BUSINESS

Embattled national flag carrier Qantas is courting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to help the company recover financially by launching on Monday the Acquire corporate loyalty programme.

The news that famous billionaire Jacob Rothschild is now the sole owner of a major semiconductor patent after four of the Chinese co-owners are presumed dead since they were aboard the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 is still hot, but another Rothschild is getting his share of the spotlight.

The Australian share market had a strong finish to the first quarter of the calendar year, thanks to a positive offshore lead on Friday and speculation Chinese policymakers could move to prop up their slowing economy by providing stimulus, which gave a boost to the Asian region.

Tokyo Electric Power Co's dumping of groundwater from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, already approved by local fishermen on Tuesday, will begin in May, Japan's industry minister said on Sunday.

The Australian sharemarket is recording its best daily gain in a little over a week, helped by gains in global markets on Friday. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) is up 0.7 per cent, with all sectors in the black. The start of a new month is always a busy time for markets and economists, with a barrage of economic readings expected to be released over the next five days.

Based on the close of the futures from Saturday, the market is currently pointing higher by around six to eight points, which would mean the ASX could register a 0.4% gain for the quarter.

In US economic data, personal income and spending both rose by 0.3% in February, in line with forecasts. And consumer sentiment rose from a preliminary reading of 79.9 to 80.0 in March, just short of forecasts tipping a result near 80.5.

As of February 2014, 2.77 million tourists have visited New Zealand in the past 12 months, logging a 7.3 per cent growth, according to Tourism New Zealand. The industry has a lot to thank the movie series Lord of the Rings, which was mainly shot in the country because a substantial number of the visitors came to see the movie set which features the hobbit houses where Middle Earth is supposed to be located.

If women have push-up bras push-up bras to create an illusion of a large bosom out of a molehill, men now have similar options to appear like Christian Grey of 50 Shades of Grey or Jonas Falcon of Its Too Big MTV fame. The secret is in the padding. Anne Summers, the creator of push-up bras and other naughty products, came up with the Triple Boost briefs to liberate some males from putting socks or other male package enhancers on their penis or crotch to appear large when wearing tight pants, sho...

Qantas is cutting more corners, and this time those who would be hit by the embattled air carrier's axe are its passengers who belong to the Frequent Flyers Club.

Lenovo has started its global recall of batteries specific to ThinkPad models, citing fire hazard due to overheating of batteries.

It has been a couple of days since HTC unveiled its new HTC One (M8), but rumours are already ripe that a potential Windows Phone version of the smartphone is in the offing. The HTC Windows Phone is expected to incorporate similar technology and design from the Android-powered HTC One M8.

Pinterest is the latest fall guy to hackers. Many account holders complain their accounts have been hacked and see pictures of "butts" on their boards or walls.

A better day than we had expected with the Aussie dollar at a 4 month high.

Apple has led many U.S. companies in the value of stock buybacks in the last quarter of 2013. Aside from Apple, other tech giants also made big repurchases of their stocks.

Microsoft has announced it will be bringing its Office Suite of Products to the iPad. Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, introduced the Office Suite of Products for the iPad in an event in San Francisco.

Emojis (a.k.a emoticons, smileys & ideograms), are widely used tiny smartphone/device based graphic pictographs. Other than using emojis in smartphone based chats & text messages, every application from Twitter to WhatsApp allows one or the other form of emojis/emoticons.

With two trading days left in Q1, window dressing is becoming an art form, with most markets experiencing some form of it.

In US economic data, the economy grew at a 2.6% annualised pace in the December quarter, up from the 2.4% prior estimate and just short of forecasts. New claims for unemployment insurance fell by 10,000 to 311,000 in the latest week, well below forecasts centred near 325,000. But the pending home sales index eased 0.8% in February. Economists had tipped a flat result.

Australian holders of Visa credit cards, which are susceptible to hacking and other fraudulent practices, could soon bid their plastic money good-bye. Such move is possible if they buy new Android smartphones and download an app developed by Aussie payments product provider Cuscal.

A seven-page memo to Qantas staff that was leaked to media said that 26 managers will get the axe as part of the embattled air carrier's cost-cutting programme in a bid to save $2 billion over three years.

Local stocks gained a little ground in afternoon trade and managed to finish off the day's lows, although still in the red. Following weakness on offshore markets overnight, the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) closed lower by 27.5 points or 0.5 per cent to 5359.7.

Samsung confirmed that the Galaxy S5 will be launching in Australia on April 11

The Australian share market is trading lower on Thursday, down 0.9 per cent at lunchtime in the East following weakness on Wall Street overnight.

The World Trade Organization has ruled on a case lodged against China, saying the latter's restrictions of its rare earths exports violated global trade rules.

While yesterday's trade was dominated by the prospect of stimulus measures from the ECB and PBoC, today's trade looks like it will concentrate on a 'neutral' RBA. Although most describe the RBA as neutral, comments from Governor Glenn Stevens are taking the RBA right to the edge between neutral and hawkish.

In US economic data, durable goods rose 2.2% in February, following two months of declines. However orders for non-defence capital goods excluding aircraft (a proxy for business spending plans) unexpectedly fell 1.3% after rising 0.8% in January. The Markit ´´flash´´ services sector PMI rose from 53.3 to 55.5 in March.

With the three largest producers of iron ore in Australia targeting large increases in their output for the key steelmaking ingredient, the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) lowered on Wednesday its forecast for the commodity.

IT decision makers and businesses prefer the Apple Inc's Mac OS over Microsoft's Windows. According to a new survey in IT enterprises, almost half of them offer Macs to their employees while majority think Apple is more reliable than Microsoft in computer operating systems.