What you need to know before the open May 6, 2014 Markets are expected to open slightly higher this morning, following Asian counterparts, which have gained on encouraging US data out yesterday. Although Wall Street saw a more solid finish, European stocks fell yesterday as worries over Ukraine rumbled on and weak Chinese data led investors to shy away from risk. Corporate news Barclays has announced [...]
Barclays sees investment bank income drop 28pc May 6, 2014 Barclays has reported a rise in statutory profit before tax of 18 per cent to £1.8bn for the first quarter of 2014. However, adjusted profit before tax took a hit and was down five per cent to £1.7bn. Investment bank income dropped 28 per cent to £2.5bn, with adjusted income falling by 14 per cent [...]
Tesco unveils plan for smartphone May 6, 2014 Tesco’s got plans to launch its first smartphone by the end of 2014, the BBC reports. The supermarket’s chief executive Philip Clarke, speaking on Radio 5 live’s Wake Up to Money, said the own-brand phone would be pre-installed with Tesco services. It’ll run on Google’s Android software with hardware similar to Samsung’s Galaxy S5. Tesco [...]
Aussie dollar climbs as central bank holds rates May 6, 2014 The Australian dollar has risen to a near one-week high as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) held interest rates at 2.5 per cent. The RBA anticipates a period of interest rate stability as the Aussie dollar remains high. The Australian central bank expects to see improvement in the labour market in the near future [...]
Any Other Business – 06/05 May 6, 2014 ASIDE from the odd pot shot from Boris Johnson, the relationship between the capital and our French cousins has been quite good of late and those hoping to keep it that way might be keen to avert French eyes from the latest blog post from Miles Davis (no, not that one), partner at Wine Investment [...]
Labour: We need to grill pharma chiefs May 6, 2014 THE LABOUR party is demanding that the bosses of Pfizer and Astrazeneca are called in front of a Westminster select committee and questioned over the proposed £63bn pharmaceuticals mega-merger. A political row has escalated around Pfizer’s bids, with opposition leader Ed Miliband proposing an additional public interest test to determine if this deal, and future [...]
Markit chooses New York for its $5bn stock market listing May 6, 2014 FINANCIAL data provider Markit yesterday unveiled plans for a US stock market listing that would value the firm at $5bn (£3bn), confirming that it will spurn the London Stock Exchange in favour of the United States. Markit, which was founded by former bond trader Lance Uggla from his garden shed in St Albans in 2003, [...]
Employment upswing set to continue until election May 6, 2014 THE SURGE in UK employment is set to continue, with nearly half a million more people expected to enter the workforce in the next 12 months according to a bullish forecast released this morning. Research by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and Grant Thornton suggests that more than 450,000 new [...]
Clients not class mean success in accountancy May 6, 2014 PARTNERS in the UK’s top accountancy firms are most likely to be state-educated and from working or lower middle class families who did not go to the best universities, according to new research. In contrast to large law firms where partners tend to come from privileged backgrounds, partners from the big four accountancy firms – [...]
US services are gathering pace May 6, 2014 FIRMS in the US services sectors are recording the strongest growth since summer, throwing off fears that slow growth early this year was caused by more than bad weather. The Institute for Supply Management’s latest purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for non-manufacturing companies came in at 55.2 in April, the best since August. Markit’s PMI for [...]