Rising food costs getting you down? Try a spread bet July 21, 2008 A spread bet on commodities offers you an excellent opportunity to get even, according to Katie Hope You would have had to have spent the past year in a cave not to be interested in commodities. For car drivers, the price of petrol is an ever-growing concern, while rising food prices have caused riots in [...]
Rio Tinto hit by slump in copper yields July 17, 2008 Bid target Rio Tinto said yesterday its second-quarter refined copper production plunged 18 per cent from a year ago, as the miner saw lower yields at some of its mines. But chief executive Tom Albanese said iron ore output rose 13 per cent on sustained demand from China. Production of iron ore increased to 41.9 [...]
Nervous fund managers flee equities July 17, 2008 Fund managers are stockpiling cash as the volatile market conditions force them to flee equities, according to a new report. The survey of 191 fund managers, commissioned by investment bank Merrill Lynch, found that 53 per cent were now overweight in cash with 40 per cent underweight equities as investors’ risk appetite neared record lows [...]
UK ready to comply with US oil rules July 16, 2008 The chairman of Europe’s top oil exchange said yesterday he is ready to provide American regulators with “whatever they want” to close the industry’s governance gap dubbed ‘the London loophole.’ Sir Bob Reid, who leads ICE Futures Europe, the owner of the old International Petroleum Exchange, was responding to the call from US regulator the [...]
Treasury committee to probe speculators over oil price surge July 14, 2008 The Treasury Select Committee will tomorrow examine the role of speculators in driving oil prices to record levels. Deputy chair of the influential committee Michael Fallon said: “We need to understand how much speculation is influencing that international market and what, if anything, governments can do about it.” Brent crude hit a new all-time high [...]
FTSE 100 flirts with bear market July 9, 2008 London’s leading blue chip share index lurched into official bear market territory yesterday before recovering to end the day lower, but temporarily out of the danger zone. The FTSE 100 index fell below 5,385 points in early trading, 20 per cent below its June 2007 peak of 6,732, putting it in official bear territory, defined [...]
Tom Hunter in court November 2, 2005 Newly-knighted Scottish venture capitalist Tom Hunter will be accused of acting in bad faith in the High Court this morning by his former partners in the Gadget Shop, highly-successful UBS trader John Woods and Freeserve founder Peter Wilkinson. Hunter and his sidekick Chris Gorman could end up paying out as much as £150m in damages [...]
A week in the life: Jacqueline Kerr October 28, 2005 Head of mutual funds and life funds investment at Standard Life Over the last two years we have been bullish about equities. They have been on a good run and that reflects the amount of equities we hold in comparison to our other assets. One of my roles is to divide up the asset allocation [...]
Terra Firma bid goes on October 18, 2005 The Takeover Panel told financier Guy Hands yesterday that his investment vehicle Terra Firma could not back out of a £453m bid to buy power business East Surrey Holdings. Kellen Acquisitions, which is wholly owned by Terra Firma, had been trying to back out of an offer that it made on 8 April to buy [...]