We are right in the thick of another corporate earnings season, and this week, the spotlight is on technology icon Apple, which reports results for its fiscal second quarter Tuesday.

Once the brightest star in the U.S. stock market, Apple saw shares slide more than 40% from an all-time high in September of last year, with Wall Street disappointed that products like the iPhone 5 have not been... » more

Facebook has gone from zero to hero in mobile.

Back in early 2012, Facebook’s Apple iOS and Google Android apps were slow and clunky, and frankly, quite painful to use. And in fact, the company’s IPO flopped because too much of its traffic was coming from the mobile side, which didn’t make much money.

But look how quickly things turned around.

In August 2012, Facebook launched... » more

Since the start of 2013, domestic stocks have performed impressively, with the Dow Jones Index achieving numerous record highs.

However, the stock market started to slow down in the past week, especially after a really poor jobs report came out last Friday, revealing that the economy added only a disappointing 88,000 jobs in March. For the market rally to continue, Wall Street is hoping that... » more

This year, we’ve seen a constant stream of data supporting the notion that the personal computer business isn’t what it used to be. Despite the release of Windows 8 in October 2012, industry sales have been quite slow relative to 2009’s Windows 7.

This week, web analyst company StatCounter released Internet traffic share numbers.

Windows 8 currently drives 4.3% of web traffic. At the... » more

Charles V. Bagli, 59, a real estate writer for The New York Times, is author of "Other People's Money: Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made," a real-life real estate thriller about the ill-fated purchase of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

"Other People's Money," describes how Tishman Speyer and BlackRock overpaid... » more

For economists, the start of a new month can only mean one thing: It’s time for the all-important monthly jobs report.

Tuesday, payroll firm ADP will release its March employment report. Economists expect to see that 198,000 jobs were added in the private sector in March, which would be consistent with the figure from February.

The ADP payroll report sets the stage for Friday, when the... » more

After being in the financial media business for nine years, there’s one thing I’ve learned: Folks love them some Apple iFiction, whether in the form of garden-variety speculation or outright rumors. And 99% can be counted on to be 100% false.

Case in point: Last week consumers turned their attention to Apple’s rumored iWatch, which would be Apple’s twist on the wristwatch.

The source... » more

The clock’s ticking toward April 15, and after the country survived the “fiscal cliff,” many filers are scratching their heads while trying to navigate some subtle changes in the tax system.

Most of the new provisions don’t take effect until the next tax season, which covers 2013, but others that were set to expire were extended by the new tax law for 2012.

Here are some of the deductions... » more

While job creation since the economic recovery has been tepid, the housing market is turning around nicely, with housing prices and sales climbing steadily in the past year.

A slew of February housing data this week should confirm that trend. After falling 8.5% in January, economists expect a 2% rebound in housing starts in February to a seasonally adjusted rate of 915,000. Sales of existing... » more

Last month's disastrous cruise in the Gulf of Mexico and other recent high-seas emergencies spurred Sen. Charles Schumer Sundayto call on the industry to adopt a bill of rights for passengers.

Schumer called cruise ships the "wild west of the travel industry."

"It's time to rein them in before anyone else gets hurt," Schumer said. "This bill of rights, based... » more