Boxing day sales 2015: UK shoppers expected to spend over £3bn as John Lewis and Selfridges enjoy strong starts December 26, 2015 British shoppers are expected to spend heavily in this year's Christmas sales, with stores such as John Lewis already boasting of strong trading figures. According to figures from the Centre for Retail Research and vouchercodes.co.uk, around 22m shoppers will spend £3.74bn in sales this festive period – a six per cent increase on last year. Department [...]
All I want for Christmas is…: Christmas gift requests on Twitter reveal Apple, Nike and Victoria’s Secret as most popular brands December 24, 2015 What did you put on your wishlist this year? Thanks to the wonders of technology, we may be able to guess. Santa may be making his list and checking it twice, but as for the rest of us, we seem to be making our lists and then tweeting them twice. As social media analytics firm [...]
Beatles back catalogue confirmed for music streaming from midnight on Christmas Eve on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Amazon, Google December 23, 2015 The back catalogue of hit songs from the Beatles such as Hey Jude will be available on music streaming service for the first time, giving a Christmas treat to music fans. The fab four's music will be available on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal, Groove and Rhapsody. On Spotify, both free and premium users will be able to [...]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully returns its Falcon 9 rocket after sending it to space in breakthrough for reusable rockets December 22, 2015 Activist billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX has sent its Falcon 9 rocket into space and back again – an important breakthrough for reusable rockets in space exploration. The first stage of the Falcon 9 gently touched down at Cape Canaveral 10 minutes after lift-off, to employees’ cheers. This was SpaceX’s first flight since June, when one of its rockets exploded [...]
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: [...]