BUSINESS

By Michael Lombardi, MBAIn 1980, the total outstanding debt in the U.S. bond market was about $2.5 trillion?this included municipal bonds, Treasury bonds, money market instruments, corporate debt, and asset-backed securities.

Four of the top 5 most viewed stocks in Yahoo Finance are tech companies. They are Apple, Facebook, MagicJack VocalTee and Nokia. The only non-tech is Bank of America.

By Andrew NelsonMarch was a mild and somewhat positive month for uranium, with producers hoping TS Elliot is wrong in his claim that April is the cruellest month.

Mashable reported another case of an exploding smartphone involving the Nexus S model. However, it was not a manufacturing defect, but the fault of the owner who opted to use as a spare unit a cheap battery.

Qantas reported on Monday a six-fold rise in its Europe booking following its recent alliance with Middle Eastern carrier Emirates. The Australian flag carrier explained the higher bookings to shorter flight times between Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

John Pierpont Morgan was no stranger to how central banks worked. He had witnessed their power firsthand.

As it was widely expected, China's manufacturing activity improved in March adding to signs of the much-anticipated economic recovery in the Asian dragon. Even though China witnessed an expansion in its factory output, analysts expected a bigger increase.

The Apple iPhone 6 launch will definitely be one of the most exciting events for the year 2013. Recent reports point to the smart phone’s unveiling in October with the remarkable features of a 1080p Full Retina+ HD and wrap around 3D display.

Western Australia's population is almost 2.5 million people as Aussies flock in significant numbers to this state. In the past 12 months to the end of September, almost 82,000 people were added to the headcount in WA, equivalent to a 3.4 per cent population growth rate.

As it was widely anticipated, South Korea revised down its growth forecast for 2013 as the country's exports suffered from decreasing global demand and the weakening yen. Moreover, the government of South Korea plans further stimulus to revive the economy.

Back in the nineteenth century, Benjamin Disraeli, once the UK Prime Minister, said: "London is a modern Babylon." Time passed, yet the Prime Minister's allegation is still up to date. Once you visit London, you will not only feel that it is full of tourists from all around the globe as it is full of historic and cultural heritage but you will inhale the air sated with the international business and unlimited possibilities.

On the 28th of March, it was made public that an oil consortium led by BP Plc would plow as much as $500 million in an appraisal drilling project in the Clair field near Shetlands Islands. The investment is expected to bring many benefits to North Sea oil sector.

Official data showed that Japan witnessed a surprising contraction in factory output in February. The released figures highlighted a huge task ahead of the new government of the world's third economy. The government will have to work by the sweat of its own brow to get out of economic stagnation and deflation.

By Greg PeelThe peasants, it seems, are not revolting. As a result, the bells rang out on Wall Street.

The analyst principally responsible for the production of this research report is: Howard Humphreys, Director & Lead Research Analyst, Seismic ResearchASX bucks regional drop on RBA, Easter returnAsian markets posted broad losses today on a soft lead from Wall Street after a report released overnigh...

South Korean tech giant Samsung is going beyond its popular smartphones and tablets. It is foraying into mining. Samsung won a $5.6 billion contract over the Easter weekend to develop Gina Rinehart's Roy Hill iron ore mining project in Western Australia.

Tech Crunch just released an article on Sunday night that claims YouTube, the most popular video sharing site in the world, will close on Monday, April 1. The Web site explained that YouTube started as a competition and the portal is now deciding the winner of that alleged contest as part of the closing down.

Popular blogsite, Tumblr, closed for three hours on Good Friday, March 29, due to networking problems. Tumblr reached a landmark when it reached 100 million blogs hosted and 44.6 billion posts on March 26, 2013, from only 50 million blogs hosted in April 2012.

Step aside, Samsung Galaxy S4, BlackBerry Z10 and iPhone 5S rumours. Facebook is creating noise once more, but not because of another change to its user interface but due to three surprises for the 1 billion members of the world's most popular social networking site.

Techies as well as analysts appear not too impressed with BlackBerry's quarterly report on Thursday, March 28, which disclosed the shipment of 1 million units of the BBZ10 and revenues of $94 million.

Local stocks fell back into the red today, as concerns about Cyprus once again affected global sentiment. Banks in Cyprus will re-open tonight for the first time since the controversial bank bailout was floated, with investors concerned there could be a run on bank deposits.

Less than a month, he was installed as the head of world's Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis is set to visit Brazil in July. He is also to visit his native Argentina, Chile and Uruguay in December, according to reports by the Argentinean press.

And the phablet explosion continues with Amazon likely to be the latest entrant. The online retail giant will soon release its phablet version that new reports said will begin selling by June 2013 at starting price of $US100.

Nothing yet is confirmed about the iPhone 6, not even its existence, but phone designers cannot help to express how they envision the rumoured Apple phablet, which a new render suggests looks like Sony’s Xperia Z.

Apple is reportedly using the same iPad Mini display for the 9.7-inch iPad 5 that would allow the tech giant to build a thinner and lighter regular-sized tablet computer.

Uncertainties about Europe have again reared their head, rattling European and US blue chip stocks overnight. Locally, the Australian share market fell quite hard on open but is currently down around 0.3% at lunchtime in the East.

Cash holdings of Australian investors have continued to decline, dropping to the lowest level since the inception of the bimonthly Australian Investor Sentiment Survey from the Australian Investors' Association (AIA) and FNArena in January 2011.

By Greg PeelThe Dow closed down 37 points, or 0.3%, while the S&P lost a point to 1562 and the Nasdaq rose 0.

South Korean tech giant Samsung could have more legal protection against patent infringement lawsuits in 2013 since it topped the number of mobile patents granted around the world in 2012 when over 7 million such patents were awarded.