Hot finance topics

Australian home-building approvals rose by less than economists forecast in January as weakness outside the resources industry hurts housing.
The number of permits granted to build or renovate houses and apartments gained 0.9 percent from December, when they dropped a revised 0.8 percent, the Bureau of Statistics said in Sydney today. The result compares with […]

U.S. manufacturers are hiring at the fastest pace in more than a decade to keep up with new orders but sweeping technological advances could cost thousands of factory workers their jobs in years to come.
At a new factory in upstate New York, which is due to churn out its first computer chips this year, […]

India has proposed setting up a multilateral bank that would be exclusively funded by developing nations and finance projects in those countries, two government officials with knowledge of the matter said.
The plan has been circulated to the countries in the so- called BRIC group — Brazil, Russia, India and China — as well as […]

Egypt said Saturday the criminal trial of 16 Americans and 27 others will start Feb. 26 in a politically charged case against foreign-funded pro-democracy groups that has badly shaken Cairo’s ties with Washington.
The trial represents an escalation in what has become the deepest crisis in U.S.-Egypt relations in decades. American officials have threatened to cut […]

Can’t get enough of those virtual cows and crops from FarmVille? Good news, agrarians: Zynga toys and games are coming this fall.
Hasbro (), the big-time toy company responsible for My Little Pony and Monopoly, announced Thursday that it has bought the rights to license Zynga brands for a "wide range" of products.

Mark Pincus, the […]

China

Japan

It’s the best start for stocks in 15 years.
In what was mostly a slow and steady climb, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 3.4 percent in January and the Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 4.4 percent, the best performances for both indexes to open a year since 1997.
Investors were encouraged by modest but welcome improvement […]

Valuations for U.S. equities have been stuck below the five-decade average for the longest period since Richard Nixon

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said slower inflation gives policy makers room to increase bond purchases to aid the U.K. economy and guard against a