Vittorio Hernandez

The Australian sharemarket is rising for the third straight day and for the eighth time in nine trading sessions. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) is up 0.1 per cent and the index is back above 5400pts for the first time in three months. Strong gains within the mining sector is driving the broader market higher at lunch. Investors looked to Europe for a lead, due to the closure of the U.S. markets (Presidents Day public holiday). Shares in the UK jumped by 1.1 per cent.

Embattled MP Craig Thomson faces a minimum of 5 years prison term after Magistrate Charlier Rozencwajg found him on Tuesday guilty of fraud and theft over his misuse of Health Services Union (HSU) credit cards.

Mining giant BHP Billiton (ASX: BHP) reported on Tuesday a first half profit of A$9 billion for its 2014 financial year. It is almost double compared to BHP's profit 12 months ago and better than most analysts' expectations.

After an in-depth analysis of the strength and stability of Australia’s financial sector, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s concluded that Aussie banks are among the five most stable in the world.

The positive equity momentum of the past week remains robust. Having now turned positive for the first time in 2014, the ASX is now 30 points in the black year-to-date as the US markets snap back from their New Year slump.

European shares were mixed on Monday in thin trade with volumes affected by holidays in North America. The FTSEurofirst 300 index rose by 0.4% with the UK FTSE up by 1.1% but the German Dax lost 0.1%. Mining shares were stronger in response to strong Chinese lending data and in London trade shares in both BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto rose by 1.2%.

Wives or girlfriends, if you had just given birth for the first time and you notice the lack of interest or sex drive from your husband or boyfriend in the next couple of months, fret not.

A question asked in 2012 is being raised again this time by Harry Dent, a book author, economist and demographer raised the spectre of a property slump in Australia in the next few years. He warned that property prices could go down as low as 50% in the coming years, causing median house prices in Sydney to tumble down to $381,584 from the present $763,169.

The Australian share market continued its recent winning streak today, rising 0.5 per cent on the back of positive moves on Wall Street on Friday night and data out of China on the weekend.

The Australian share market has started the trading week on a positive note, after gaining 3.5 per cent over the course of last week.

More than a week after the Sochi Winter Games opened or almost halfway through, the games organisers finally breached the 1 million mark for ticket sales, Olympic officials announced on Friday.

With limited major macro news this week and after having seen the US and Australia releasing most of their respective January data in the past two weeks, the Asian and European earnings seasons will be the main driver of trade.

In US economic data, industrial production fell by 0.3% in January, short of forecasts for a 0.3% gain, but a result blamed on the severe winter weather. Import prices rose 0.1% in January and export prices rose by 0.2%. Consumer sentiment was unchanged at 81.2 in February.

A rejected marriage proposal that went viral gave birth to another viral video on how the rejected boyfriend searched for ways to have a bigger penis.

Couple viewers of the Feb 14 special evening showing of Beijing Love Story at the Xintiandi cinema complex got the surprise of their life when they discovered they couldn't sit beside their dates or boyfriend/girlfriend that night. The reason was that a group of singles in Shanghai bought all the odd-numbered seats for the movie.

Gold continued to lose its shine in 2013, with the top 3 miners registering a combined loss of $16 billion. The loss of Barrick Gold, Goldcorp and Kinross Gold Corp are due to lower price of the once-safe haven and the drop in value of bullion and mining shareprices.

While the federal Australian government is willing to help financially challenged national carrier Qantas, it wouldn't be in the form of a cash handout.

The Australian government collected $4.1 billion carbon tax in 2012/13, $1.2 billion less than the original projection of $7.7 billion.

Local stocks have ended the week with an emphatic improvement .The ASX 200 ended the session at the best levels of the day. Participation from investors remained at healthy levels with close to $5 billion in shares exchanged. In a week that has been replete with economic news from the world's economically important regions, in addition to a landslide of company results locally, the ASX 200 has risen by 3.5%. Every sector finished the session with solid gains led by the healthcare and consumer...

Between full-time stay-at-home mums and career mums, the grass appears to be greener on the other side. Many working mums are guilt ridden over their choice of career over taking care of their kids full-time, while stay-at-home mums feel lonely and miserable. Whatever were their decisions, both choices perpetuate the long-held belief by society that motherhood equates to martyrdom.

The Australian sharemarket is up by 0.9 per cent at lunch, taking the gains since mid-last week to 5.4 per cent. All sectors are in the black, with the mining industry once again outperforming.

That question actually remains unanswered, not because New Zealand Prime Minister John Key was offended by the query if he is a reptilian alien who could change shapes, but because no evidence could be found to disprove the theory.

Facebook just moved a notch up the political correctness ladder by making available to its more than 1 billion members worldwide other gender options besides the usual male and female.

Equities in the US managed to extend their gains despite some disappointing economic data. Retail sales, unemployment claims and business inventories all missed consensus estimates, while Janet Yellen's Senate testimony was postponed due to weather-related issues. Despite all these negative prints, momentum still picked up with Comcast's TWC buyout helping sentiment along. Perhaps some are hoping the disappointing data could result in the Fed diverting/pausing its current tapering path, bu...

US retail sales fell by a surprising 0.4% in January after a 0.1% fall in December. Core sales (excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials, and food services) fell 0.3%. US initial jobless claims rose by 8,000 to 339,000 last week. US business inventories rose by 0.5% in December after rising by 0.4% in November. Analysts believe that the current level of inventory is unsustainable and it is likely that businesses will ease production to work through current stocks over the March quarte...

On any given Valentine's Day, the red rose is probably the most common flower given to wives, girlfriends and female friends. Each year, thousands of roses and other flowers are shipped, arranged, sold and delivered for Feb 14 and other special holidays as an expression of love or friendship, or sometime to ask forgiveness.The British daily, Mirror, decided to track the path of roses sold by one of the biggest flower wholesaler in the country, Finlays, and the journey brought the writer to Na...

The uproar over her topless photo taken three years ago is distracting Lebanese alpine skier Jackie Chamoun from concentrating on competing in the ongoing Sochi Winter Olympics.

Jackie Chamoun is receiving all the flak for her topless photo that people did not notice there were two of them in the controversial photo shoot that divided Lebanon.

The Australian share market snapped a healthy five day winning streak today, to close marginally lower on the back of a disappointing jobs report.