BUSINESS

Australia's corporate behemoths are publishing results left right and centre. It's tough to know what to make of the deluge of information, and there's a lot of shuffling going on. But a few clear trends are emerging.

Earnings season continues...heavyweights including NAB, Coca-Cola Amatil and QBE all reported first half results today. But we'll leave all that for tomorrow once the dust has settled. There's something more important going on in a different market.

Heineken NV (HEIA), the world's third-largest brewer delivered a dismal earnings report on Wednesday, saying its first half profit fell 17 percent because of bad weather, weak "consumer sentiment" in Europe and the United States, and sluggish growth in developing countries.

When Apple unveils the iPhone 5S and its budget sibling, the iPhone 5C, the gadgets will share top-billing with one man – company CEO Tim Cook, who is approaching his second year as big boss for the tech giant that preps for its 2013 flagship release date.

In a bid to eat a large slice of the tablet pie, particularly the share of Apple's iPad, Amazon kept on discounting their Kindle Fire tablet the past few weeks. On Thursday, Amazon cut anew the price of its refurbished Kindle Fire 8.9-inch model.

The Australian share market is rebounding in early trade following a positive session on offshore markets overnight. The NASDAQ rose more than one per cent despite a computer glitch which stopped trading for three hours.

A computer glitch hit on Thursday the Nasdaq Stock Market for three hours. Being the second downtime this week, it raised anew concerns over the fragile state of the bourses.

Fumes from vehicular traffic and home cooking fires using coal briquettes have been found to be the major culprits of China's burgeoning and worsening air pollution.

The flight attendants of Delta Airlines will now start using the Nokia Lumia 820 handset for more efficient on-board passenger purchases. The airline company announced that 19,000 units of the Windows Phone 8 device have been issued to simplify the flight attendants’ workload.

Hong Kong may not be directly affected by severe tropical storm Trami, which is currently battering China, but it surely still made its presence felt in the country. Trami's coverage was so wide that it trapped pollutants in Hong Kong's air to reach "very high" levels, prompting the government to issue health warnings.

Gold Fields agreed to buy three high-cost gold mines in Australia from Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold producer, for $300 million.

By Greg PeelThe Dow rose 66 points or 0.4% while the S&P gained 0.9% to 1656 and the Nasdaq added 1.0%.

Despite preparing for a launch of another version of the iPhone, it has been difficult for Cupertino-California based Apple to make its entry into China. The move to bring iPhone 5 to China was an arduous task. However, by teaming up with the nation's biggest telecom, China Mobile, Apple will be able to test its results by December 31, 2013.

A better than expected reading on the health of China's manufacturing sector wasn't quite enough to push local shares into positive territory today. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) slipped by 0.5 per cent, with the mining sector the biggest drag.

Thinking of investing in a serviced apartment? Here's a quick synopsis of why it's a good idea.

'CBA's record result delivers Narev $7.8m pay cheque' said a headline in the Business section of The Australian yesterday. According to the article, the CEO's salary package rose to $2.1m compared to last year. Nice work.

Gold, stocks, bonds - all the major markets seem to have turned around in the last six months. Bond investors have been the worst hit. Many have losses of 20% or more. Surely, there are some major financial problems hidden beneath these figures. Sooner or later, they will show up in the headlines...with the announcement of bankruptcies and defaults.

We expected the summer trading to drag on...and then the markets to set off on their new trends after 1 September: Stocks down. Bonds down. Gold up.

The death of a 21-year old Bank of America intern who worked non-stop for 72 hours straight has opened a floodgate of silent allegations and has put the world's banking industry in a hot seat.

The death of a 21-year-old Bank of America intern who worked non-stop for 72 hours straight has opened a floodgate of silent allegations and has put the world's banking industry in a hot seat.

Apple Inc’s once “sought-after” status is no more, at least in China. What used to be a 49 per cent dominance in China’s market for tablets in the second quarter of 2012 has slipped to 28 per cent in the same quarter this 2013. The culprit? The growing domestic tablet makers. After all, the Chinese being stingy aren’t known for nothing.China’s technology savvy consumers have resorted to buying cheaper tablets that uses the Android operating system of Google, a trend first seen among smartp...

The Australian share market is under selling pressure in the early session, following weakness on US markets overnight and as investors awaited a reading on Chinese manufacturing.

Occurrences of worldwide flooding has cornered the bulk of global insurance claims for the first half or six months of the year 2013, according to preliminary data released by Switzerland-based reinsurance giant Swiss Re on Wednesday.

Facebook joins hands with Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm among others in order to make the Internet accessible for all. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, announced the same Tuesday on his FB page.

The predominantly Islam country of Iran has arrested and convicted one of its nationals for allegedly handing out copies of the Bible to friends and family, according to the Vatican missionary news agency Fides on Wednesday. His behaviour was considered a threat to national security. He was slapped with a 10-year jail time.

By Jonathan BarrattNote: This article was written on Wednesday, August 21Tonight sees the release of the minutes from the last FOMC meeting, and the market expects the minutes to reveal a committee ready to start tapering the Fed's US85 billion per month of bond and mortgage securities buy-back...

All eyes are on Samsung as the South Korean tech giant releases on Sept 4 its Galaxy Gear smartwatch. In its review of the upcoming device, Computerworld pointed out that more than a timepiece, the gadget would offer a wide range of sensors and enough horsepower to put to shame midrange smartphones.

A 30-second advertisement for the Lenovo Yoga tablet has gone viral in YouTube. In just one day since the video was posted, it has been viewed almost 170,000 times.

The Taiwan-made HTC One has been topping the list of tech reviewers since it was released in the market because of its game-changer features, although it has also been criticised for its irreplaceable battery and being difficult to fix.