Passenger car retail sales in China, the world’s biggest auto market, fell 80% in February because of the coronavirus epidemic, one of the country’s industry associations said on Wednesday. The China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) said in a statement that China’s overall passenger car sales dropped 80%, without giving a full sales figure for the month. Source Autoblog
Russian oil drilling giant Gazprom Neft opened a crypto mining farm running on associated gas energy unlocking the power of Russia’s oil and gas resources for the needs of bitcoin (BTC) mining, reports Yahoo Finance. The venue for cryptocurrency mining is on one of the company’s oil drilling sites in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug in Siberia. It is using the associated gas from Gazprom Neft’s oil field as an energy source and has its own power plant to transform this gas into electricity. Source Realnoevremya
The United States’ trade deficit surged to its highest level in more than 14 years in November as businesses boosted imports to replenish inventories, offsetting a rise in exports. Source Reuters
U.S. bankruptcy filings hit their lowest level since 1986 last year thanks to unprecedented fiscal and monetary support from the Fed and Congress.
By the numbers: Total bankruptcy filings for the year fell to 529,068 filings across all chapters, while total filings in the month of December was 34,304, the lowest monthly total since January 2006, according to a release from legal services company Epiq AACER. The number of total 2020 filings was about 1/3 of the number seen in 2010. Source Axios
