BUSINESS

By Greg PeelThe Dow rose 96 points or 0.8% while the S&P conquered 1300 for the first time since August, rising 1.

Research in Motion Ltd. will release the updated Playbook operating system in February that would include a new native calendar and contact applications, as well as better integration for E-mail, LinkedIn and Twitter. RIM is hoping the new update will lure developers and consumers to support its Playbook OS 2.0 but this update could be too late to reverse the Playbook's fortune.

Ford Motor Company, the second largest automaker company in the U.S. recently announced a recall of at least 539,000 vehicles worldwide in order to repair certain errors in the affected car models.

Global miner BHP Billiton is all set to achieve a record full-year following its incredible iron ore output jump in the first half of the current financial year, the latest production report issued by BHP on Wednesday showed.

While its competitors either hold off or cut back new investments, Samsung Group boldly announced on Tuesday plans for more investments this year, estimated to reach more than $41 billion, reports said.

Jerry Yang built-up his name by transforming a start-up tech firm into a multi-billion dollar global company, becoming the toast of the tech world in so short a time, which lasted until Yahoo's gradual and eventual decline.

Australia's mining industry will continue to enjoy a boom in 2012 based on production reports that resource companies released this week. Output was particularly higher for iron ore and gold resources.

Australian travelers are expected to benefit from the drop in plane fares as more competition heats in the aviation industry with the offer of AirAsiaX daily trips from Sydney beginning April 2.

A day after UBS came out with a report that 7,000 jobs would be cut from Australia's banking industry in the next two years, ANZ Bank started the opening salvo by confirming on Wednesday that 130 positions would be declared redundant.

Is Rio Tinto really that bullish about the outlook for 2012?

The surge in Chinese iron ore imports last November and December also helped Fortescue Metals shipped a record 14.77 million tonnes of ore in the December quarter, beating its own guidance.

Any class action from disgruntled mortgage borrowers under the NCCP has been deemed unlikely to succeed.

Wholesale aggregators have been lambasted for failing to deliver on their promise of building and supporting independent broking businesses.

The New Year period often means a plethora of performance reviews, which, depending on how they are administered, can mean a heavy time burden for HR directors and their teams.

The evidence of the slow landing in China's economy was strewn across the annual economic data released yesterday.

By David Fessler, Investment U Senior AnalystMonday, January 16, 2011Oil prices have traded off a few dollars from their recent highs.

By Kathleen Brooks, Research Director UK EMEA, FOREX.comThe dollar was generally bid for most of the London session; however it has managed to claw back some gains mid-afternoon, as the euro stumbled as it made attempts to crack 1.

There is only a 'vague possibility' that New Zealand would escape a recession considering Europe's worsening debt crisis, according to the country's analysts.

U.S. stocks gained Tuesday after strong economic data in the U.S., China and Germany fueled optimism over the pace of global economic growth, setting up stock indexes for their highest close in nearly half a year.

By Greg PeelThe Dow closed up 60 points or 0.5% while the S&P added 0.4% to 1293 and the Nasdaq gained 0.

The South Australian Supreme Court overturned on Tuesday a ministerial approval given to Argonaut Resources (ASX: ARE) to drill for copper, gold and iron-oxide in parts of Lake Torrens and Andamooka Island.

The local share market enjoyed a strong session today, with investor sentiment boosted by a positive offshore lead, better than expected Chinese economic data and strong quarterly production reports from a number of our key mining and energy companies. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) added 68.8pts by close or 1.6pct to 4277.7 while the S&P/ASX 200 Index (XJO) firmed by 68.4pts or 1.7pct to 4215.6.

Cavalier Corp.'s chief executive and managing director, Wayne Chung, is set to retire from his executive role at the company, while operations manager Colin McKenzie has been tapped to take on the lead role.

Aircraft manufacturer BAE Systems will taps its Australian unit to put in place an aerospace component manufacturing operation in Adelaide which would produce titanium parts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Ports of Auckland workers warned against contracting jobs lest they will be compelled to leave the country, the Maritime Union says.

It was a case of 'video killed the radio star' scenario as personal computers, latest industry figures showed PCs continuing their gradual decline, no thanks to the rising dominance of mobile devices.

With a new CEO and a quadrupled budget, the New Zealand oil and gas industry is moving forward against growing opposition to modernized oil exploration, such as deep-sea drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

Gloomy market environment and government intrusions were being blamed by the banking sector for the projected job losses that the industry could witness this year, which could run to thousands of job cuts, media reports said.

More and more Australians are opting for fixed home loans as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported this week that fixed mortgage soared to 11.1 percent in November just weeks after the central bank pushed back the country's cash rate.