BUSINESS

Most brokers would assume new clients who walk through the door are coming to them purely to service their finance needs - but not so Nicole Seagren of Vision Finance, based in Melbourne.

Sydney has been unseated as the second costliest city in the world in a new survey of housing affordability.

Consolidation of mortgage aggregators is expected to continue apace in 2012, forcing the industry to assess the future viability of aggregation models.

Australia's multi-speed economy has again been highlighted in a report showing Western Australia far ahead of the pack in output.

Brokers are being warned they may lose business amid the growing number of online white label products - so how can mortgage advisers keep pace with changing consumer trends?

Samsung has denied rumors about a potential buyout of Blackberry maker, Research in Motion after a technology blog reported the South Korean firm was interested in buying RIM.

By Greg PeelAluminium is the costliest of the standard base metals to produce, with final smelting requiring significant inputs of water and power.

By Christopher Vecchio, Currency Analyst FXCMFundamental Forecast for Gold: NeutralGold posted a modest 1.

A significant increase in first homebuyers may have been inflated by a last-minute rush to beat stamp duty changes.

So where will markets head now after the post Christmas rebound continued last week, defying the gloomy forecasts from the World Bank and other gloomy prognosticators?

Australian inflation data for the December quarter dominates the coming week.

Fears about a surge in prices of beef and orange juice in the US, plus rising fears about the health of soybean corn crops on Brazil and Argentina, are starting to dominate commodity markets.

Strong earnings from International Business Machines (IBM) powered blue-chip stocks higher for the fourth-straight session, even as discouraging quarterly reports from other bellwethers kept the broader market flat.

By Marc Lichtenfeld, Investment U Senior AnalystWednesday, January 18, 2012: Issue #1689The workers at the restaurants and bars around Union Square in San Francisco have likely just about caught their breath.

Australian shares ended Friday on a strong note for their third successive week higher. Easing concerns about Europe's debt and more upbeat earnings from Wall Street boosted local optimism. At the close on Friday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 24.8 points, or 0.6 per cent, at 4,239.6, while the broader All Ordinaries index was up 24.4 points, or 0.6 per cent, at 4,303.

New Zealand's State-owned Meridian Energy has shelved its plan to build a $2 billion wind farm in central Otago following a bad review.With up to 176 wind turbines, the $2- billion project on the Lammermoor Range would have been the biggest power project in the South Island since the 1980s, and it would have generated enough electricity for Christchurch and Dunedin combined and eventually the whole of the island, said reports.

Rolls Royce said on Thursday that it has implemented measures to correct the manufacturing errors seen on its engine components that nearly caused a Qantas Airways flight to explode while in mid-air in November 2010.

British actor Jude Law is among the individuals who received just compensation from the media empire of Rupert Murdoch's News Group as part of the settlement in the case involving email and phone hacking instigated by the editors and reporters of the now-defunct News of the World, lawyers and reports have confirmed.

Thousands of Australians lost their jobs in December, underscoring what experts said could be the biggest loss the local economy had seen in the past 20 years.

Four of the biggest Australian banks netted together closed to $24 billion in the financial year 2010-2011 and market analysts are forecasting that the growth will continue on this year, by as much as nine percent, according to reports. Nonetheless, why is fear still hounding the country's biggest banks?

Inflation slowed in the final three months of 2011, as consumers price index dropped 0.3% in the quarter, bringing the annual pace to 1.8%, according to Statistics New Zealand.

Apple exporters are optimistic, but at the same time realistic on shipping to an Australia market open after 90 years, as reported by the New Zealand Herald.

Big global investors have started 2012 in a better mood than they were at the end of 2011.

In his first report for 2012, AMP Capital Investors' chief economist and strategist, Dr Shane Oliver peeks into his crystal ball.

Like its rivals, Rio Tinto and Fortescue, BHP Billiton is gung-ho about 2012, despite many commentators being just as gloomy about the outlook for iron ore, Chinese steel and coal.

Retailers' sentiments were confirmed by the latest sales indicator released on Friday by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), which showed that the sector struggled to achieve sales targets last year. Nevertheless, although the numbers are disappointing, they revealed that with some creativity and technological savvy, more sales can be achieved.

by Peter Switzer, Switzer Super ReportNow that most of us are close to being back to work for 2012, I thought I would lay down my expectations ? not my predictions ? for the year.

Rudi Filapek-Vandyck, Editor FNArenaI joined Twitter. Not because I am curious what this celebrity has to say about her kids, or to read that another one is waiting for a connecting flight, impatiently.

Ahead: In Australia, data on export and import prices is released. In the US, data on existing home sales is released.