Google Owner Takes Top Spot From Apple

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has become the most valuable listed company in the United States. It has just released very strong financial figures, driven by rising advertising revenue, which has sent its shares soaring in after hours trading in New York. Now that it is worth more than Apple, does this mean that the technology baton has been well and truly handed on. Paul Kedrosky, a California-based venture capitalist, gives us his view.

Former head of the International Monetary Fund Rodrigo Rato is to go on trial. He's accused of misusing a company credit card while head of a Spanish savings bank - Caja de Madrid The bank became part of Bankia - a group that eventually had to be bailed out by the Spanish government. Dozens of other bank executives are facing investigations into their behaviour. We get insight from John Muller, from the economics desk of website El Espanol.

Police in China have arrested twenty one employees at China's largest online finance business, in what's thought to be the country's biggest ever financial fraud. The firm, called Ezubao, is suspected of defrauding nearly one million investors out of more seven and half billion dollars. It offered interest rates of up to fifteen per cent - but investigators discovered the vast majority of investments on offer were fake. The BBC's Andrew Wood explains how the scheme originated.

All this and more discussed with our guests on both sides of the Pacific. Glenn Melnick, a healthcare economist from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. And David Kuo from the Motley Fool in Singapore.

(Photo: The Google logo displayed at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.Credit: Getty Images)