Vittorio Hernandez

The Australian Dollar has found renewed strength again hitting highs well above USD 1.0500 with the AUD trade-weighted index hitting its highest level in 28 years yesterday.

Risk assets extended their gains with US markets closing at fresh closing highs. There were several factors at play yesterday, but the move in risk was certainly triggered by some positive developments in Europe. The major European bourses traded sharply higher on hopes that Italy is closer to forming a government, and a successful Italian bond auction. The Fed minutes didn't have too much of an impact on sentiment, as investors feel the recent signs of strain in the US labour market will be ...

Besides seizing deposits from account holders of the Popular Bank of Cyprus, Nicosia will also sell the bulk of its gold holdings as its contribution to the international bailout. The sale, which comes at a time that gold prices are down, aims to raise €400 million.

The global app market continued to expand at an impressive rate of 11 per cent for the first three months of 2013. Market analyst firm Canalys, in a new study released this week, said the top 4 app stores logged 13.4 billion downloads for the period.

In US economic news, the FOMC minutes from the March 19/20th meeting were released. Some FOMC members still believed that asset purchases should be tapered later in the year and stopped by year end. But of course the FOMC meeting took place in March before evidence of softening momentum in the US economy started to emerge. We continue to believe that the bond buying program will run into early 2014 at the very least.

When Meryl Streep was chosen to portray the role of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 2011 biopic Iron Lady, many film buffs believe she was a perfect choice.

A 74-year-old song in the classic movie Wizard of Oz is enjoying again immense popularity in the UK, and pundits link the entry of Judy Gardland's Ding Dong the Witch is Dead to the UK's iTunes Top 10 charts to the Monday death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The local share market closed slightly lower today, dragged down by financial players and spite gains on Wall Street overnight.

Even if the Australian federal government launched on Tuesday its first national space policy, the country would neither send astronauts to Mars or other celestial destinations.

At Baroness Margaret Thatcher's funeral next week, some spotlight would be placed on her two adult children, who had always stayed away from the limelight most of the time when their mother served as prime minister from 1979 to 1990.

The Australian sharemarket is slipping for the first time in three sessions, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) down 0.2 per cent to 4969.2. Both the ASX200 index and the All Ords are very close to cracking through the psychologically important 5000.0pt level. The indices haven't closed above that level in almost a month.

If Torrent Freak's discovery is a basis, it would not be surprising that reports of a gay sex ring in the Vatican circulated during the time that Pope Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI quit the papacy in February 2013.

The Australian dollar has opened higher, as a fresh bout of US dollar weakness and firmer commodities prices pushed the local currency towards USD 105.00.

Remember that 1980s commercial of a famous shampoo brand? Owners of iPhone units could similarly have their Gee, your phone smells terrific moment by selecting from six scented skins available in the market. With price ranging from $7 to $60, these phone covers may even new doors of friendship, or even a possible romance, if strangers around you would smell the mouth-watering waft coming from your Apple smartphone

It was another quiet night for macro data; French and German trade balances are the only talking points, with French balances disappointing, and German data was just in-line, which was expected. These figures led to mixed trading results in Europe.

Google is working on the next-generation Nexus 7 tablet as a follow-up to the successful launch of the device. ZDNET, a reliable source of news about devices, reported on Tuesday that the successor to the Nexus 7 will be available in July in the U.S. and could have a retail price of $150.

In US economic news, US wholesale inventories fell by 0.3pct in February - the biggest decline in nearly 1½-years. Economists had expected wholesale inventories to rise 0.5pct. The weaker build in inventories may result in lower estimates for March quarter growth.

It's official. U.S. residents would be able to buy the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 for $399 on April 11, Thursday.

The Coalition in Australia released on Tuesday its broadband policy which would cost Aussie taxpayers less at A$29 billion. It would replace the fiber-to-the-premises (Fttp) deployment used by the current National Broadband Network (NBN) to a fibre-to-the-node (FttN) network.

Despite being Britain's former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher would not get a state funeral next week. Instead, she will be given a royal and military funeral, Downing Street announced on Tuesday.

In another display of how social media could turn a cute kiddy prank into something viral, an apology letter written by a nine-year-old boy named Zac from Adelaide, Australia is being read by thousands of amused Facebook members.

Laptops with longer battery life designed to last all-day use will soon be out following the shipment by Intel to Chinese manufacturers of the Haswell chip. The chip is the first Intel Core chip designed for low power consumption.

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

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

A newly study published on Tuesday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science confirms what men of average size fear - women are more attracted to males who have large penis.

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.