Fake iPhone 5 goes on sale in China for $50

Yesterday, the world watched with bated breath as Apple’s new face, Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone 4S – the latest from the technology heavyweight. While everyone was present, and those keeping a track of every update knew that it would be a while, albeit short before it actually hits the stores, a mall in China claims to have it already. A mall in Fuzhou, located in the Fujian province in south east China were found to have several units of the iPhone 4S in their possession by the local authorities there. The absurdity of the situation doesn’t stop there. According to a FirstPost report, the latest iPhone is being sold with a $50 price tag; obviously it’s fake.

This incident seems to be on similar lines of the previous instance, where 5 members of a gang in Shanghai were arrested after they were found assembling components to build a fake iPhone (almost genuine in their appearance). In this case, too, the iPhone 4S’s, which were seized in the raid held definite resemblances to its genuine counterparts, which are yet to get onto store shelves, globally.

The fake version of the iPhone reportedly passes off as a genuine one, well almost! For starters, the phones bore the embossed trademark Apple logo, but for obvious reasons came without the mention of any details of the manufacturer or serial number, whatsoever. However, that is only as far as resemblance goes. Reportedly, the functionalities of both phones showed extreme differences. It further revealed that, the dual-SIM functionality on the fake version didn’t quite perform; the responsiveness of the touchscreen was poor, too. The camera, too didn’t bring anything worthwhile to the table and the images looked hazy.

The report further revealed that these phones were manufactured in Shenzhen, located in Southern China.

Tags:   Fake iPhone 5 goes on sale in China for $50,  iphone, iphone 5

Oil futures edge higher

he contract surged $4.01, or 5.3%, to settle at $79.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in regular trading on Wednesday.
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Exit in sight for this bear market?

Barron’s Clare McKeen and Vito Racanelli discuss how the fourth quarter, if history proves true, might show a little bit of a recovery for long-term investors willing to look beyond this volatile market period.

The gains on Wednesday followed data from the Energy Information Administration which reported that oil inventories declined 4.7 million barrels in the week to Sept. 30, against market expectations for an increase of approximately 2.5 million barrels.

Oil prices also got a lift Wednesday from U.S. employment numbers. Automatic Data Processing data that showed private-sector payrolls increased 91,000 in September, after an expansion of 89,000 in August.

Oil finished below $76 a barrel for the first time in more than a year in regular New York trading earlier in the week as investors fretted that energy demand will evaporate along with U.S. economic growth.

Key for investors attempting to gauge the health of the U.S. economy will be U.S. employment data due Friday although markets may see some volatility Thursday, with interest rate decisions from the Bank of England and the European Central Bank due.

Although Barclays Capital strategists believe that the Bank of England will likely leave its key rate on hold, they do expect the ECB’s hawkish stance to soften on Thursday. The strategists said that the ECB will likely loosen policy using conventional and unconventional measures and added “the combination of these measures is likely to surprise markets.”

Sarah Turner is MarketWatch’s bureau chief in Sydney.

Reed Elsevier CFO Mark Armour to leave end 2012

MADRID (MarketWatch) — Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier PLC UK:REL
+1.77% on
Thursday announced that Chief Financial Officer Mark Armour will retire at the end of 2012. The company said it is beginning a process to replace him. Armour joined Reed Elsevier as deputy chief financial officer in 1995 and was appointed chief financial officer in 1996.

Canadian dollar’s drop may outpace Aussie, krone

More pain could be in store for the loonie, the Australian dollar, and Norwegian krone. These currencies, which surged as investors sought highly liquid investments that corresponded with demand for global resources such as copper and oil, have been among the most vulnerable as commodities have corrected.
One U.S. dollar bought as many as 1.0656 Canadian dollars on Tuesday USDCAD
-0.11% , the highest in just over a
year, before the Canadian unit rebounded a bit Wednesday to trade at $1 per 1.0408 Canadian dollars.

“Canada is still perceived as a global commodities play,” said Francis Campeau, broker at MF Global in Montreal. “As foreigners liquidate equities, they also need to liquidate the underlying currency.”

Analysts anticipate the Canadian dollar will continue falling. Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT Forex, is predicting the U.S. dollar could rise as high as 1.10 Canadian dollars, or another 3% from this week’s highs, as a sluggish economic growth curbs demand for commodities and related assets. Read more on Europe recession fears.

The Canadian dollar closely tracks the movements of oil prices, which just finished their worst quarter since the financial crisis. Crude-oil futures ended Tuesday’s session under $76 for the first time since September 2010, before recovering to close above $79 on Wednesday. Read more on oil.

An extended recovery in investor sentiment about the economy, which helped U.S. stocks rally for two straight sessions this week, could provide a floor for the Canadian dollar.

Apple, Cisco, RIM highlight tech gainers

The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP
+2.32% climbed more than 55 points, or 2.3%, to
close at 2,460, while the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index MSH
+3.09% and the
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index SOX
+3.10% each rose more than 3%.

But the bullish session was overshadowed by a high-profile spat between the chief executives of Oracle Corp. ORCL
+2.86% and Salesforce.com Inc.
CRM
-0.30%

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff claimed that his planned presentation of his was taken off the agenda at Oracle’s annual OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. Oracle claimed Benioff’s speech wasn’t a keynote address and had been moved to Thursday.

However, Benioff, who has recently taken some shots at Oracle’s Larry Ellison over the concept of cloud computing, said he had been dropped entirely from the OpenWorld schedule, and instead held court Wednesday morning at a hotel near Oracle’s convention site. Read more about the Oracle-Salesforce dispute.

Oracle shares rose almost 3% to close at $29.51, while Salesforce shares dipped less than 1% to end the day at $117.25.

Apple AAPL
+1.54% shares rose $5.75, or 1.5%, to $378.25, regaining ground lost in the
previous session, when the launch of its iPhone 4S failed to create a buzz.