The UK house prices rose for the consecutive second month in January 2016. The UK property market demand is growing in the wake of lower interest rates and encouraging job growth rate. The average cost of a house in the UK was up 1.7 percent in January.

Investors are concerned as the US stock index futures turned weaker. The marginal recovery in oil price amid drop in the US dollar puts the Wall Street on cautious note. On the other hand, Asian and European stocks were trading marginally higher on oil price recovery and drop in US dollar.

The Dutch banking major ING Groep's revenues for the fourth quarter were above the analysts' forecasts. ING's exposure to the oil companies is putting pressure on its stock, which suffered 20 percent drop. However, ING is also receiving indirect benefits from lower oil prices.

The Gulf establishment, Adeptio LLC has approached Kuwait's fast-food chain, Americana, for buying out the 66.8% controlling stake held by the Al Kharafi family valued at $1.7 billion. Currently, the investor is conducting the due diligence but the final outcome will be based on the approval of the Americana franchisers.

The US economy encouragingly created more jobs for the past two years and now is set for a slowdown, as economists predict. The prevailing credit conditions the US market indicate tightening of economy. The US private sector added 205,000 jobs in January as against 267,000 in December.

The rise of oil prices had brought positive growth to most of the Asian markets, except for Japan. On the other hand, European market had seen a drop. The oil prices increased overnight due to speculations that U.S Federal Reserve would possibly decide not to increase interest rates throughout 2016.

Royal Dutch Shell said that its profit for the fourth quarter dropped 44% as the price of the crude oil tumble. The UK-based oil firm also confirmed that it is trimming 10,000 jobs, a move to reduce its costs.

The deal was a huge move forward for both Veolia and Kurion. Veoila is determined to expand its business to nuclear waste management and believes that Kurion is the perfect partner to achieve that goal. Kurion itself is a successful startup focusing in nuclear waste involved in the Fukushima nuclear incident clean-up in 2011.

Sharp Corp board has gathered today to weigh the bidding offers. The competition is between the Taiwanese electronics giant, Foxconn and the Japanese government-backed establishment, Innovation Network Corporation of Japan. While ICNJ has always been the favoured choice, Foxconn is giving it a stiff competition by way of doubling the offered price along with debt pay-offs and retention of management and employees.

Wal-Mart Will Soon Operate Its Own Gas Station in order to gain more profits. The company will leave Murphy USA Inc., which has become its gas stations operators for 20 years. However, Murphy will still continue its existing gas stations.