BUSINESS

The Overnight Report: Flat As A Tack

By Greg PeelThe Dow closed unchanged, the S&P was flat at 1380 and the Nasdaq was flat.It was a quiet and low volume Veterans' Day on stock and commodity markets, as expected, with banks and bond markets closed last night.

Australian Stock Market Report – Afternoon 11/12/2012

One of the features of the last trading week was the weakness of the US market in the aftermath of the US Presidential election. The main thrust of the selloff was driven by the uncertainty created by the US fiscal position, a situation increasingly referred to as the US 'Fiscal Cliff'.This combination of expiring tax cuts and cuts to government spending will result in a fiscal contraction of around $600mln which could take up to 4% off US growth in 2013 if unresolved by year end.
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This Trifecta Means You Should Be Following the Gold Story

There's a veritable trifecta of forces that make gold the most interesting speculation/story for the rest of the year. With Obama's re-election in the US, all attention now turns to the looming 'fiscal cliff'. America's credit rating - and the dollar - are on the line.

Australian Banks: Floating on An Air of Invincibility

'My biggest worry is that millions of Australians are expecting money to be waiting for them that won't be there,' says Nick Hubble, your weekend editor and man behind the new Money for Life Letter, which launched earlier this week. If you haven't seen Nick's new film yet, you can check it out here.

Australian Stock Market Report – Midday 11/12/2012

The Australian sharemarket kicked off the new trading week in the red, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) down by as much as 0.3 per cent within the first half an hour of trade. From 11.30am (AEDT) onwards however; the XAO has managed to stage a recovery and is now largely flat. The local market has lost ground for three straight weeks.

Jump In Demand For Corporate Bonds?

By Greg PeelDanske Bank's base case scenario with respect to the US fiscal cliff is that a resolution will be reached in negotiations by year end.

Intel Launches the Itanium 9500 Future Generation Processors

Speed enthusiasts would be happy to know that top chipmaker Intel just launched a new processor called Itanium 9500 series which belongs to 64-bit family. According to Intel, the new processor offers up to 2.4 times performance scaling and 33 per cent faster Input and output speed versus its previous generation.

8 Reasons Why Samsung Smartphones Toppled Apple from the Number One Spot

Samsung reigned supreme in the past three quarters of 2012 as the Best-Selling SmartPhone Manufacturer. IDC said the firm sold 56.3 million smartphones compared to Apple's 26.9 million units. Latest figure from Samsung showed that the company sold over 30 million Galaxy S III smartphones in the past five months. The model is Samsung's flagship unit.

RBA Cuts Australia’s Growth Forecast to 2.75% from 3.5%

Due to projections that the country's resource boom will have a peak earlier than anticipated, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) downgraded Australia's growth forecast for the year to June 2013 to 2.75 per cent from 3.5 per cent.

Reasons To Be Positive On Uranium

Introduced by Greg PeelAt the end of October uranium industry consultant TradeTech dropped its spot price indicator for U3O8 by US$5.

Blizzard Raises its Outlook as it Hopes for Strong Holiday Shopping Season

Activision Blizzard Inc. posted its profit for the third quarter which exceeded analysts' estimates as company saw strong sales of its "Skylanders" and "Diablo" game titles. The largest video-game maker has also raised its full-year outlook as it expects strong holiday shopping season's sales of the latest game "Call of Duty."

Mr Market’s Turn to Vote

Stocks fell this morning. Hard. Last we checked, the Dow was down by more than 300 points. Gold dipped too, shaving $20 off the previous session's $45 per ounce gain. And energy prices were down across the board, with a barrel of oil trading just a touch above $85.

Pizza Hut Australia Website Hackers Gained Access to Customer Information

The famous pizza restaurant chain, Pizza Hut, reported a website-hacking incident where customer’s names, email addresses and contact information were leaked. Despite Pizza Hut’s claims that the customer’s credit card information was not affected, the unpleasant incident should serve as a lesson for the business to keep strict protection of its personal and financial records.

Australian Stock Market Report – Afternoon 11/9/2012

The Australian sharemarket ended in the red for the second straight day this week, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) slipping by just 0.4 per cent or 19.7 pts to 4482.5. The value of shares traded was significantly higher than usual today. Over the past five sessions local shares eased by just 0.15 per cent, making it the third consecutive week of losses. So far this month, the XAO is down 1.3 per cent; equities have still improved by 8.89 per cent in 2012 which is 4 per cent better than Ameri...

The Superannuation Gravy Train

Did you see former Treasurer Peter Costello's article in yesterday's Age? He gets stuck into fund managers and all the other travellers on the superannuation gravy train. The 'super system' holds around $1.3 trillion in assets, so it's no surprise it's attracting plenty of hangers on.

Australian Stock Market Report – Midday 11/9/2012

Local stocks are trading in the red today, with most of the damage being done by Westpac (WBC and the National Australia Bank (NAB), which are trading without rights to their dividends. Overnight, US markets rose at the open then traded lower, as investors focused on the so-called "fiscal cliff" with tax increases and spending cuts to occur from the 1st January.

The Cyber Phenomenon Called Instagram

To indicate the growing use of Instagram among social networking sites, in the Tuesday election in the U.S., over 100,000 photos taken with the photo application was tagged with #iVoted and 150,000 with #election2012.

One-Third of Google Workers Shun Posting in Google+ in a Month

While the role of Facebook and Twitter in helping elect and celebrate the Wednesday poll victory of U.S. President Barack Obama has once more been emphasised, the newbie social networking site Google+ appears quiet and out of the political equation.

Australia Mulls GST on Items Bought Abroad

The advantage enjoyed by online retailers based overseas over bricks and mortar stores insofar as Australian consumers are concerned may soon be removed. A plan by the federal government to collect the general sales tax (GST) for purchases abroad may just level the playing field for both kinds of retailers.

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