BUSINESS

Germany may not be in the top 10 ranking of the just released Times Higher Education world university rankings, but insofar as students from other countries as concerned, German universities are number 1 if only because the country is 100 per cent tuition-free.

The small cap space in the US finally breached the 10% correction level overnight as the Russell 2000 extended its slide.

A renowned Israeli psychic who was famous in the 1970s for bending spoons using only his mind may be the bane of Apple, not teens who just walk into a device store and attempt to bend the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus using their bare hands.

In US economic data, the ADP national employment index showed that 213,000 private sector jobs were created in September, just above forecasts. Construction spending fell by 0.8% in August, short of forecasts for a 0.5% gain. And the ISM manufacturing index eased from 59.0 to 56.6 in September, short of forecasts for a reading near 58.5.

Apple and PayPal had been in talks regarding Apple Pay.

Local investors have had little opportunity to savour the gains of the pre-ceding session. The 0.5 per cent gain for the ASX 200 on Tuesday was erased in short order at the open today. Buyers were invisible at the open and the ASX 200 shed 48 points at the low point of the morning. The selling pressure eased over following hours and in the hour leading up to lunch a good portion of the losses were neutralised. The signals sent from US and European markets overnight were mixed. On the one hand a ...

Global equities have just capped the worst quarter of trade since 2012. However, the US market has just logged its seventh consecutive quarterly gain. That is a concern for me.

With almost every Australian above the age of 10 owning a mobile phone, payphones have become a relic of the past, as useless as the pager. But telco giant Telstra has taught of a brilliant way to recycle these things by converting them into Wi-Fi hotspots.

Microsoft to have a full sized retail store that will sell all Microsoft products and third party software’s in Manhattan.

Is there really such a thing as overnight success? Is it real or is it just a myth? In extremely rare cases, overnight success may have happened but these occurrences are one in a million. It’s just like winning the lottery.

Over the course of Tuesday afternoon the ASX 200 slowly edged higher ending the day up 0.54 per cent at 5292.8 points. In doing so the market was able to make new highs for the session, although the improvements felt as though they were made on shifting sands. The best that could be said for the market at present is that sellers have exhausted themselves, and the index has drifted higher in their absence.

The start to Tuesday's session on the ASX followed a familiar pattern of trade, in that sellers dominated once more. The initial plunge for the index saw a loss of 11 points at the low point of the morning. From the lowest ebb the market recovered to push back into positive territory, albeit rather briefly. A status quo was then established which saw the market pivot around the un-changed level in the late morning trade. The softer tone for the second session of the week was at least consiste...

Air Canada will start offering the Toronto-Amsterdam route beginning June on 2015.

Australia's scientific investments have reached a 30-year low. Experts fear the country will fall behind other nations in terms of R&D capabilities in the future.

Pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong caused the closure on Monday of Standard Chartered and other banks in the administrative region. It were not just over-the-counter services that were closed, even ATMS and cash deposit machines in some areas were also affected.

Australian supermarket giant Coles is figuratively eating humble bread after the federal court ordered it on Monday to place signs for three months that it passed off par-baked bread as freshly baked. In other words, Coles is forced to admit that it used false advertising and was cheating consumers.

Apple sold an impressive 10 million units of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus 24 hours after it was rolled out simultaneously in 10 countries on Sept 19. But the original #bendgate video that wiped out $23 billion from the value of the Cupertino-based tech giant got almost 46 million hits in 5 days as of Monday night.

The second half of the trading session on Monday provided a little more cause for optimism compared to its earlier counterpart. Buyers finally found some resolve around lunchtime and the ASX 200 was able to recover a solid portion of the early losses. At the best levels of the session the market was down, The ASX200 ending the day down by 0.9 per cent at 5,264.2 points.

To counter bad press on its newly launched iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus due to complaints that the flagship devices bend easily, Cupertino-based Apple provided a tour of its facility where gadgets manufactured by the tech giant undergo torture tests.

A woman from Auckland was outraged to wake up one day and see her house and car covered in "clumps of poo." She blamed passing aircraft for dumping waste on her property.

There was a solid bounce in the US markets Friday night, as Q2 GDP was revised to 4.6% on an annualised basis from 4.2% previously.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt approved over the weekend the $2.2 billion North Galilee Basin Rail project. However, the final approval would be based on Indian mining company Adani meeting 23 conditions.

In US economic data, the final reading on US June quarter GDP was revised up from 4.2% to 4.6%. The result was in line with expectations. The major contributors were a lift in business investment and stronger exports (up 11.1% in June quarter and the biggest gain since 2010). Inflation as measured by the PCE index was unchanged at a 2.3% annual rate. The final University of Michigan Consumer Confidence reading for September held steady at 84.6 and was well ahead of the August result of 82.5.

Apple Inc shares bounced back after a grueling week of botched iOS 8.0.1 software updates and cases of "bending" iPhone 6 Plus units. After falling below $100, Apple stock recovered at $100.44 as of Sept. 26.

Australia continues to be New Zealand's leading investor with assets worth $115 billion. The New Zealand dollar has fallen to a new low after the central bank expressed its concerns of a possible intervention.

The second half of the session on Friday saw the ASX 200 trade around the lows of the day with a sense that sellers could make an opportunistic move at any time to take the index to new lows. With the losses of recent weeks continuing to mount, the ASX 200 has now seen all of the gains for the year to date erased. At the close of the session the index is now down 1.3 per cent at 5,313.4 points. Corporate and economic news has been limited in recent days. This dearth continued into Friday leaving...

It took 9 bending complaints to steal the thunder from the successful launch of Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus which saw 10 million orders in 24 hours. Now, the pliant flagship seems to be the "laughing stock" of the smartphone world as rival gadget makers poke fun at the flexible device.

Friday morning saw a sadly familiar tale play out for the local share market once again. Selling arrived in another wave at the open after a grim session for stocks in Europe and the US overnight. European shares fell sharply on Thursday, hitting one-month lows in late trade. US share markets slumped led lower by a drop in Apple shares. Geopolitical concerns came to the fore after the Russian high court paved the way for the seizure of foreign assets. An ongoing theme was the rising US dollar wh...

A Paraguay bishop accused of shielding a paedophile priest has been sacked by the Vatican.