Market highlights

1. Herbalife said it had overstated growth in the number of "active new members" in the past three quarters due to database errors. Its shares plunged 15.5 per cent on the news.

2. Coal baron Nathan Tinkler, who rode the mining boom to become Australia's youngest billionaire before losing it all when coal prices collapsed, has been declared bankrupt after failing to pay off a private jet.

3. Home flipping - buying and reselling a home to make a quick buck - has risen in some hot US housing markets, prompting concerns that local housing bubbles could be developing, according to a report out yesterday.

4. Brazil's gross domestic product fell 3.8 per cent in 2015, the government said yesterday, in the steepest drop-off of economic growth for the Latin American giant in 25 years.

5. Iron ore was supposed to be weighed down this year by rising low-cost supply and poor demand. Instead it has soared by 20 per cent, establishing a foothold above US$50 a tonne.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on March 04, 2016, with the headline Market highlights. Subscribe