Microsoft Corp said its quarterly profit beat analysts' view, propelled by mounting demand for its cloud products. Quarterly net income, on an adjusted basis, amounted to $6.3 billion, up from $5.8 billion in the same period last year.

Reddit has initiated testing the official Android app on Thursday after releasing the beta version on December. Volunteers taking part in the previous test also remain as the first opportunists to test the official version. The official version is expected to override the hiccups existed in the third party application. The CEO of Reddit has hinted for going through massive modernization processes throughout 2016.

The Safari fault which has affected a range of Apple devices has been fixed. The fault was related to Apple's Safari Suggestions feature. Simply disabling this feature will stop Safari crashing says iOS developers.

South Korean steelmaker POSCO announced a consolidated net profit, excluding minority interests, of 181 billion won for 2015, down from 626 billion won in the previous year.

South American nation Venezuela is suffering from gasoline smuggling to neighboring nations. Gasoline is heavily subsidized in Venezuela. The cheaper gasoline smuggling has become a major revenue source in the crisis-hit Venezuelan economy. Venezuela's President has deployed soldiers in large number to keep constant vigil on its borders. Venezuela is losing foreign exchange revenue in US dollars because of smuggling of gasoline.

Global investors are withdrawing from Russian stock markets as volatility is high in equities and currency Ruble. The continuous drop in oil price is impacting the Russian economy much as it's the main revenue source for the country. The gap between onshore and offshore traded equities is narrowing down as foreign investors are selling off.

South African largest iron ore producer Kumba cuts as many as 3900 miners after prices plunged. Kumba decided to restructure the Sishen mines to become a low cost pit configuration and as a result, about 2,633 employees of Kumba and 1,300 contractors will be affected.

The Republican Debate is going to be held in Iowa State on Thursday. The fast food workers under the banner of ‘$15 per hour minimum wage movement’ have called strike on the very day apparently due to gain media attraction. The strike has been called demanding immediate implementation of the said minimum wage rate across the country and union rights. However, the demands have already been supported by many Democratic candidates and furnished in their election manifesto.

The British Pound strengthened against major global currencies after a report on UK's GDP growth. The report said that UK's economy speeded up during the fourth quarter of 2015. The rise in consumer demand helped the economy expansion. The British Pound recovered from the two-week low of 1.4338 against the US dollar to at $1.4314.

Anglo American's copper production and from retained operations rose 23 percent for the fourth quarter of 2015. The overall copper equivalent basis production for 2015 rose five percent when compared with 2014. Majority of metals including copper, coal, nickel and iron ore tumbled during the second half of 2015. The copper inventory of Anglo American was at 197,631 tons as on 2015.