Bank of Mexico board member Jonathan Heath said in a newspaper interview published on Monday that he does not see the central bank's benchmark interest rate reaching 12%, Reuters reported. "In my very personal opinion and based on the data available today, I do not see the terminal rate reaching 12%, but rather I estimate that it will be located in a range of 11.25% to 11.75%," Heath told newspaper El Financiero. The central bank's governing board raised its key interest rate to a record 11% this month amid stubborn inflation.

U.S. subsidiaries of Australian coal mining company Allegiance Coal Ltd. filed for chapter 11 protection on Tuesday, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The chapter 11 filing includes the New Elk and Black Warrior coal mines located in Colorado and Alabama, respectively, according to papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., by Allegiance Coal USA Ltd. The Australian parent company said last week that it is switching away from the production of thermal coal because of a decline in prices for thermal coal delivered to Europe.

Mexico's headline inflation decelerated more than forecast by analysts in early February, data from the national statistics agency showed on Thursday, Reuters reported. Annual headline inflation in the first half of the month came down to 7.76% from 7.94% a month earlier, while economists polled by Reuters had forecast 7.80%. Meanwhile the core index, which strips out some volatile food and energy prices, hit 8.38% on an annual basis, with a surprise of -0.04%. However, annual inflation still remains above the Bank of Mexico's target rate of 3%, plus or minus one percentage point.

Shares of Cineworld slumped as much as 22% on Wednesday after media reports said the world's second-largest cinema operator had received 40 non-binding bids, but none for its UK and U.S. assets or nearing its $6 billion secured debt load, Reuters reported. The reports cited company counsel Joshua Sussberg's comments to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston on Tuesday, where he also said the initial bids received by a Feb. 16 deadline were all for the rest of Cineworld's global assets, mainly for theatres in central Europe, eastern Europe and Israel.

In the realm of global economic policy, Friday Nov. 13, 2020, was meant to be about hope — not the trigger for another pandemic-era fright. That’s when Group of 20 finance ministers announced final agreement on a blueprint for the US, China and other relatively new creditor countries like India to cooperate on debt relief for more than 70 low-income nations facing a collective $326 billion burden, and deliver it in a “timely and orderly” way, Bloomberg News reported.

Canadian inflation pressures eased in January, leaving the Bank of Canada some room to hold interest rates at current levels next month even after a blockbuster jobs report, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose 5.9% from a year ago, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday in Ottawa, slower than the 6.1% gain expected in a Bloomberg survey of economists and down from 6.3% in December. On a monthly basis, the index rose 0.5% in January, versus expectations of 0.7%.

The Japanese subsidiary of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX said it started allowing customers to withdraw their assets on Tuesday, a relatively quick reboot that Tokyo regulators see as the fruit of their strict crypto laws, the Wall Street Journal reported. The situation in Japan contrasts with the U.S. and other countries, where most FTX customers are a long way from getting access to their assets more than three months after the exchange’s U.S. bankruptcy filing. Japan, which was burned by the collapse of the early cryptocurrency exchange Mt.

The Bank of Mexico's monetary tightening cycle is nearing its end and nominal interest rates could top out between 11.25% and 11.75%, at which point rates would be kept steady to allow them to take effect, deputy bank governor Jonathan Heath said, Reuters reported. Banxico, as the Mexican central bank is known, has raised its benchmark interest rate by 700 basis points since its rate-hiking cycle started in June 2021, as inflation surged far beyond its target of 3%, plus or minus 1 percentage point.

Mexican airline Aeromar announced the "definitive end" of operations on Wednesday, as the heavily indebted company failed to reach agreements with providers and a rumored potential investor, Reuters reported. The struggling company is the latest in a string of Mexican airlines hit with major financial woes in recent years, following Interjet in 2020 and Aeromexico, which came out of bankruptcy proceedings last March. Like its peers, Aeromar was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, but had shown signs of financial struggles before.