BUSINESS

As it is, Australia looms to become the biggest export of liquefied natural gas by 2017. On Monday, American oil firm Apache announced that it has discovered an oil field in Australia that is potentially the biggest discovery in the last 30 years.

To help boost seat sales, Malaysia Airlines had offered Australian travel agents doubling of their commission to 11 per cent, The Australian reports. The air carrier, which suffered financially because of the two tragedies involving its Boeing 777 jets within four months, advised the agents that by September all tickets issued in and all travel originating from Australia would enjoy the new commission rate.

Kuwait's regulator suspended on Sunday the trading of shares of listed companies that did not submit their quarterly results. However, despite the action, two of three indices in the Kuwait stock market still posted gains.

The ASX200 enjoyed a flirtation with both buyers and sellers over the course of the first trading day of the week. In early trade the index started with a gain of 16 points before quickly surrendering the improvement. At the lows of the day shortly thereafter the market was up by almost a point. In the late part of the morning buyers once again exerted themselves and the index commenced a rally that took in almost 18 points. The move higher wasn't validated by investor interest with volume on...

The three main groups representing 80,000 Canadian doctors have thumbed down calls of federal government for them to support an upcoming anti-drug campaign. The drive, meant to target young people, had become highly political, they said.

Deviating from the norms to create his own landmark legacies is nothing new with Pope Francis. He has been doing surprises since taking on the leadership of the Roman Catholic church in March 2013. But in his first ever visit to Asia, the pope did more than a surprise when he deviated from his language comfort zone Italian to deliver a speech in English.

Earnings season hits full swing this week, with over 70 ASX-listed companies due to report; the key picks are BHP, WES, FMG, WPL and QBE.

BHP Billiton (ASX: BHP) will open a new spin-off company worth $15 billion, with headquarters in Perth. It would be one of the largest publicly listed companies in the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) based in Perth according to market capitalisation.

Local shares have finished the week on a solid footing. One of the encouraging aspects of the session was the recovery from a late morning slump. Thereafter the ASX 200 moved on to make new highs for the session. Over the course of the week the index rose 2% recovering the 2.2% that was surrendered in the previous week. Most sectors enjoyed buying support over the course of the day although energy names were being held back on weaker oil prices. World oil prices slumped in the last day reflectin...

The Australian sharemarket is up for the fourth time this week, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) rising by 0.25 per cent. This takes the gains so far this week to 2.3 per cent; the best week in six months and completely making up for last week's 2.1 per cent slump.

While competitor telcos in the Australian market Optus and Vodafone have suffered hemorrhages in customer numbers, it is the other way for Telstra which reported on Thursday, Aug 14, the addition of one million new subscribers in the past 12 months.

While China has surpassed Canada in terms of sales volume, Canada remains the United States real estate market's top foreign buyer, the National Association of Realtors reported in its 2014 Profile of International Home Buying Activity.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is about to make stock market history when it publicly lists in September in New York and raise about $20 billion, expected to be the largest in IPO history.

Zillow Inc., the biggest real estate Web site in the US, is set to acquire the second-largest online real estate company Trulia Inc., for around $3.5 billion in stock. Both companies registered more than 68 million visitors in June, or about 71 per cent of online users under ComScore's real estate category.

The geo-political troubles of last month continue to slide off the front page; both Iraq and Ukraine are showing signs of reaching equilibrium in the respective conflicts, meaning the markets are refocusing on central banks.

In US economic news, new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 21,000 in the latest week to 311,000, above forecasts for a result near 295,000. Import prices fell by 0.2% in July while export prices were flat. Both results were slightly firmer than forecast.

The winning streak continued with shares hitting fresh six-year highs, rising for a third day and remaining above the key 5600pt level. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) improved by a modest 0.1 per cent despite mixed performances from global markets overnight. The US economy expanded at a faster than expected 4 per cent annual pace in the June quarter, while comments by the US central bank relating to inflation has increased the market's expectations of an earlier rate rise. The default of Arge...

Pope Francis has arrived in South Korea for his first ever Asian visit since becoming pontiff of the 1.2-billion strong Roman Catholic church in March 2013. It was also the first visit by a pope to the region in 25 years.

The Australian sharemarket has been unable to replicate yesterday's 1.3 per cent surge at lunch, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) down 0.3 per cent. Today is one of the busiest days for markets in the region with a barrage of earnings results out in Australia, Japan's quarterly growth update issued this morning and plenty of Chinese data scheduled for release this afternoon.

The choppy price action in equities continued with the pendulum swinging in the way of the bulls this time around. Perhaps the lack of fresh bad news on the geopolitical front calmed investor concerns. This gave investors a chance to focus on the raft of economic releases across the globe, with significant emphasis placed on disappointing US retail sales data. Given negative US data is now being perceived as positive for equities again, this reading helped ease fears of an early Fed funds rate h...

In US economic news, retail sales were flat in July, short of the expected 0.2% gain. Excluding autos, sales rose 0.1%, again short of forecasts for a 0.4% gain. The mortgage market index fell by 2.7% in the latest week, dragged down by a 4% fall in refinancing. Business inventories rose by 0.4% as expected in June.

British Telecom is preparing to place pressure on Vodafone to reduce its tariffs as competition in the 4G mobile broadband becomes tighter.

Wang Jianlin, the richest man in China, is committing to spend $1.7 billion to fund the construction on a 1.3-hectare beachfront resort on Australia's Gold Coast, the country's favourite summer destination.

The Australian sharemarket has been unable to replicate yesterday's 1.3 per cent surge at lunch, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) down 0.3 per cent. Today is one of the busiest days for markets in the region with a barrage of earnings results out in Australia, Japan's quarterly growth update issued this morningand plenty of Chinese data scheduled for release this afternoon.

Cheap airline ticket prices, it seems, is what's keeping the global aviation industry to reduce its carbon emissions, a new research published by the University of Southampton said in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

A 3,000-kilometre trans-Pacific cable network aims to link the U.S. and Japan. Named FASTER, the cable network would be cost $300 million and would be funded by Google and five Asian telecom and communications companies, reports NDTV.

The ASX 200 started the second session of the week on the front foot with the index happily building on the previous day's gains. The market was trading close to session highs at lunchtime with a gain of points 55 points after US stocks held their recently improved tone into the start of the week overnight.

Some 800 - 1,000 doses of an experimental vaccine will be donated by Canada to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to help curb the maddening spread of the Ebola virus in the African region.

Hispanic investors have a strong appetite for financial education and more sophisticated investment knowledge, according to a recent Wells Fargo survey. A significant 45 per cent of surveyed Hispanics claim they did not received any education on how to save and invest (versus 31 per cent of U.S. investors overall), and three out of four (76 per cent) wish they had learned more about managing money when they were growing up (compared to 61 per cent of U.S. investors overall).