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Protests in China sparked by Japan’s decision to buy a group of Islands China claims it already owns has seen share prices of Japanese companies operating in China fall on the Nikkei in Tokyo. Japanese firms have taken the decision to suspend operations at factories in China as many fear the protests could get worse. Nissan Motors has...

An announcement by the European Central Bank that it intends to buy bonds in an attempt to ease the debt crisis gripping the eurozone has met with positive reactions from markets around the globe. The ECB hopes that bond buying will drive down the cost of borrowing for a number of the block’s struggling economies. Earlier in 2012, the...

Shares in social networking giant Facebook fell sharply at the end of the first lock-up period this week. In New York on Wednesday shares dropped in value from $20.74 to $19.87, a fall of 6.27 per cent. The end of the lock-up period meant that more than 270 million shares could be sold on Thursday. Lock-ups are put in place to prevent...

Groupon, the US voucher provider, has seen the value of its stock drop despite declaring a profit in the last quarter along with increased revenue. However, analysts in New York had expected the company to do much better causing shares to drop by more than a quarter. Groupon said on Monday that net income had risen to $28.4 million in the...

A private equity group has offered to buy Chinese advertising firm Focus Media. The consortium has said that it is willing to pay $27 per share for the company which was recently embroiled in accusations of accounting fraud. The offer means that the group, which includes Focus Media’s chief executive, has valued the advertiser at around...

Stocks are down across Asia as Japan reports a slowdown in growth and China announces exports have not grown as expected. For the quarter ending in June this year the Japanese economy grew by a disappointing 1.4 per cent because of a strong yen and the continuing economic crisis in Europe. Japan’s growth was down from the previous...

Standard Chartered bank has been accused by the US of laundering billions of dollars of money from Iran over the past decade even though many of the Iranian institutions the bank was dealing with were subject to US sanctions. According to the New York State Department of Financial Services up to $250 billion has been laundered and...

The start of the third quarter of the year has been greeted by a rise in share prices in Asia. The lift comes on the back of an agreement in Europe that leaders will shore up the zone’s banks. However, some early gains by the euro were lost as concerns persisted over the continuing debt crisis. Following a surge of 2.7 per cent on...

As reported by the BBC, the Indian government's efforts to sell a 5 per cent share in the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation slightly missed the set target amid fears that stakes were over-priced. It put up for sale 428 million shares at 290 rupees each, expecting to raise 124 billion rupees ($2.5bn; £1.6bn). However, it received offers for...

As reported by the BBC, European stock markets ended favourably before a conference of eurozone finance ministers which is expected to settle a new rescue plan for Greece. Cash-strapped Athens must decide on the 130 billion euro (£110bn; $170bn) bailout package before mid-March to dodge a default on its debts. Britain’s FTSE 100 went up...