BUSINESS

Global miner Xstrata Mount Isa Mines says it plans to phase out copper smelting at Mount Isa and refining operations in Townsville by the end of 2016 in a bid to sustain the future of its Mount Isa operations through expanded mining and concentrate production.

To compensate for the 24-day long outage of the Playstation Network that occurred as a result of a major security compromise, Sony Computer Entertainment is offering PSN users a "welcome back" package of free content.

French dairy giant Danone, through its joint venture with dairy co-op Murray Goulburn, has announced the Australian launch of its popular yoghurt Activia.

By Greg PeelThe Dow closed down 68 points or 0.6% but the S&P closed down less than one point to 1328 and the Nasdaq closed up less than one point.

The passage of your HR budget through the annual Budget Review process is often a better indicator of the company's real endorsement of strategic HR than any document you could persuade the CEO to sign.

U.S. stocks stumbled for a third day in a row as weak economic data and a negative outlook from Hewlett-Packard heightened fears about a slowdown in the global economic recovery.

Dear Subscriber/Reader,FNArena is surveying investor sentiment in Australia in an effort to generate, over time, a similarly leading gauge as the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey in the US.

The Australian share market drifted higher in quiet trading Tuesday as heavyweight mining stocks led a broad based recovery in the local bourse after it hit an eight week low on Monday.

US industrial output was unchanged in April against expectations of a 0.4pct rise. Capacity utilisation eased from 77.0pct to 76.9pct in April. US housing starts fell by 10.6pct in April. Compared to April last year residential construction was down 23.9pct. New building permits fell 4pct in April.

Leading manufacturer British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) on Tuesday launched a national media campaign against the Federal Government's proposed plan to impose plain packaging on cigarettes that could harm marketing and sales.

The technology and consumer-discretionary sectors led stocks lower Monday as weak economic data spurred worries of a softening economy and Europe's debt crisis kept investor sentiment in check.

The Australian dollar jumped and recovered its four-day loss as an impact of the Reserve Bank's hint that benchmark rates may soon rise up at some point.

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) have announced an expansion of their long-standing relationship that will deliver new cloud and in-memory computing offerings to help organizations transform their businesses.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is rolling out today an expansion to features on its Bing search engine that would display personalized results based on what trusted friends recommend on Facebook, the world's most popular social network.

Pyxis Mobile, provider of the only cross-device mobile application development platform designed to meet customers' constantly changing needs, announced today that the company has partnered with Smartsoft International, Inc., to expand its platform's SAP integration and mobilization capabilities.

Unfortunately, at lunch the Australian sharemarket has not yet managed to come back after falling by over 1.3 pct yesterday. The S&P/ASX 200 index (XJO) is up a modest 0.1 pct or 4.4 pts to 4654.4.

Australia's Reserve Bank has hinted that higher interest rates maybe inevitable to contain the jump in consumer prices, authorities said.

By Greg PeelI'm not going to say anything, just offer these monetary policy conclusions from past RBA statements and minutes, and from today's May minutes.

Newedge, a global leader in multi-asset brokerage and clearing, today posted the monthly performance data for its suite of Hedge Fund Indices:

Japan's Sony Inc has resumed the partial operations of its leading PlayStation Network and Qriocity entertainment services in the U.S. and Europe after more than three weeks that they were attacked by hackers, the company said in a statement.

Crown land in the Pilbara could be given away for free as long as developers commit to build luxury high-rise apartments.

Face-to-face client interviews do not have to take place in person and can be held online, a law firm has stated.

Work is an important component of adult life. Australians spend on average 64 hours per week doing it. Despite it being such an important and large part of our adult life, people experience a range of problems and impacts related to work, including stress.

AUD had and extremely choppy night with an early rally in Europe on the positivity surrounding the Portugal rescue packageseeing risk currencies bought strongly. This euphoria didn’t last long however and as commodities got sold aggressively the AUD also felt the effects. Today seems dependant on what the RBA has to say in their minutes and looks range-bound prior.

First it was retail sales for March, then the labour force figures for April; now housing finance data for March has come in weak and surprisingly so.

As Finance Ministers and Eurozone policymakers meet to discuss the options available to some of the Eurozone's fiscally troubled states, the common currency is finding support from the earlier release of higher than expected core inflation data.

By Greg PeelThe last two weeks have seen carnage in spot commodity markets, yet uranium's trajectory has been to the upside.

Brokers may not be able to differentiate their service offering from that of the banks enough to justify charging a fee, it has been claimed.

By Lior Cohen, Energy Analyst for Trading NRG3 Reasons Silver Has Underperformed Gold During MayDuring March and April silver has outperformed gold price by a landslide, and yet during May (so far) it seems that the tables have turned and gold price is outperforming silver price.