BUSINESS

It seems that some battles are hard to end. Apparently, one of them is a bloodshed over Martha Stewart's products. These days at war are Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penneey Co. as everything indicates that three parties of the argument have not reached consensus.

Australia's General Motors Holden, which is the division of General Motors Co., informed that it would begin job cuts which would touch as many as 500 employees.

The Australian market is having its best day in close to a month at lunch, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) up 1.1 per cent. This is a refreshing change considering that major sectors have fallen for four consecutive weeks.

Australian doctors have advised residents, particularly the very young and the elderly, to already have their shots as they forecast a severe flu season for this winter.

Australian subscribers of Vodafone will enjoy 4G long-term evolution (LTE) services by June 2013, Vodafone Chief Executive Officer Bill Morrow said on Monday.

As the number of deaths due to the new avian influenza A (H7N9) reached seven in China, a member of the country's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has said the current health scare now gripping the world's second-largest economy is but a scheme planted by the United States.

The Australian Dollar has opened back above USD1.0400 this morning after a very quiet day of trade yesterday.

Samsung begins pushing Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update for T-Mobile Galaxy S2 and the device has been receiving constant update everywhere. The Jelly Bean update will give T-Mobile S2 variant new features such as Google Now and Project Butter.

Facebook has started rolling out a paid messaging service in UK, charging users from a low 71p to as much as £11 to send messages to people outside their circle of friends. The highest rate is afforded when touching base with celebrities, depending on how famous they are.

By Andrew NelsonLast week was a quiet and uneventful week as far as the uranium market goes. Industry consultant TradeTech reports just three deals were done and accounted for only 400,000 pound of uranium changing hands.

It was a very quiet night for macro data, but that didn't stop the S&P moving higher on earnings speculations.

Businessman George Soros is blaming the euro crisis in 2012 for making gold an unsafe haven for investors. Since October, gold prices had been on a downtrend and last week the yellow metal for June delivery, the most actively traded contract, hit a nine-month low of $1,553.50 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In an obvious indicator that South Korean tech giant Samsung is determined to keep the smartphone king title, the company announced on Monday the release of three models run by Jelly Bean and featuring dual SIM.

In US economic news, the Chicago Midwest Manufacturing index rose by 0.8pct in February after rising by a revised 0.4pct in January.

By Greg PeelThe Dow closed up 48 points, or 0.3%, while the S&P gained 0.6% to 1563 and the Nasdaq added 0.

By Peter Switzer, Switzer Super ReportMy colleague Paul Rickard has deconstructed the Treasurer's super proposals which are allegedly targeted at the "fabulously wealthy" but clearly it will affect those with say $700,000 with a 20% return per annum or someone on $1 million making 13% and so on...

Controversial former Prime Minister of Britain, Margaret Thatcher, dies at the age of 87 after a massive stroke.

Specs of the Samsung Galaxy S4 set for release in Australia in the later part of April are becoming clearer. A statement from the South Korean tech giant confirmed that the much-awaited device would not have a quad-core Exynos 5 Octa processor.

Despite predictions of a flat to moderately lower day on the Australian share market, local stocks received a boost in afternoon trade on the back of gains on Japan's Nikkei Index. The Nikkei rose a further 3% today, after hitting five year highs on Friday, in response to aggressive stimulus announced late last week by the Bank of Japan.

How much will this deficit numbskullery by the Australian government cost investors? That's the question we left off with in yesterday's Daily Reckoning. Today we provide the answer: about 30%, give or take.

If you're going to speculate, you could do worse than speculate on energy. The issue became even more interesting yesterday with Shell's announcement that it would put its Geelong refinery up for sale. The downstream oil and gas business in Australia - refining oil and selling the refined fuels - is an increasingly lousy one.

Well here we go. Japan is once again boldly leading the way into the undiscovered monetary country. Desperate to engineer faster economic growth by any means necessary, new Bank of Japan (BoJ) governor Haruhiko Kuroda announced his attention to double Japan's monetary base to around $3 trillion by the end of 2014.

North Korean threats have not only spread panic because of the political implications of probable military confrontation, but they have also already affected markets.

Newest data by Samsung Electronics Co. showed that the South Korean producer saw its profit climb significantly in the first quarter of the year as sales of mid-tier handsets surged especially in emerging markets. Strong sales of smartphones are expected to be recorded in the period ending June.

A week after the nation was first reported to be suffering from what could be a pandemic, China's stocks have been hit, slumping 10 per cent versus the high posted in February, as the number of infected rose to 21 on Sunday.

Local stocks are flat to slightly firmer at lunchtime in the East, with mining players providing most of the support.

The HTC First phone, the first to feature the Facebook Home launcher, has gotten mixed reviews just days after the device was launched by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday.

Ahead of its official release in the third or fourth quarter of 2013, images of the BlackBerry Curve were released over the weekend.

Thin is in seems to be the mantra of tablet manufacturers are new models of tablet computers are released on the market.