming ABC News' new president, a media report showed on Friday.
Prince Philip, the leading figure in Britain's royal family and Queen Elizabeth's husband, has died at the age of 99, according to Buckingham Palace's announcement made on Friday.
Australia's federal court has dismissed the German carmaker Volkswagen's appeal against the record A$125M fine in the emissions cheating scandal, the country's competition regulator reported on Friday.
On Friday, ASOS, UK's online fashion retailer, reported a 275% surge to more than $155M in its first-half profit through Feb. 28 amid an online boom during the pandemic.
On Friday, the South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor announced it would suspend its output at the Asan plant starting next week due to the global chip shortage.
On Friday, Airbus reported a surge in its March deliveries, boosted by the air travel rebound in the United States and China, sending the company's shares up over 2%.
During Friday's Asian and European trading hours, global stock indices extended the previous day's surge, as a tech stock rally was taking place.
Didi Chuxing, the Chinese top ride-hailing company, has picked Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to lead its mega US IPO, according to Reuters.
Southwest Airlines will recall more than 2.7K of its flight attendants from their leave from June 1 to back the carrier's summer schedule, halting the voluntary furlough programme as more US citizens become vaccinated.
Brazil's Selic interest rate is likely to reach the neutral level as soon as 2022, central bank's director said in a statement earlier this week.
Levi Strauss has raised its H1 revenue growth outlook by 24%-25%, hoping that the COVID-19 vaccine rollouts would drive a return to normalcy, after beating quarterly sales forecasts on the e-commerce boost.