In a bright spot for China's cooling economy, online shoppers spent billions of dollars Friday on "Singles Day," a quirky holiday that has grown into the world's busiest day for e-commerce.

The country's biggest e-commerce brand, Alibaba Group, said sales by the thousands of retailers on its platforms passed 82.4 billion yuan ($12 billion) in the first 12 hours of the event. That is four times the $3 billion research firm comScore says Americans spent in total last year on Cyber Monday, the country's biggest online shopping day.

Creditors of South Korea's STX Offshore and Shipbuilding on Friday narrowly approved a debt restructuring plan, avoiding the imminent liquidation of what was once the country's fourth largest shipbuilder.

The agreement came a week after the bankruptcy court handling the case said it had received bids from four foreign shipbuilders for the troubled shipyard and its profitable French unit, which makes cruise ships.

The dollar soared against high-yielding currencies and Asian emerging markets sank Friday on the prospect of higher US interest rates, with dealers betting Donald Trump's planned huge spending policies will fire inflation.

Saudi Arabia is working to pay billions of dollars owed to private firms after oil revenues collapsed, the kingdom's new finance minister said on Thursday.

Mexico is willing to "modernize" the North American Free Trade Agreement with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration and Canada, but will not renegotiate the pact, the foreign minister said.

Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu said NAFTA has "yielded great results" for the three nations, but that there is an opportunity to make it "more beneficial" to all.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday he is willing to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to change or scrap.

Russia's antitrust authority on Thursday said it had opened an investigation into Microsoft for allegedly abusing its dominance in the antivirus software market.

The IMF has something in common with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump: it recognizes the depth of negative feelings towards globalization and warns that those who have been passed over need help.

Trump has promised to spur a sharp increase in U.S. growth and bring back lost manufacturing jobs, and though he has not explained how, his message resonated with voters.

Head of a business empire and now U.S. president: by combining these two roles, billionaire Donald Trump could face conflicts of interest of an scale unprecedented in American political history. 

The Republican elected to the White House Tuesday made his fortune by building a network of hotels, office towers and luxury apartment buildings as the head of the Trump Organization.

The Nasdaq fell sharply in mid-morning trading Thursday, with Amazon, Facebook and other large tech stocks tumbling on worries about policy changes and protectionism under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump.