Nintendo shares plunged nearly 19 percent Monday before recouping most of those losses after the Japanese gaming giant warned it would slip back into the red on poor sales of its Wii U game console.

The warning, released after the Tokyo market closed Friday, highlighted a growing chasm between Nintendo and global rivals Sony and Microsoft, as well as the trio's battle against cheap -- or sometimes free -- downloadable games for smartphones and tablets.

China has started constructing the second of four planned aircraft carriers, a top government official said according to media reports on Saturday.

The ship is under construction in the northeastern port of Dalian and will take six years to build, the reports said quoting Wang Min, Communist Party chief for Dalian's Liaoning province.

U.S. President Barack Obama signed a $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill Friday that effectively ends the threat of a repeat government shutdown.

Obama signed the massive bill, passed by Congress this week in a rare budget truce, in front of officials from his Office of Management and Budget.

Moody's raised Ireland's sovereign debt rating on Friday, pulling it out of junk territory to an investment-grade Baa3 in recognition of the eurozone country's exit from a huge EU-IMF rescue program.

One month after Ireland reclaimed its economic independence, the ratings agency also placed the country on a positive outlook, citing the economy's growth potential and improved debt outlook.

Macau gambling tycoon Lui Che-woo has replaced Hong Kong multi-billionaire Li Ka-shing as Asia's richest man, according to Bloomberg on Friday.

Lui, the head of Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment, saw his fortune rise $3.5 billion this month to $29.6 billion, about $100 million ahead of Li, whose fortune stood at $29.5 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Thursday.

Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest lender, said on Friday it is pulling out of the process for the daily fixing of gold and silver prices.

"Deutsche Bank is withdrawing its participation in the gold and silver benchmark setting process following the significant scaling back of our commodities business," the bank said in a statement.

Major Japanese bank Mizuho Financial Group said Friday it was setting up an oversight committee in the wake of a damaging loans-to-gangsters scandal.

The watchdog was among the measures that Mizuho outlined in a report to regulators on how it would deal with the embarrassing revelations, which have also engulfed rivals Mitsubishi UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

Marking a truce after years of fiscal feuding in Washington, Congress passed a $1.1 trillion spending package Thursday that effectively ended the threat of an election-year government shutdown.

The Senate voted 72 to 26 to approve the massive bill, in a show of bipartisanship after the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday for the measure to fund the federal government through September.

China Mobile, the country's biggest services provider, on Friday started selling Apple's iPhone to its millions of customers nationwide, ending a six-year wait in a key market for the U.S. technology giant.

The combination of China Mobile's existing base of 760 million customers and its plans to roll out the world's largest 4G (fourth generation) network have the firm and Apple forecasting a fruitful union -- after a long engagement.

A Japanese government report Friday said the economy was "recovering", its first use of the word since the 2008 global financial crisis, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe works to revive years of tepid growth.

Tokyo's monthly checkup on the world's third-largest economy used some of its most upbeat language in years as it pointed to a pick-up in consumer and capital spending.