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With Westfield Malls’ European owner announcing it's looking to unload its portfolio of American malls by next year, the outlook seems grim for U.S. shopping malls amid the e-commerce boom. However, consumer and retail expert Natalie Kotlyar, managing partner at BDO USA, believes malls still have life left in them, YahooFinance.com reported. “So this is certainly nothing new, this whole conversation about the [decline of malls],” Kotlyar told Yahoo Finance Live. “And are we moving away from the mall? So I am here to tell you that the mall is not dead. Consumers are still going into the malls. And they will continue to go into the stores.” Kotlyar said that mall performance going forward varies based on geographic location, but a steady return to brick-and-mortar shopping destinations has been observed as the global economy shifts away from pandemic conditions. “Obviously, as the pandemic somewhat subsided, consumers were more comfortable going to the stores,” she added. “And in fact, we've seen a significant uptick in foot traffic over the last nine to 12 months in the malls as consumers became more comfortable with going out into the physical locations. So I do think that there is a need for malls.”

Shipments of some Apple products, as well as Dell and Lenovo laptops are likely to face delays if China's COVID-19 lockdowns persist, analysts said, as curbs force assemblers to shut down and closed-loop arrangements get harder to maintain, Reuters reported. China's race to stop the spread of COVID-19 has jammed highways and ports, stranded workers and left countless factories awaiting government approval to reopen — disruptions that are rippling through global supply chains. Apple Inc. supplier Pegatron Corp. said this week that it would suspend its plants in Shanghai and Kunshan, where according to supply chain experts it produces the iPhone 13, the iPhone SE series, and other legacy models. Quanta Computer Inc., which produces some three-quarters of Apple's Macbooks globally, also shut operations, which could impact delivers more severely, analysts said. The final impact on Apple's supply chain is uncertain and depends on factors including how long lockdowns persist. The company may also consider re-routing production out of Shanghai and Kunshan to factories elsewhere, such as Shenzhen, which currently is not under lockdown, analysts said. The chief executives of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and Xpeng Inc. have flagged huge economic costs if factories in Shanghai cannot resume production soon. Shanghai is approaching its third week of lockdown and has shown no sign of a wide re-opening. Laptop makers may also suffer, including Compal Electronics Inc., a Taiwan-based company that makes PCs for Dell Technologies Inc. and Lenovo Group Ltd from its plants in Kunshan.

Inflation soared over the past year at its fastest pace in more than 40 years, with costs for food, gasoline, housing and other necessities squeezing American consumers and wiping out the pay raises that many people have received, the Associated Press reported. The Labor Department said Tuesday that its consumer price index jumped 8.5% in March from 12 months earlier, the sharpest year-over-year increase since 1981. Prices have been driven up by bottlenecked supply chains, robust consumer demand and disruptions to global food and energy markets worsened by Russia’s war against Ukraine. From February to March, inflation rose 1.2%, the biggest month-to-month jump since 2005. Gasoline prices drove more than half that increase. Across the economy, the year-over-year price spikes were widespread. Gasoline prices rocketed 48% in the past 12 months. Used car prices have soared 35%, though they actually fell in February and March. Bedroom furniture is up 14.7%, men’s suits and coats 14.5%. Grocery prices have jumped 10%, including 18% increases for both bacon and oranges.

The judge overseeing the bankruptcy case of Sears Holdings Corp. appointed mediators to help resolve a $2 billion lawsuit against former chairman Eddie Lampert and other former shareholders filed by the retailer’s creditors three years ago, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Robert Drain appointed Shelley Chapman, a fellow bankruptcy judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, along with James Peck and Jed Melnick, as mediators in the lawsuit, which alleges that Mr. Lampert and his hedge fund stripped key assets like Lands’ End and the Sears Hometown stores out of the company before its chapter 11 filing. Mr. Lampert has denied the allegations and sought to have the lawsuit dismissed. A settlement or monetary award in the litigation is expected to be a key source of recovery for top-ranking creditors of the former Sears, many of them foreign vendors, which are still owed roughly $60 million, according to a January court filing. Judge Drain set a May 23 deadline for the mediation to conclude, though it can be extended, according to Wednesday’s court order. The appointment of mediators comes just over two months before Judge Drain’s scheduled retirement from the bench.

New Mexico’s Democratic-led Legislature pushed Tuesday for one-time payments to residents of $500 per individual or $1,000 per household to offset steep prices for fuel and raging inflation, the Associated Press reported. The aid package would distribute nearly $700 million to adult residents of all income levels, including elderly people with little or no income who don’t ordinarily file taxes and undocumented immigrants. The bill won House approval on a 51-13 vote with broad support from Democrats and several Republicans, moving the initiative to the Senate for consideration. More than a dozen states are considering or implementing payouts to the public in response to raging inflation and budget surpluses, with some tax reductions also under consideration. Gas prices have surged to record highs in the U.S. amid the war in Ukraine and a ban on imports of Russian oil. Fuel prices are taking a bite out household finances at the same time that New Mexico state government is experiencing a financial windfall linked to record-setting oil production in the Permian Basin. New Mexico last year surpassed North Dakota to become the No. 2 oil producer in the nation behind Texas.

The House might vote this week on a small-business pandemic aid package that would provide $42 billion for additional restaurant relief and $13 billion for other “hard hit” industries, Roll Call reported. The Rules Committee is scheduled to meet on the revised bill Tuesday afternoon, which indicates floor action soon after. Democratic leaders are whipping the bill to see if there are enough votes to pass it, according to a source familiar with the planning who wasn't authorized to speak publicly. The restaurant and hard-hit business grant funding would be offset by “all funds rescinded, seized, reclaimed, or otherwise returned” from various programs in prior pandemic relief laws. It was not immediately clear if that would score as a full or partial offset for the $55 billion in total funding. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) said on Friday that he has been working with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for months to provide additional aid to restaurants and other small businesses that were not able to access previous pandemic relief programs. Speaking a few hours before the bill was released, Phillips said that he was hopeful for a vote and that there would be bipartisan support given the measure is offset with recaptured fraudulent awards.

Major automakers are expected to report on Friday that first-quarter U.S. car and light truck sales fell sharply compared to a year ago, with more uncertainty ahead because of parts shortages, high fuel prices and rising interest rates, Reuters reported. J.D. Power and LMC Automotive forecast that January-March U.S. car and light truck sales will decline 18% from a year ago, and predict the annualized sales pace for March will slump to 12.7 million vehicles, down from 17.8 million a year ago. Cox Automotive said earlier this week first-quarter U.S. auto sales would be the weakest in a decade. Tesla Inc. could buck the downward trend. The world's most valuable automaker is expected to report its first quarter deliveries as soon as Friday, and Wall Street had been expecting an improvement from the fourth quarter figure of 308,650 vehicles. However, Tesla has had to shut down production at its Shanghai factory this week to comply with COVID-19 lockdowns. Two years after the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns derailed the U.S. economy, automakers are still trying to find their balance. The spike in gasoline prices, propelled by the war in Ukraine and the worst inflation in 40 years, have rattled consumer confidence. Rising rates coupled with high pump prices have often been harbingers of recessions for the auto industry in the past. Consumer intentions to buy a new or used vehicle in the next six months have slumped in March for the second month in a row, and for used vehicles are at the lowest levels in 15 months, according to a survey released by the Conference Board this week.

GameStop Corp. shares surged as much as 22% in extended trading after the company said it plans to ask shareholders for approval of a stock split in the form of a dividend, Bloomberg News reported. The gaming retailer will request at its upcoming annual meeting that shareholders approve a proposal to increase the number of Class A shares to 1 billion from 300 million, according to a filing Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The stock jumped to a high of $203.98 after closing at $166.58 in New York. The plan would make the company the latest tech firm to propose a share split after heavyweights Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Tesla Inc. laid out similar goals in recent weeks. The moves helped trigger rallies on the companies as retail investors, who tend to favor stocks with lower price tags, flocked to the shares. The split is “just a sentiment effect,” Gina Martin Adams, chief equity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, said earlier this week, referring to the recent split announcements. GameStop’s shares have swung over the past year as the company became a poster child for so-called meme stocks. Retail investors, who organize in online forums like Reddit, boosted the stock by more than 700% in 2021. But gains faded earlier this year until last week when Chairman Ryan Cohen reported an increase in his stake of the company to 11.9%, with the purchase of 100,000 shares, signaling confidence in the gaming retailer.