At the end of the month, Chinese stocks rallied and closed higher on Friday. Despite this, Shanghai Composite Index suffered its biggest monthly fall in the past seven years. The Chinese benchmark index Shanghai Composite tumbled 22.6 percent in January and this is the biggest monthly fall since October 2008. Chinese currency Yuan was marginally moved up against the US dollar on support extended by People's Bank of China (PBOC).
Industry
Facebook Prohibits Unlicensed Private Gun Sales On Its Sites And Instagram, Warns For Compliance With Local Regulations
Facebook users will soon be prohibited from coordinating private firearm sales using its platform and also through Instagram. The step evokes strict policies on regulating promotional posts on unlicensed gun businesses . The new rule is only applicable for person-to-person firearm sales, licensed gun dealers will be permitted to use the social network.
Facebook Inc Posted a Strong Profit of More Than $1 Billion in Q4 2015
The social network giant posted a strong profit. On Wednesday, Facebook reported a $1.56 billion quarterly net income in fourth quarter of 2015.
SARB Increases Benchmark Rates, Commercial Banks Follow Trait, Job Cutting Feared
South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has announced increasing key interest rates by fifty basis points to 6.75% on Thursday. It has also slashed down growth forecast to 0.9%. SARB has increased the interest rates for the second time with an interval of weeks. However, the rate hike will influence the Banks’ expenses and banking industry may witness job cutting as cost minimization effort.
Tesla Denies to Launch Two New Cars in March
Tesla denies rumor that the electric car maker will launch two new models in March. However, the company will build a third generation platform for its vehicle to support its sedan and SUV model.
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As an investment bank, a problem in investment-banking operation will damage the overall performance. Deutsche Bank suffered its first annual loss since 2008, followed by drastic drop of its shares.
Amazon has become inspired by Prime’s offers for free delivery within two days against online purchases for more than $100. Instead of spending more for shipping, Amazon is slowly approaching towards own delivery system through purchasing trucks and building own warehouses. These efforts have engaged current assets and narrow down fourth quarter profit. But 26% rise in yearly sales indicates a very different outlook.
Federal Reserve Bank will issue a much tougher annual stress test this year. The test aims to prevent recurrence of 2008 crisis, analyzing resilience of 33 large U.S. banks against the worse-case hypothetical scenario..
BugSec and Cynet, two computer security companies have identified a security loophole in LG’s G3 smart phones. A built in app in G3 smart phones, naming Smart Notice, has enabled hackers to use the loophole to steal data. Upon information and following demonstrations from the researchers, LG has released a new version of Smart Notice containing a patch and urges users to run the new app ASAP.
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.
