Vittorio Hernandez

Many Baby Boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964, are already contemplating the question of where to spend their retirement years as most of them approach the end of their careers.

Local shares held on to modest gains by the close, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) rising by 3pts or a little less than 0.1 per cent. The energy sector surged, while the miners were the biggest drag on trade.

A few months ago, BlackBerry's board changed its mind and said the embattled Canadian company would no longer be sold. However, this week, BlackBerry CEO John Chen that for $19 billion, he would be willing to sell the company to any corporate giant. He made the statement during an interview with CNBC at the MWC, obviously referring to the amount that Facebook shelled out for WhatsApp.

The Australian sharemarket has been shooting the lights out in recent weeks; with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) up 4.67 per cent since the start of February. This makes it the best month since July 2013. The XAO is largely flat at lunch.

Some interesting developments are starting to take place in China at the moment, as we witnessed its central currency tumble yesterday.

In US economic data, the S&P/Case Shiller home price index rose by 0.8% in December to be up 13.4% on a year ago. The FHFA home price index was up by 7.7% on a year ago. Consumer confidence eased from 79.4 to 78.1, short of forecasts centred around 80.0. And the Richmond Fed composite index eased from +12 to minus 6 in February.

It is not a crime in Georgia to send via text message an image of a tattooed penis, the state's Supreme Court said in a landmark decision on Monday.

After shaking up Apple's stocks, billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn has shifted his attention to eBay. He released on Tuesday an open shareholder letter to the popular ecommerce site, hitting its corporate governance and pushing that it separate from PayPal.

The skyline of Melbourne's central business district will soon change with the addition of five residential towers with over 2,000 apartments worth $557 million.

The Australian federal government would provide embattled flag carrier Qantas with a debt guarantee. It would be part of the Abbott government's plan to permit larger foreign ownership of Qantas to have access to international capital and compete with Virgin Australia.

Despite hitting fresh five and a half year highs earlier today, the Australian sharemarket has fallen for the first time since 13th February this afternoon. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) lost 0.2 per cent; however is still up by 4.5 per cent so far in February. This makes it the best month for local stocks since July 2013.

Many porn stars use screen names when appearing on triple X-rated flicks. Although their faces and different private parts of their anatomy are exposed for the whole world to see, their real names often remain unknown until they become too old or get rich and eventually retire from the porn industry. One young female porn star, who also is a freshman at Duke University, boldly admits her job when people recognise her and ask if it was her (or was it her body) which they saw on a porn movie.

The Australian share market is tracking higher for the eighth consecutive session, following a positive session on Wall Street and generally upbeat company forecasts.

Overnight the S&P made a record intraday high and closed in the black (year-to-date) for the first time in 2014. It's a very rare thing to see the US markets underperforming the rest of the world, and this does provide market upside.

In US economic data, the Markit ´´flash´´ services index fell from 56.7 to 52.7 in February. The Dallas Federal Reserve manufacturing business index eased from +3.8 to +0.3 in February. And the national activity index eased from minus 0.03 to minus 0.39 in January.

Is the result of the 2014 Superbrands study an indicator of the continuous decline of the Apple brand? If the Cupertino-based tech giant's place on the roster is the basis, it would appear so, at least among the stiff upper-lipped Brits, because Apple tumbled down to14th place from 2nd. To make it worse, toilet paper maker Andrex is ranked higher than the manufacturer of the iconic iPhone and iPad at 12th place.

The final episode of the long-running Australian sitcom Hey Dad! may have long aired, but the show over 7 Network continues to be in the news because of the sexual molestation charges against one of its actors, Robert Hughes.

More fuel would likely be added again to the heated debate on whether to cut or not the foreskin of male infants. The trigger this time is a study that links the rise in number of sexually transmitted infection and drop in rates of childhood circumcision with an increase in rate of cancer of the penis.

The Wall Street Journal was both right and wrong in its medal haul forecast for the just concluded Sochi Winter Olympic Games 2014.

The year 2013 was quite a bad year for Vodafone Australia because more than 1.2 million customers left the telco last year over the firm's bad service. As a result of the hemorrhage which occurred mostly in the first six months, by the end of 2013, customer numbers were down to 5.3 million.

It was always going to be a tall order for stocks to stay in positive territory today. US markets ended lower on Friday, albeit by a modest margin. Additionally there were several large stocks going ex-dividend, including Telstra (TLS), Woodside Petroleum (WPL), Suncorp (SUN) and Wesfarmers (WES). Given these influences the market acquitted itself reasonably well to finish largely unchanged on the session.

The Australian share market is moving higher for the seventh session in a row, despite falls on global markets on Friday.

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics ended on a sour note, particularly insofar as figure skating is concerned, because of the furor created by the gold medal awarded to Russian skater Adelina Sotnikova, while the silver went to South Korean athlete Kim Yun-Na. South Koreans are petitioning a reversal of the decision which is said to be quite unlikely because there is no formal complaint, except for an online petition with Change.org that caused the Web site to almost crash on Friday. The scenario of ...

Global growth remains below trend as seen in the projections for the US, Japan and Australia; this has been the first G-20 meeting since the GFC that has seen growth as the key theme rather than austerity and blame for the GFC over the past six years. All nations want to see global growth around 5% rather than the current 3% level.

In US economic data, existing home sales fell 5.1% to a 4.62 million annualised pace in January. Economists had tipped a 4.3% decline.

Reports surfaced over the weekend that Microsoft will cut by 70 per cent the price of Window 8.1 licenses for devices costing less than $250. According to Bloomberg, with the reduction, the price of a Windows 8.1 OS would drop to $15 from $50.

The buzz is strong in Qantas halls that the financially troubled Australian air carrier could axe up to 3,000 jobs which will be revealed next week as the company seeks to reduce costs by $2 billion.

The Web site of Change.org almost crashed briefly on Friday morning because of the very large number of signatories to an online petition for organisers of the Sochi Winter Games to overturn a controversial decision in figure skating.

To protest the upcoming ban on lace panties in Russia, slated to take effect on July 1, women demonstrated on the streets of Almaty City, Kazakh, by wearing the sheer underwear on their heads while chanting "Freedom to panties."