New York, Sept 21 (AP/UNB) – U.S. stocks moved broadly higher in early trading Friday, extending gains from a day earlier when the market climbed to all-time highs. Technology companies accounted for much of the market's gains. Retailers and other consumer-focused stocks also rose. Utilities and other high-dividend paying stocks lagged. Oil prices were headed higher.

KEEPING SCORE: The S&P 500 index rose 6 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,937 as of 10:20 a.m. Eastern Time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 39 points, or 0.2 percent, to 26,696. The Nasdaq composite climbed 8 points, or 0.1 percent, to 8,036. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies picked up 3 points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,724. The Dow and S&P 500 each hit all-time highs Thursday.

BETTING ON TECH: Gains in technology stocks helped drive the market higher. Electronic Arts rose 1.8 percent to $115.47.

HIT THE STORES: Retailers and other consumer-focused stocks also took solid gains. Macy's added 1.7 percent to $35.77.

TARIFFS TROUBLE: Micron fell 3.7 percent to $44.37 after the chipmaker said its profits would be hurt by tariffs on Chinese imports that go into effect on Monday. The latest U.S. tariff hike on Chinese goods in a dispute over Beijing's technology policy involves an additional 10 percent tax on $200 billion of Chinese imports. The tariffs will rise to 25 percent on Jan 1. Beijing has said it would retaliate by imposing tariffs of 5 or 10 percent on $60 billion of U.S. goods including coffee, honey and industrial chemicals.

UNAPPETIZING RESULTS: United Natural Foods slumped 15.4 percent to $28.64 after the food distributor reported disappointing earnings and sales.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude gained 0.9 percent to $70.96 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, added 1.1 percent to $79.05 a barrel in London.

BOND YIELDS: Bond prices were little changed. The yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 3.07 percent.

CURRENCY: The dollar rose to 112.67 yen from Thursday's 112.48 yen. The euro edged down to $1.1744 from $1.1776. The British pound weakened to $1.3072 from $1.3268 after British Prime Minister Theresa May said talks over exiting the European Union are at an impasse.

MARKETS OVERSEAS: In Europe, Germany's DAX gained 0.6 percent, while France's CAC 40 rose 0.9 percent. London's FTSE 100 index climbed 1.5 percent. Major indexes in Asia finished mostly higher. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.7 percent and Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 0.8 percent. Seoul's Kospi added 0.7 percent. Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 picked up 0.4 percent.

Beijing, Sep 21 (AP/UNB) — Asian stocks rose Friday after Wall Street hit a new high and a survey showed Japanese manufacturing accelerating.

KEEPING SCORE: The Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.4 percent to 2,766.86 and Tokyo's Nikkei 225 advanced 1 percent to 23,905.76. Seoul's Kospi added 0.4 percent to 2,332.94 and Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 gained 0.2 percent to 6,181.90. India's Sensex was 0.7 percent higher at 37,369.88 and benchmarks in Taiwan, New Zealand and Southeast Asia also advanced.

WALL STREET: The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index set records as a wave of buying pushed prices higher. Technology stocks, banks and health care companies accounted for much of the rally. Energy companies declined along with crude oil prices. The S&P 500 rose 0.8 percent to 2,930.75. The Dow gained 1 percent to 26,656.98. The Nasdaq composite climbed 1 percent to 8,028.23.

ANALYST'S TAKE: "The resilience in the U.S. market is evident here and the breakout further renews the momentum," said Jinyi Pan of IG in a report. Still, "warning signs are abundant" amid U.S.-Chinese trade tensions, Pan said. "Cautiousness in the form of stop losses may be ever so important with the uncertainty in post-tariffs exchanges lingering into next week."

TRADE TENSION: The latest U.S. tariff hike on Chinese goods in a dispute over Beijing's technology policy takes effect Monday, when Washington imposes an additional 10 percent tax on $200 billion of imports. The tariffs will rise to 25 percent on Jan 1. Beijing announced it would retaliate by imposing tariffs of 5 or 10 percent on $60 billion of U.S. goods including coffee, honey and industrial chemicals.

JAPANESE MANUFACTURING: A preliminary version of Japan's monthly purchasing managers' index showed factory activity accelerated in September. The PMI rose to a three-month high of 52.9 from August's 52.5 on a 100-point scale. The measure of new export orders rose to a four-month high.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude fell 6 cents to $70.26 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost 55 cents on Thursday to close at $70.32. Brent crude, used to price international oils, advanced 6 cent to $78.28 per barrel in London. It tumbled 70 cents the previous session to $78.22.

CURRENCY: The dollar gained to 112.77 yen from Thursday's 112.46 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1784.

Dhaka, Sep 20 (UNB)- Robi, a leading digital service provider of the country has recently signed a strategic agreement with iPay Systems Limited at the Robi Recreation Centre in Gulshan. 

This unique partnership is set to unleash a fresh wave of enthusiasm in the rapidly growing digital economy of the country. 

Robi’s Managing Director and CEO, Mahtab Uddin Ahmed and iPay Systems Limited’s Founder & CEO, Zakaria Swapan signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organizations.

The agreement enhances the utility of Robi’s digital payment gateway, RobiCash, as the Robi subscribers can now add cash into their RobiCash account through iPay. 

This makes it very convenient to pay for products and services from the Robi websites, robishop, My Robi app, Robi Walk-in-Center, and while availing the benefits of any joint campaigns.
 

Dhaka, Sept 20 (UNB)- Alibaba Channel Partner in Bangladesh, Tradeshi Pty Ltd, signed a MoU with New Horizons Computer Learning Centre CLC of Bangladesh, aiming to strengthen  global employability of ICT jobseekers.

This strategic partnership sees both entities work across the following areas: (1) Mentoring, Prepping & Placement of candidates with technical certification in employment at local and international companies, (2) Development of "Digital Export Marketing" and "Digital B2B Marketing" curriculum, and (3) Collaboration on developing new techniques to place technically certified job seekers in positions with promising companies (eg. hiring events, hackathons, incubators, accelerators, etc.), said a press release

"As a nation, we must prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution," said Shadab Parvez, Founder and MD of Tradeshi Pty Ltd.

“Industrial automation and disproportionate labour wage-to-productivity increase is already seeing a growing number of manufacturing companies lay off workers.There will be a time when tens of thousands of ex-garments workers will be destitute, if we don't act quickly to develop strong technical capability in digitisation of this industry and beyond,” he added.

"We have been working with hundreds of export-oriented local and international firms for the last three and a half years", said chairman of Tradeshi  Rajib Hossain.

"Tradeshi is organically developing an executive search and recruitment functionality, where companies of all sizes will soon be able to offload their recruitment processes to us," said Shadab.

 "We envision our work will help reduce unemployment rate of tertiary-educated jobseekers, which is disproportionately higher than the national average at over 13%, and we believe New Horizons CLC of Bangladesh is only partner that will help us achieve this objective", Shadab added.

With 300 centers in 70 countries, New Horizons Computer Learning Center is the largest independent IT Training Provider in the world, delivering more courses than any other IT training company.

As a learning solutions provider for many of the industry's top vendors, such as Microsoft and Cisco, New Horizons Dhaka is positioned to offer the latest authorized curriculum delivered by certified instructors to keep you on the cutting edge of technology, said the release.

Dhaka, Sep 20 (UNB) - A day-long training workshop on implementation of Sharia in Al-Arafah Islami Bank Limited (AIBL) was held recently at a local hotel in Chittagong.

The training programme was organised by Al-Arafah Islami Bank Training and Research Institute (AIBTRI) and Chittagong zone.

Md Abul Hossain Al-Azhari, Member of Sharia Supervisory Committee inaugurated the program as chief guest. 

The workshop was presided by Mohammad Azam, Senior Vice President and Zonal Head of AIBL Chittagong zone where Md Abdur Rahim Khan, Vice President and Secretary of Sharia Supervisory Committee were special guests.
 
Officials working in different branches of Chittagong zone participated in the workshop.