"It's a marathon, not a sprint. Whatever happens, resist the urge to sell. The longer we hold, the higher it goes."

That was the post on the platform eToro by the amateur trader known only as @catchme1fyoucan. The individual concerned posted just as shares in GameStop began once again to suddenly and inexplicably rise. In early trading in New York, stock prices at the video games retailer were up 50 percent after a roller-coaster session on Wednesday.

This latest frenzy is causing concern among some of the most senior figures in the U.S. investment industry. "It's really stupid to have a culture which encourages as much gambling in stocks by people who have the mindset of racetrack bettors," said Charlie Munger of the Berkshire Hathaway fund, a long-time business partner of world-famous investor Warren Buffett. Whichever side you are on in the David and Goliath battle between day traders and Wall Street, it seems the "Reddit Rally" has some way to go. 

Elsewhere, Australia's Digital Services and Markets Act has finally been passed into law, promising a fairer slice of the revenues cake for domestic news producers. But media watchers say the proof will be in the eating.    

Southeast Asia's largest online travel start-up, Traveloka, is moving into financial services with a new "buy now, pay later" offer for online shoppers. It comes ahead of planned listing on the New York markets later this year, backed by (yes, you guessed it) an as-yet unnamed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). 

And easyJet is back in the money, raised upwards of a billion dollars in an oversubscribed bond sale. After a dreadful year for the airlines, share prices are up again. 

Scroll down for more on this and the rest of the day's business news in full.  

Louise Greenwood,

Digital business correspondent 

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Shares in GameStop are rising again, up 50 percent in early trading on the U.S. markets, as amateur investors flock back to the stock in a move that has baffled analysts. 

Prices in the video games retailer, which has been at the center of a storm pitting activist stockpickers against top Wall Street fund managers, more than doubled on Wednesday, with a peak of frenzied trading in the last 90 minutes before markets closed. In Frankfurt, where GameStop has its European listing, shares trebled at one point, overshooting even the performance on Wall Street. 

Shares in cinema group AMC Entertainment, which was also caught up in last month's so called "Reddit Rally", jumped 17 percent early on Thursday after rising almost a fifth in the previous session. 

Despite various puzzling memes, including one of an ice cream cone, going viral online, market analysts say there is no clue about the sudden spike in activity. On Wednesday, shares in GameStop were suspended twice amid the buying burst, while the Reddit platform also went offline. Seasoned traders point to plans announced by GameStop earlier in the week to refocus on digital channels, away from bricks-and-mortar stores, as its current chief financial officer says he will step down.   

Australia's parliament has finally passed into law legislation to oblige tech platforms to pay for access to domestic news content. After weeks of negotiations in which Facebook blocked all local news content on its site, Australia will become the first nation where a government arbitrator can intervene to set prices if talks between tech giants and domestic media fail. 

Analysts warn the plans are vague and untested, but Australia's reforms are being followed closely by countries including the UK and Canada, both seeking to reform their laws on "Big Tech." 

Talks are continuing over the future of the Vauxhall motor plant in the northwest of England. Stellantis, the car maker's parent company is considering three options for the future of the site at Ellesmere Port including investing in a new version of the best-selling Astra, turning into a center for electric vehicle production or shutting it completely. 

As expected, German car maker Daimler has announced plans to spin off its trucks business with a view to developing carbon-neutral models. The new division plans to start production of its battery-powered eActros truck later this year, in a big shake-up which sees the business separate from the larger Mercedes-Benz luxury-car division after more than a century.

Sales at another European premium car brand, the UK's Aston Martin, have fallen. Wholesale deliveries of cars to dealers were down 42 percent to just under 4,000 in the year to the end of December, while retail sales to customers were down 32 percent. The fall has been blamed on a "destocking" policy by dealerships to cope with the COVID-19 impact, but the firm is hopeful of a return to profit for the prestige British brand.

Mining giant Anglo American has reported its best second-half performance since 2011 as its facilities return to almost full operating capacity. The owner of diamond company De Beers says rising commodity prices at the end of 2020 and an easing of lockdown conditions helped deliver earnings of $9.8 billion for the year to December and revenues of $31 billion, ahead of expectations.

Low-cost airline easyJet has raised $1.47 billion in a sale of seven-year bonds, showing the enthusiasm for travel-related stocks as the UK announces plans to lift lockdown conditions. The bonds, which were five times oversubscribed by investors, were offered with a yield of 2.37 percent in a sale backed by Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and Santander. After a difficult year for easyJet, the carrier is pinning recovery hopes on a surge in demand from holidaymakers as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said non-essential air travel may be able to resume from May 17.

Meanwhile, Australia's Qantas Airways says it aims to restart 22 of its 25 overseas routes in October, to cities including Los Angeles, London and Johannesburg, betting that vaccine roll-outs will have lifted lockdown conditions in key markets by the fall, after its worst year on record. Its low-cost arm Jetstar aims to restart all its 13 international routes at the same time.

Government borrowing around the world rose by a record 60 percent last year, according to new figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to $18 trillion. The jump is almost double that seen after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Borrowing is expected to increase further in 2021, but at a slower pace, to $19.1 trillion as more governments seek revenue-raising measures as economies reopen. 

Southeast Asia's largest online travel start-up, Traveloka, says it is to launch a financial services operation in Thailand and Vietnam ahead of a possible New York listing. The nine-year-old Indonesian company, which counts China's JD.com among its investors, has reported a strong rebound in demand as customers plan for post-pandemic holidays. Traveloka, which last year launched a "Paylater" credit card with Indonesian backing, is seeking to roll out the model for online shoppers in Southeast Asia, where demand for e-commerce channels is rising. It is also holding discussions with special-purpose acquisition companies (SPAC) ahead of a U.S. listing.

China is increasing efforts to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), according to a statement from the Ministry of Commerce. China is evaluating and analyzing terms and has made informal contact with the CPTPP's 11 members, Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen said on Wednesday. China reiterated its goal to join the CPTPP during the Central Economic Working Conference last year.

Standard Chartered bank has reported profits fell by 57 percent last year, to $1.6 billion, amid the coronavirus pandemic and low interest rates. Bad debt provision more than doubled to $2.3 billion at the bank, which focuses most of its business on Asia and Africa. Although managers said in a statement: "The direction of travel is clearly improving," amid hopes of a successful vaccine roll-out globally. The bank said it is focusing on profitable markets and is likely to reduce its office space by a third in the next three to four years.

U.S. President Joe Biden is to seek $37 billion in funding to promote the domestic production of semiconductor chips. Signing an executive order on Wednesday, Biden said he was directing officials "to work with industrial leaders to identify solutions to the semiconductor shortfall." The chip shortage has forced several leading auto makers in the U.S. and around the world to cut production and shutter plants. 

Meanwhile, Tesla is reported to have told workers it will temporarily halt some production at its car assembly plant in California. Staff on the Model 3 production line in Fremont have been informed the line will be down until March 7, but there has been no further comment from the car maker. Tesla said last month, despite the growth in global demand, it might also face a temporary impact on production from the shortage of semiconductors essential to its vehicles.

Meanwhile gaming chip maker Nvidia says it is struggling to maintain reserves as demand for its products surge in lockdown. The Silicon Valley-based firm noted that, as well as demand from auto makers and video games firms, the chips have also boomed due to their use in mining cryptocurrencies. Reporting a rise in revenue in the three months to the end of January, to $5 billion from $3.11 billion a year earlier, the firm said it expects the new mining chips to generate about $50 million in revenue in its fiscal first quarter of the year.     

The UK's second biggest supermarket chain Asda has announced a restructuring exercise that could cost 3,000 office jobs, as long-term shopping habits change post COVID-19. The retailer says plans were prompted by a "structural shift" in the industry, with the use of physical money falling and an increasing rise in online shopping.

Meanwhile, the owner of the low-cost clothing retailer Primark says it will lose $2.1 billion in sales due to the current lockdown in the UK, where it hopes to reopen by the end of April. Associated British Foods said trading at the store has been "materially impacted" by COVID-19 curbs, with ongoing sales losses expected to last until August. 

U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase has pledged $350 million to help grow black, latino and women-owned businesses as part of a broader effort at the lender to address the wealth gap in the world's biggest economy and encourage the growth of black and minority ethnic (BME) owned firms. $42.5 million of the pledge will go to the Entrepreneurs of Color fund, providing low interest loans for community financial institutions in cities such as Chicago and Detroit.

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The watchdog for the global airline industry says it will launch a COVID-19 travel pass by the end of next month, to help facilitate safe international travel. It is urging governments around the world to issue digital vaccination certificates for use with the travel pass. The news comes just as London's Heathrow Airport reports a $2.8 billion annual loss. 

CGTN Europe spoke to Gloria Guevara from the World Travel and Tourism Council about the outlook for the industry in 2021.  

This has been very complicated, and the next couple of weeks and next months are crucial, we need to have a strong summer in order to survive – a lot of players haven't survived. Already, we have seen a lot of small and medium-sized businesses being closed for good. So it is hard to tell. But we're still in the middle of the storm.

Are you seeing a boom in bookings at the moment now the UK government has laid out its roadmap out of the lockdown? 

Yes, we saw a huge increase in bookings for this summer, especially after May 17 as they announced the roadmap, and that tells you certainty is key. When we have certainty, people can plan in advance and can get organized. We also are concerned about spring and we're hoping also to have a clear path of how is that going to be for mobility after May 17 and a little before hopefully.

Can people book a holiday with any level of confidence? 

Absolutely, they can, especially because the private sector has been very flexible, the airlines, the hotels have been very flexible, I think that the UK has done a fantastic job in terms of the vaccination roll-out and that brings certainty. As we have seen, the mortality ratio has been reduced significantly and that has helped a lot. So the UK can book travel, domestic, international and plan for the holidays. But we also need to ask the government to define the framework, the mobility protocols that will be in place so that we know exactly what's going to happen, when and how we're going to be able to travel. 

How confident are you that business travel will return to what it once was?

I'm very confident … It's going to take some time of course but that's what everything is indicating. But as we have seen in the past, in every single major disruption, business travel has come back. There's still a lot of business that you can do [online], but we have different time zones, meetings are very important for closing deals face to face, interactions in many cultures are relevant, it's very important.

And finally - easyJet has had no problem raising almost $1.5 billion from investors in a bond sale that was five times oversubscribed. As the UK announces plans to reopen the skies for international travel, airline stocks are the new hot ticket, with prices booming in the past five days, as the figures here show.