Obamacare and tech help boost Wall St – New York Report December 21, 2015 BOUNCES in Apple and Microsoft yesterday as well as a rally in hospital stocks after more Americans signed up for subsidised health insurance helped US stocks to end stronger. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.72 per cent to end at 17,251.48 points and the S&P 500 gained 0.78 per cent to 2,021.16. The Nasdaq [...]
With anti-austerity party Podemos winning 69 seats in the Spanish election, should markets be scared? December 21, 2015 Chris Bailey is European strategist at Raymond James, says Yes The Eurozone is ending 2015 the way it began – with a political earthquake. Back in January, Greece’s radical anti-austerity party Syriza was making headlines. Today it is Spain’s Podemos. Formed just a few years ago, it is now the third largest political force in [...]
Head to upstate New York to beat the crowds this ski season for a skiing hotspot bigger than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined December 21, 2015 The Hamptons is the summer escape for sweltering New Yorkers, but when the winter snows lie thick in Central Park, it’s the pine-clad ski slopes of the Catskills and the Adirondacks that beckon these urbanites. Of course, for us, Europe has every kind of ski adventure imaginable; but as the Brits charge off en masse [...]
Three things we learned about Apple from Tim Cook on 60 Minutes – Tax “crap”, encryption and China December 21, 2015 Tim Cook has made a rare media appearance talking everything Apple, from tax to China, on CBS's 60 Minutes show. The chief executive of the world's largest listed company with a market cap of more than half a billion dollars, set the record straight on several criticism's of the tech giant. Here's what he had [...]
Shareholder dissatisfaction with bosses at Imagination Technologies December 20, 2015 Troubled mobile chip maker Imagination Technologies, which counts Apple among its top shareholders, is facing mounting criticism from investors following the firm's share price tumbling 50 per cent in two months. At the close on Friday the share price was trading around 135p, down from 247p in October. The share price hit highs of 712p [...]
Top business books of 2015: From Walter Isaacson’s Innovators to The Untold Story of Bitcoin, here’s your Christmas reading list December 19, 2015 It’s been another roller-coaster year for businesses in 2015. From plummeting oil prices to an impending interest rate hike, authors have done their best to educate their readership on… well, pretty much anything. Here are our favourite reads of 2015. You’ll find a little bit of everything for everyone – from advice on time-management to inspiration on becoming the next big entrepreneur. Innovators: [...]
Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie review: A faithful rendering of the classic comic strip December 18, 2015 U | Dir. Steve Martino ★★★★☆ Like Elvis, apple pie and widespread gun ownership, Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts” is woven into the fabric of American culture. The animated Christmas Special from the 60s has become part of the holiday tradition, and now the team behind 2011’s Rio are bringing the characters into the 21st century. [...]
Wall St slips as global concerns curtail rallies – New York Report December 17, 2015 CONCERN over faltering global economic growth yesterday ended a three-day rally on Wall Street, led by declines in energy and materials shares, a day after shares rose on the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 253.25 points, or 1.43 per cent, to 17,495.84, the S&P 500 lost 31.18 [...]
Apple Pay, one year later: Why mobile payments have failed to catch on as we’re still looking for something better December 17, 2015 Mobile payments became a hot topic just about the time when first iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs in 2007. Back then experts in payment, retail, telecommunication, and banking industries started thinking about a smartphone as a viable alternative to physical wallets suggesting many different technologies, but no one knew how exactly the winner was [...]
Jeff Williams promoted to Apple’s chief operating officer, Phil Schiller to head App Store, Grey’s Tor Myhren hired for marketing and communications in rare management rejig December 17, 2015 Jeff Williams has been named Apple's new chief operating officer, in a rare reshuffle of the tech company's senior team. “We are fortunate to have incredible depth and breadth of talent across Apple’s executive team. As we come to the end of the year, we’re recognising the contributions already being made by two key executives,” said [...]