Insights

European shares fell after the ECB again failed to take any decisive action on further easing measures, while Wall Street was mixed ahead of employment data.

OPEC's decision to leave production quotas unchanged contains many risks, and is likely to challenge the responsiveness of US shale production.

Politicians avoid talking about economic reforms for fear of alienating voters. But New Zealand's experience proves that genuine policy changes are possible.

The long awaited Financial System Inquiry report will be released on Sunday but if the last couple of day's market action is any guide, bank shareholders don't appear too phased. Against the background of mixed international leads, whether or not this support for bank stocks continues might hold the key to how the ASX200 index fares today.

WATCH: Can China break free of the developing nation curse and build a strong middle class?

China steel demand to ease in 2015 and Chinese outbound tourism booms.

Private not state firms are China's growth engine.

NBN Co is banking on HFC to deliver on connections before its June 2016 deadline but the network builder can't afford to be slack on remediation of the copper and the cable networks.

A housing downturn could weaken the foundations on which the most recent surge in retail spending has been built.

The government has been offered a pathway for achieving a compromise on the large scale RET that everyone should be able to agree on, if only logic prevailed. But it already looks dead in the water.

The global pressure on fossil fuel assets has intensified with Germany vowing to ramp-up its emissions efforts and Norway's oil fund - the world's largest sovereign wealth fund - edging closer to severing its fossil fuel roots.

A debt raising would be a prohibitively expensive exercise given a plunging oil price and spiking yields on existing issues from energy companies.

The issue of intelligent machines taking over has been discussed in one way or another and it's an anxiety that's only tipped to accelerate.

The Acer Aspire R13 seeks to outdo rival hybrids when it comes to contortions. With six user modes to choose from the flexibility comes at a cost.

Failure is not an option for climate negotiators meeting in Lima, Peru. Here are just a few of the biggest issues they must solve to avoid it.

The Coalition government's vision of a second-rate broadband network provides NBN Co's engineers with an interesting challenge. Is it possible to overcome the network's limitations?