BUSINESS

It was a very quiet night for macro data, but that didn't stop the S&P moving higher on earnings speculations.

Businessman George Soros is blaming the euro crisis in 2012 for making gold an unsafe haven for investors. Since October, gold prices had been on a downtrend and last week the yellow metal for June delivery, the most actively traded contract, hit a nine-month low of $1,553.50 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In an obvious indicator that South Korean tech giant Samsung is determined to keep the smartphone king title, the company announced on Monday the release of three models run by Jelly Bean and featuring dual SIM.

In US economic news, the Chicago Midwest Manufacturing index rose by 0.8pct in February after rising by a revised 0.4pct in January.

By Greg PeelThe Dow closed up 48 points, or 0.3%, while the S&P gained 0.6% to 1563 and the Nasdaq added 0.

By Peter Switzer, Switzer Super ReportMy colleague Paul Rickard has deconstructed the Treasurer's super proposals which are allegedly targeted at the "fabulously wealthy" but clearly it will affect those with say $700,000 with a 20% return per annum or someone on $1 million making 13% and so on...

Controversial former Prime Minister of Britain, Margaret Thatcher, dies at the age of 87 after a massive stroke.

Specs of the Samsung Galaxy S4 set for release in Australia in the later part of April are becoming clearer. A statement from the South Korean tech giant confirmed that the much-awaited device would not have a quad-core Exynos 5 Octa processor.

Despite predictions of a flat to moderately lower day on the Australian share market, local stocks received a boost in afternoon trade on the back of gains on Japan's Nikkei Index. The Nikkei rose a further 3% today, after hitting five year highs on Friday, in response to aggressive stimulus announced late last week by the Bank of Japan.

How much will this deficit numbskullery by the Australian government cost investors? That's the question we left off with in yesterday's Daily Reckoning. Today we provide the answer: about 30%, give or take.

If you're going to speculate, you could do worse than speculate on energy. The issue became even more interesting yesterday with Shell's announcement that it would put its Geelong refinery up for sale. The downstream oil and gas business in Australia - refining oil and selling the refined fuels - is an increasingly lousy one.

Well here we go. Japan is once again boldly leading the way into the undiscovered monetary country. Desperate to engineer faster economic growth by any means necessary, new Bank of Japan (BoJ) governor Haruhiko Kuroda announced his attention to double Japan's monetary base to around $3 trillion by the end of 2014.

North Korean threats have not only spread panic because of the political implications of probable military confrontation, but they have also already affected markets.

Newest data by Samsung Electronics Co. showed that the South Korean producer saw its profit climb significantly in the first quarter of the year as sales of mid-tier handsets surged especially in emerging markets. Strong sales of smartphones are expected to be recorded in the period ending June.

A week after the nation was first reported to be suffering from what could be a pandemic, China's stocks have been hit, slumping 10 per cent versus the high posted in February, as the number of infected rose to 21 on Sunday.

Local stocks are flat to slightly firmer at lunchtime in the East, with mining players providing most of the support.

The HTC First phone, the first to feature the Facebook Home launcher, has gotten mixed reviews just days after the device was launched by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday.

Ahead of its official release in the third or fourth quarter of 2013, images of the BlackBerry Curve were released over the weekend.

Thin is in seems to be the mantra of tablet manufacturers are new models of tablet computers are released on the market.

By Richard (Rick Mills), Ahead of the Herd As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best informationInstitutional investors tend to prefer investments that are thought to contain the potential for growth, growth = sprouts.

Apple has delayed the start of construction work for its spaceship-inspired second campus because of the escalating cost. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that the cost has ballooned to $5 billion.

To change the wrong notion that many people have about lovemaking, often caused by first exposure to sex through pornographic movies, a start-up company in New York is attempting to educate the public about what real love making is.

Will the Walt Disney employees who are the people behind the well-loved cartoon characters Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck be joining the ranks of the unemployed?

Almost 10 per cent of 3,500 of 36,000 dining establishments in New South Wales failed the state's hygiene test. Among their violations are preparation of food in dirty kitchens and failure to control the spread of bugs.

The Australian share market was unable to ride on Wall Street's coattails today, finishing lower for yet another session, and losing 1.6% over the course of the week. That's reduced the yearly gains for the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) to just over 5%. It was the fourth consecutive week the Australian share market finished in the red.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has ordered the Bank of Queensland to refund a total of $12 million to some 6,000 customers following the over computation of interest on home loans due to a system error.

Train commuters coming from the northern side of Sydney going into the central district and vice versa have been advised to squeeze in extended time in their travel itineraries after the Newcastle and Central Coast Lines got partially closed due to "urgent overhead wiring repairs."

Local stocks are once again in the red, despite gains on Wall Street overnight and the Nikkei rising more than 4% on open following aggressive stimulus announced yesterday by the Bank of Japan.

One of the world's leading imaging brand, Canon, announced firmware upgrades for three ground-breaking Cinema EOS System cameras - EOS C500, EOS C300, and EOS C100.