The Traderszone Network

Apple Inc has begun keeping the personal data of some Chinese users on servers in mainland China, marking the first time that the tech giant is storing user data on Chinese soil. The data will be kept on servers provided by China Telecom Corp Ltd, the country’s third-largest wireless carrier, Apple said in a statement on Friday. Apple attributed the move to an effort to improve the speed and reliability of its iCloud service, which lets users store pictures, e-mail and other data.

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Global stock markets mostly rose Friday, cheered by the prospect of more gains on Wall Street and a sense that Ukraine tensions are easing.

Gold traded firmly above $1,300 an ounce on Friday and looked poised for a second-straight weekly gain as sluggish global economic data and geopolitical tensions boosted the metal’s safe-haven appeal. Tensions over Ukraine and in the Middle East also boosted gold, seen as an alternative investment to riskier assets such as equities. Some weak data in the last few days is also helping,” said a precious metals trader. Spot gold edged up 0.1 percent to $1,314 an ounce by 0629 GMT, after closing little changed in the previous session.

Coca-Cola is buying a 16.7 percent stake in Monster Beverage for $2.15 billion, with the world’s biggest soda maker hoping to benefit from the surging popularity of energy drinks. The Atlanta-based company …

The U.S. labor market is looking a little surreal these days. As a share of the population, it’s the lowest since at least 1967 — the year Grace Slick and her Jefferson Airplane bandmates dropped drug references in the San Francisco-spawned album Surrealistic Pillow, and 37 years before Janet Yellen became president of the region’s Federal Reserve bank. In one, job growth is increasing along with inflation, leaving Yellen, now at the helm of the U.S. central bank, behind the curve with recession-era monetary policy still in place.

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Creditors of bankrupt lender include former employees and pension funds.
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BHP Billiton declared its preference for a demerger of its unwanted aluminum, manganese and nickel assets on Friday, setting the stage for the formation of a separate company that one report said could be worth $14 billion. One report said those plans were well advanced and would include the Nickel West business that the world’s biggest miner has been trying to sell. “A demerger of a selection of assets is our preferred option,” the company, which has a market capitalization of $185 billion, said in a statement to the Australian stock exchange.

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