Brent crude oil price dips below $50 a barrel

The price of Brent crude oil has fallen below $50 a barrel for the first time since May 2009.

It fell more than a dollar to $49.92 a barrel in early trading on Wednesday before edging back above the $50 mark.

Slowing global growth and increased supply of oil and gas have pushed prices sharply lower in recent weeks.

The price of oil traded in the United States, known as West Texas Intermediate crude, has already fallen below $50.

Many observers expect the price of oil to fall further as North American shale producers continue to supply increasing quantities of oil and gas, and the oil-producing group Opec resists calls for cuts in production to support prices.

"With no sign that Opec will do anything about over-production, it seems likely that we could well see further declines towards $40 in the coming weeks," said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.

Standard Chartered to cut more jobs

Standard Chartered has said it will axe jobs and shut its equities business in a continued effort to cut costs and boost profits.

The Asia-focused lender said on Thursday the move would help it save some $100m (£66.2m) in 2016.

It also said it plans to shed another 2,000 positions in its retail banking division, on top of the 2,000 already announced.

The bank issued three profit warnings last year.

It posted a 16% fall in operating profit in October last year due to a restructuring of its South Korean business and an increase in bad loans.

The bank's Hong Kong-listed shares were up more than 2% on Thursday as investors welcomed the cost-cutting news.

Job cuts

Standard Chartered told its investors in November last year it would try to deliver $400m in cost savings this year.

It said on Thursday it was on track to deliver those savings.

Tesco to close 43 stores despite better Christmas sales

The beleaguered supermarket Tesco has said it will close 43 unprofitable stores across the UK - more than half of which will be local convenience shops, known as Tesco Express.

The firm is also shelving plans to open a further 49 new "very large" stores.

Additionally, Tesco is closing its staff pension scheme, will make cuts of £250m, and reduce overheads by 30%.

Shares in Tesco rose by more than 12% on Thursday, as investors welcomed the company's announcements.

It comes after two years of troubles at Tesco, which has suffered falling sales and profit warnings.

'Facing the reality'

Last year, the company was embroiled in an accounting scandal, and saw the departure of some senior executives.

However the retail giant, which has more than 3,300 stores in the UK, had a better Christmas than expected.

Sales over the holiday period were down just 0.3% on the year before, and up 0.1% if fuel sales are included.

Overall, comparable sales for the three months to the beginning of January were down by 2.9%.

In the previous three months, sales had dropped by 5.4%.

Tesco's chief executive, Dave Lewis, said the firm was "facing the reality of the situation," and was "seeing the benefits of listening to our customers".

Tesco also confirmed that two of its businesses - Tesco Broadband and online entertainment service Blinkbox movies, will be sold to TalkTalk.

It also announced that Matt Davies, the boss of Halfords Group, will take charge of Tesco's operations in the UK and Republic of Ireland from June, and that Trevor Masters will become international chief executive.

Samsung forecasts a 37% drop in quarterly profits

Samsung has been struggling of late against cheaper electronics manufacturers, especially in China

Samsung Electronics has forecast a 37.4% fall in quarterly operating profit from a year earlier.

In its pre-earnings guidance, the firm forecast an operating profit of 5.2tn Korean won ($4.74bn; £3.14bn) for the three months to December.

Analysts had expected an operating profit guidance of about 5tn won.

Shares in the firm, which is the world's largest TV and mobile manufacturer, were up in early morning trade in South Korea on the news.

The firm's final fourth-quarter earnings are expected later this month.

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[Samsung's] new models are basically an improvement of existing products, but they pride themselves on being innovative, so they really have to start focusing on that to stay in the game”

Andrew MilroyFrost & Sullivan

Samsung has been struggling of late against cheaper electronics manufactures, especially in China, which is the world's largest smartphone market.

In particular, its flagship Galaxy smartphone line has been losing market share to cheaper models.

The firm said its quarterly sales would probably come to approximately 52tn won, up from 47tn won in the earlier quarter and in line with most expectations.

Sony launches new Walkman - but it'll cost you £949

When it comes to portable music, smartphones have taken over. But Sony refuses to give up the fight and hopes that its new Walkman will win people over with high-quality audio and a 60-hour battery life - it's just a shame about the price

     
                                           

The iPod took the world by storm in 2001 and cemented digital files as the future of music, pushing CDs into obsolescence. Between then and now smartphones - along with cameras - consumed MP3 players into their ever-growing range of features. Rather than carrying three sepearate devices we now have just one.

Sony never quite accepted this, and steadily released standalone music players which never sold in the huge numbers enjoyed by the big smartphone models. Last night, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it released a high-definition audio player which it hopes will finally win the public over by offering something that smartphones don't - but it won't come cheap.

The original cassette Walkman was launched in 1979 and around 220m were sold before the brand was virtually phased out. The company's new device features the same Walkman branding but, typically for Sony, the NW-ZX2 doesn’t have a very catchy model name.

It will, however, offer much higher quality music than most of us have become used to listening to on our phones. Rather than lossy MP3s it will use the LDAC codec. This high quality audio will require far more storage space, with each song taking up 150MB. To accommodate this the Walkman will have 128GB of memory, upgradable to 256GB with an optional microSD card.

It will also have a battery life of 60 hours, so we won’t be stuck for something to listen to once our smartphones run out of juice.

The new Walkman NW-ZX2 will go on sale in Europe in the Spring and the company appears to be taking pre-orders for a staggering £949, which would tally with the announce US price of $1,199.99.

So what do you get for the money? A stiff gold-plated copper chassis as well as electronics designed to reduce unwanted noise, which are connected with special high-purity solder and low-resistance cables (the science of which we have touched on briefly before).

In terms of software you get Android 4.2, so you can also play videos and download games from the Google Play store.

Sony claims that It’s the “musical equivalent of having a veil removed from your ears” and recommends on its website that it be paired with a USB headphone amplifier for £719 and a set of MDR0Z7 headphones for £549, taking the total cost to £2,217.

The Zuckerberg effect: Facebook boss' book choice sends sales rocketing

Sales of economic book The End of Power have received a huge boost after Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg selected it as the first title to read as part of his newly-created online book group.

Zuckerberg launched Facebook group A Year of Books to encourage users to read a book every fortnight throughout 2015. Titles will be selected on their ability to "emphasise learning about new cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies".

The End of Power paperback is currently the 8th best selling book inAmazon.com's 100 books ranking, and is number one in the Economic History, History and Theory and International and World Politics categories. In total, its sales have been boosted 775 per cent.

Chinese tech firm Xiaomi's revenue doubles in 2014

Chinese handset maker Xiaomi said it more than doubled its revenue in 2014, just a week after it was named the world's mostvaluable tech start-up.

The firm said it made 74.3bn yuan (£7.8bn; $11.97bn) in pre-tax sales last year, up 135% from 2013.

Now the world's third largest smartphone maker behind Samsung and Apple, it sold over 61 million phones last year, up 227% from a year earlier.

Last week, Xiaomi received $1.1bn in funding that valued the firm at $45bn.

That figure surpasses the $40bn value of taxi booking app Uber, which previously held the title of the most valuable private technology company.

The firm also surpassed its target of selling 60 million phones in 2014, up from less than 20 million a year earlier.

Looking forward, the company said it planned to unveil a new flagship device in January.