Bloomberg Reliance Industries Ltd.’s second-quarter profit rose 18 percent from a year earlier, buoyed by higher earnings from its petrochemicals business. Net income for the operator of the world’s biggest oil-refining complex rose to 77.04 billion rupees ($1.2 billion) in the three months ended Sept. 30, the Mumbai-based company said Thursday in a stock exchange filing. That compares with …

  Bloomberg After taking control of China’s online shopping market, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. wants to bring the business of instant feedback to a brick-and-mortar sector that’s 10 times bigger. The nation’s biggest e-commerce company is building a network that would allow physical stores — and the brands they sell — to monitor transactions as they happen, Chief Executive Officer …

  Bloomberg Australia’s job market is going casual. The nation saw its biggest monthly drop in full-time jobs in five years in September, a report showed Thursday, sending down the local dollar. The 162,800 part-time positions added in the year so far is the biggest gain on record, according to data going back to 1978. The 112,100 full-time jobs cut …