Gold

Avram Grant was sacked as West Ham United manager last night, less than an hour after a 3-2 defeat to fellow strugglers Wigan confirmed their relegation from the Premier League.

One of the "forgotten" former headline stories was the catastrophic flooding in Queensland, Australia. Here is a snippet of what has been happening.

Shares in British banks were down on the FTSE 100 after Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, made a speech yesterday.

A new study has suggested that online games, such as the popular World of Warcraft game, may help economic development in countries such as China and Vietnam.

We were expecting the parabolic move in commodity prices to be interrupted by a correction at some point. While it could not have been anticipated as the catalyst for a pullback, the catastrophe in Japan two weeks ago prompted a sizeable sell-off in risk assets, including commodities. The question is whether in the aftermath of this event, or other lingering concerns, commodities can restart a substantive move to higher levels.

Read here the full text of Chancellor George Osborne's Budget speech to the House of Commons.

Shares in Fresnillo were up on the FTSE 100 in morning trading after the mining group reported a more than doubling of pre-tax profit in 2010.

On 17 December 2010, a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire because a female municipal official and her aides had had his goods confiscated. This sparked protests against the Government for a variety of grievances, social, economic and political.

The federal fiscal policy debate is being overwhelmed by a growing sense that America must slash its deficit now, before it is too late. Actually, the United States is in no danger of a Treasury debt crisis and can carry far more debt than people believe without dire consequences.

West Ham Football Club are apparently in front for the race to own the Olympics venue once the £547m stadium is finished. The stadium which was planned to be retained as the new home of UK athletics is undergoing a formal bid process which begins today to find a 'shared' ownership scheme so that athletics could be prepositioned alongside, something else, for example football.

Brendan Gold, from Unite union has announced that the strike action for the end of August has been called off after talks.

BAA's planned strike action is going ahead after the Unite press conference concluded with a vote three-to-one against the 1 pct pay offer on the table.

Shares in Randgold Resources fell on the FTSE 100 in afternoon trading, despite the mining firm reporting a rise in quarterly and half year profit today.

Unilever, the consumer goods giant and,maker of Dove soap and Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream has outperformed itself after improving margins and sales up by 3.8 pct.

Amazon has relaunched its Kindle in the US and UK. Read the latest here and see pictures plus full statement from Amazon.

The FTSE 100 share index is awaiting the UK's final estimate of GDP for the first quarter of 2010 after the markets took in a sudden revision downwards of US Q1 GDP.

In 1971, the Bretton Woods Gold-Dollar exchange rate system broke down, bringing in an era of floating exchange rates with all their uncertainty. Governments, especially the USA's and UK's may have been relieved of defending a particular parity by having to take deflationary action but this simply passed the burden on to trade and industry. As rates of exchange might vary at any time, both exporters and importers feared exchange rate losses, so increasing risk and uncertainty in the busi...

BP has announced today that oil and gas is being recieved through its latest attempts to cap the oil leak - known as the Lower Marine Riser Package.

A consortium of wealthy fans are reportedly divided over the way they should lead Manchester United should their £850m bid succeed.

The Pound and Euro tumbled in early trading today.