Taxpayers’ Alliance campaign calls time on excessive beer duty February 26, 2013 Today the TaxPayers' Alliance calls on chancellor George Osborne to reduce the UK's punishing beer duty with their new campaign, Mash Beer Tax. Their website notes that: High taxes make your drinks more expensive, with tax often constituting a third of the price of a pint. In the last 4 years, 5,800 pubs have [...]
Italian regulators consider short selling ban February 26, 2013 Italy's regulator says considering short selling ban.(you know when things are going pear-shaped when they blame speculators). — Steve Collins (@TradeDesk_Steve) February 26, 2013 Italian regulators have implemented temporary short selling bans before, and to do so again could make matters worse. Fidessa's Dr Christian Voigt has written for us before on the misguided thinking [...]
Trading in Credit Suisse and UBS halted February 26, 2013 Trading in Credit Suisse and UBS was halted for 15 minutes as markets continue to panic. Shares in Italian banks halted before they've even opened. — Jamie McGeever (@ReutersJamie) February 26, 2013 Seeing as FTSE MIB was up nearly 4% at one point yesterday, we're talking about a nearly 9% swing in the stock market [...]
European markets slide on open February 26, 2013 As markets open for the first time since Italy's political gridlock has become apparent, numbers are red across the board: FTSE MIB -5 per centFTSE 100 -1.4 per centIBEX -3.4 per centDAX -2.1 per centCAC -2.5 per cent BERLUSCONI SAYS MARKET ARE BIT CRAZY — Steve Collins (@TradeDesk_Steve) February 26, 2013
Italian shares set to plummet February 26, 2013 This was the grim picture as the FTSE MIB closed yesterday: (Source: Yahoo! Finance) Allister Heath wrote on Italy's election woes in his column today: Italy has spoken. Few in the City like what they are hearing, but they should listen carefully. Bond yields, which had fallen when it was thought the centre-left was cruising [...]
Moody’s blues already anticipated by markets February 25, 2013 The loss of the UK’s AAA has shocked nobody WHEN Moody’s stripped the UK of its AAA rating on Friday, few were surprised. It is a move that the markets had been anticipating for months, and the lack of any significant market reaction shows just how much the decision had already been priced in. From [...]
The Tipster | Safe as housebuilders February 25, 2013 WHILE revenues are likely to be flat, traders expect Barratt Developments to report improvements in its margins tomorrow, which should help to boost profit levels. But the property developer’s shares have surged by nearly 70 per cent over the last year, leading some to declare that most of the good news is already priced in. Capital [...]
View from the City – It’s a bad time to sell off RBS stake February 25, 2013 WHILE you are ruminating over the content of today’s City A.M., earnings results from RBS on Thursday and Lloyds Banking Group on Friday will be approaching the top of the financial agenda. Although the “Black Horse”, was first to admit to wholesale miss-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI), it seems that it will be easier [...]
Don’t sneer at big bank bonuses February 25, 2013 CNBC COMMENT IT’S confession time. I had a major “senior moment” last week when, not for the first time, I completely misunderstood a piece of eminent academic research. The piece in question was about banker pay. Brilliant, I thought, here’s a piece of hard research that confirms that bankers are still making and generating vast [...]
Osborne faces Commons rating humiliation February 25, 2013 During an urgent question on the government's economic policy George Osborne was asked whether he agreed with himself that the UK downgrade is "humiliating". While he rightly pointed out that markets didn't react to the downgrade, that doesn't absolve him of responsibility for the economic conditions that led to it. Despite having set the AAA [...]