BUSINESS

Seafish Tasmania, the operator of 142-foot long supertrawler Abel Tasman, offered on Thursday to reduce its freezing capacity in a bid lift the ban on the fishing vessel imposed by the federal government.

Traders suspect manipulation when the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) started trading on Thursday morning. The suspicion was triggered by a surge in share prices of a number of major ASX200 stocks, including that of ANZ Bank which logged a 6.5 per cent one-day rise.

By Peter Switzer, Switzer Super ReportThere are two big issues super trustees should be tossing over. The first is whether interest rates come down again, which will be of particular interest to those who are playing it safe.

By Greg PeelThe Dow closed down 8 points, while the S&P fell 0.2% and the Nasdaq plunged 1.0%.Google, like Apple, is one of the America's largest stocks by market cap and should thus be in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, but isn't given a per share face value that exceeds Dow criteria.

Local stocks closed at their highest levels since July 2011 today, with investor sentiment boosted by the fact today's Chinese economic data contained no nasty surprises. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) added 30pts by close or 0.7pct to 4580.9, after hitting an intra-day high of 4602.5.

Residential property prices in New Zealand have continued to rise in the third quarter of 2012. The national housing median price rose by 6% to NZ$371,000 (US$304,168) during the year to September 2012, according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ).

HTC recently announced the upcoming release of the HTC J Butterfly, with the first stop in Japan and then to the entire global market. Sony will also release a version of another Xperia in Japan and then to rest of the world. While both are still coming soon to retail outlets, these upcoming devices are already set to face off each other.

ASUS surprised techies by launching the successor of the Padfone, only this time much bigger and better in many ways. And this bigger and better unit has powerful technologies inside it, from the processor and memory to camera and resolution shots. The new challenger in the Android smartphone war meets up with another powerful device, the LG Optimus G.

The world is over the billion mark, that is the number of smartphones in circulation as of the September 2012 quarter, creating an impression that we are more digitally connected than in the previous decades, a new report said.

What we’ll have is a ‘shooting war’ between Asus and Sony if we are to compare head-on the upcoming PadFone 2 and the Xperia Acro S.

Overnight the US market closed slightly higher and the European markets were also stronger. Better than expected home start numbers, for the month of September, out of the states helped reduce the pain from weaker than expected results from key technology forms IBM and Intel.

The Coca-Cola Co. and Sanofi SA decided to start a venture to launch a line of 'beauty drinks' in France. The 50-50 partnership aims at diversification of products and entering a new market for both the Coca-Cola Co. and Sanofi.

By Richard (Rick) MillsAhead of the HerdAs a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best informationFact - China is the world's largest user of copper.

So much nonsense in the news this morning, we hardly know what to laugh at first.

Nigel Farage never elicits a neutral reaction...ever. His brutally honest remarks inspire either love or hate - kind of like country music, calvados or the Kardashians.

The more you look at it, the more the Fed's big QE program announced in mid-September looks like a big fat nothingburger. The S&P 500 closed at 1465 two days after the Fed's announcement. It's now at 1440. By comparison, the All Ordinaries are up about 3.76% in the same time. Gold is down 2% since the 'golden cross' on September 20th, when the 50-day moving average crossed above the 200-day moving average.

We never liked history as a child. It's just a bunch of stuff that's already happened. But when you're young, you don't realise there's a lot of history yet to come. And it helps to be informed about what's been if you want to know what's going to be.

The fate of Australian sheep is still unknown after a Pakistani court deferred on Wednesday a decision on culling the livestock. The Sindh High Court in Karachi adjourned the hearing and will resume session on Thursday.

Taking advantage of the ongoing three-day visit of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in which resumption of talks for uranium sale too India is on top of the agenda, the Australian Uranium Association (AUA) is pushing for an overturn of the ban on uranium mining in Queensland.

MillionPlus.com.au, the luxury property website from the team behind Thehomepage.com.au, has just relaunched with a new more elegant look, better features and cutting edge cloud based technology.

- Regus and CBA business confidence reports released- Large businesses more confident than SMEs- Retail confidence surprisingly strongBy Andrew NelsonTwo business confidence surveys hit the street yesterday and what they show is that while times may be tough, Australian businesses remain optimistic.

By Greg PeelThe Dow closed up 5 points, while the S&P rose 0.4% to 1460 and the Nasdaq gained 0.1%.News came through after US markets had closed yesterday that after months of deliberation, ratings agency Moody's had decided not to downgrade Spanish debt one more notch to junk, thus leaving Moo...

So the media invites are out, which confirmed earlier reports that Apple will host an event set for Oct 23, most likely to enthrall the world again of new products to be pushed in time for the 2012 holiday rush.

Local stocks rose to fresh 14 month highs today, supported by strong moves offshore, a pick-up in Chinese steel production and positive moves from major blue-chip stocks. US and European markets rallied overnight with US investors encouraged by strong earnings reports, while European investor sentiment was bolstered by speculation Spain could be close to asking for a sovereign bailout. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) finished the day's trade up 37pts or 0.8pct to 4550.9, after hitting an intra...

It took Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo almost six months to transform the IdeaTab S2110 to go from CES reveal to retail outlets. During that time, ASUS managed to announce and ship a new hybrid tablet of its own, the Transformer Pad TF300 , which is a keyboard optional rival offering the same 10-inch, Android 4.0 experience with quad-core Tegra 3.

To take full advantage of Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system which integrates touchscreen functionality, some PC manufacturers are offering new touch-enabled devices that are designed to run it.

Japanese carmaker Nissan is gunning to roll out safer cars and its basic concept: less human intervention as possible, more safety vehicle functions and features.

The number of individuals diagnosed with the dreaded Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has risen in Australia, prompting lawmakers and health experts to re-assess laid down national policies and programs on the disease.

Studies out of Portland, Ore., and New York City reveal that bicyclists spend more money than consumers who travel by car or public transportation.