That's at minimum the amount of revenue that Chinese on-line giant Alibaba achieved through its ecommerce platform in its fiscal year ending March 31. We know that because in a filing with the US SEC this week the company said that it has "become the largest retail economy in the world as measured by gross merchandise volume (GMV) on its China retail marketplaces." It even goes so far as to say that this result has been validated by accountants from PriceWaterhouseCooper. Since Walmart achieved sales last year of $482.1 billion (in its 2016 fiscal year), the clear implication is that Alibaba has exceeded that number, with some analysts estimating the total will come in at $490 billion - and growing much faster than Walmart. The comparison is a little unfair, however, as Alibaba itself actually neither sells nor delivers any merchandise. It instead just acts as an on-linemarketplace for other etailers. So it is in a sense like a mall operator taking credit for all sales for the retailers that operate under its roof.

That's about the number of jobs at the giant Tata Steel Port Talbot plant in the Wales region of the UK, all of which are threatened as India's Tata announced it was putting that factory and others in the UK for sale starting next week. The issue? Rock bottom steel prices across the globe, driven by slackening demand, especially in China, and huge amounts of overcapacity. Cheap Chinese steel is entering the European and UK markets, causing big losses at steel makers there, with Tata saying it has lost more than $5 billion in its Euro operations since 2010. The travails of Tata have become a huge political issue in the UK, with some warning the country may lose nearly all of its steel making capacity, causing calls for nationalization of the industry from some quarters. Senior managers at Port Talbot and another plant in the country are madly trying to raise the huge sums needed to acquire and upgrade those factories. What plays out in the UK could have political ramifications in the US.