New York Report: Technology and biotech stocks drag on market March 24, 2014 US STOCKS fell yesterday, with some of the market’s recent best performers like technology and biotech shares leading the way down. Concerns that the crisis in Ukraine could escalate gave investors a reason to drop some of the market’s biggest trading favourites. The Nasdaq fell below its 50-day moving average earlier, in a sign of [...]
10 things we discovered from the UK watchdog’s hedge fund probe March 24, 2014 Scrutiny of the notoriously secretive world of hedge funds is growing. Today the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK City regulator, published the findings of a study into 49 firms operating 106 hedge funds in the London. Here’s what we found out: 1. 20 per cent of the global hedge fund industry’s $2.6 trillion of assets [...]
Someone needs to show Goldman Sachs how to upload a photo to Twitter March 24, 2014 Someone manning the Twitter account of Goldman Sachs will be feeling a bit silly this afternoon. The corporate social media presence of the investment bank tweeted the photo below, shortly before deleting it. Showing Tina Tchen the chief of staff to First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama, a corrected picture has so far [...]
Government rejects calls to ban payday loan ads on children’s TV March 24, 2014 The government has rejected calls to ban outright payday loan adverts on children's TV. The government responded to a report published in December by a committee of MPs suggesting that payday loan adverts should be banned from programming aimed at children, saying: Payday loan adverts are subject to the Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) strict content rules. [...]
Why Barclays thinks European investors are missing out to US peers March 24, 2014 At the moment, European equities are, as a whole, pretty cheap. And what’s more, those with higher leverage are even cheaper. That’s according to Barclays, whose note today, “Learning to live with leverage”, details why it thinks European equity investors are still underestimating the impact of improved fixed income markets. The bank thinks there’s a [...]
Want to predict bad corporate results before they’re announced? This trick shows how March 24, 2014 There's a lot of money to be made in guessing which company is next to report an atrocious profit figure. Two academics may have stumbled upon a way to do just that. The findings of Yuanzhi Li and David Yermack suggest that inivitations for annual shareholder meetings may be the keys to stock market success. [...]
We choose the next M&S leading lady line-up March 24, 2014 The latest M&S gaggle of leading ladies has been revealed today. This time wearing the embattled chain’s wares (or should we say wears) are actress Emma Thompson, singers Rita Ora and Annie Lennox, model Alek Wek, campaigner Doreen Lawrence, east London fashion powerhouse Lulu Kennedy and engineer Roma Agrawal. It’s a great shot, there’s some [...]
How much of the Green Belt would 190,000 houses take up? March 24, 2014 The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) released its latest update today, two years on from some of the Coalition’s modest efforts to liberalise the planning system. One of the main contentions of the report is that the local plans adopted under the new framework mean land for 729,000 homes has been allocated in England [...]
Who’s afraid of a little energy market competition? March 24, 2014 The debate around competition in the energy market is hotting up. The regulators are due to give their assessment of the market later this week, along with a possible recommendation to refer the investigation to the Capital Markets Authority (CMA). Consumer group Which? and the Federation of Small Businesses have written a joint letter [...]
Malaysian PM says plane was lost in Indian Ocean March 24, 2014 Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak has said the the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 ended its journey in the southern Indian Ocean, ruling out anyone surviving the flight. The families of those on the plane received a text message from the airline, according to a CNBC producer who saw a copy of it. The plane disappeared [...]