LONDON REPORT August 12, 2012 STANDARD Life is set to end the life insurance reporting season tomorrow, following a solid first quarter where assets under administration rose more than expected. The Edinburgh group is hoping for a boost soon from auto-enrolment, where employees will be automatically enrolled into their existing employers’ pension scheme or a new personal account. It is [...]
WALL ST THE WEEK AHEAD August 12, 2012 IT’S another one of those moments that always follow a big move in the stock market: Either you’re a believer – or you’re not. Right now, the market has its fair share of both. The S&P 500 is up 12 per cent so far this year. Through July, it had its best first seven months [...]
Battle of the cabs: Hailing competition in London’s transport August 12, 2012 WHEN I lived in Monaco, I had Ferraris. Now, living in London, I have a basic car but barely use it. The hassle of parking and traffic have made me a cab and minicab user, and I’ve recently noticed interesting things going on in their business world. Cabs have had two unique selling points. Unlike [...]
Success and failure: The line is very fine August 12, 2012 THE road to success is not only long and winding, but it can also be rather rocky. There are always obstacles to trip you up along the way – and many are outside of your control. Consider the example of London businesses selling bicycles. When the Mayor of London launched his eponymous Boris bikes with [...]
Standard Chartered lifts the FTSE in Olympic-thinned trading session August 9, 2012 Banking stocks lifted the benchmark FTSE- 00 to its best finish since early April yesterday, led by a resurgent Standard Chartered Bank. Investors were impressed with chief executive Peter Sands’ robust defense of allegations of malfeance lodged by US regulators, and pushed the shares 3.6 per cent higher. However RBS bucked the trend, sliding 1.3 per [...]
Eerie calm on Wall Street as equities stall August 9, 2012 THE Standard & Poor’s 500 extended its rally to a fifth day yesterday, again eking out a tiny gain as lingering expectations for economic stimulus from central banks lent support to a market lacking new catalysts. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 10.45 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 13,165.19 at the close. But the [...]
Wall St almost flat as volumes remain down August 8, 2012 THE Standard & Poor’s 500 just barely extended a streak of gains to a fourth day yesterday, ending above 1,400 in another thinly traded session. Expectations for stimulus from the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve triggered the recent gains, but investors found little reason to keep pushing stocks higher after driving the [...]
FTSE maintains its four-month high despite hit from ex-dividend stocks August 8, 2012 BRITAIN’S blue chip share index rose by just a few points yesterday, consolidating around a four-month peak as a slide in a batch of stocks trading without their dividend entitlements offset gains in banking and mining stocks. Fifteen blue chip stocks traded ex-dividend yesterday including heavyweights Royal Dutch Shell, BP, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and Barclays knocking [...]
FTSE shrugs off Standard Chartered slump to reach a four-month high August 7, 2012 BRITAIN’S FTSE 100 climbed to its highest close in four months yesterday, with heavyweight miners and energy stocks rallying on expectations of global economic stimulus and outweighing a steep sell off in Standard Chartered. The bank’s shares plunged 16.4 per cent in their biggest one-day sell off in four years after New York’s top bank [...]
S&P hits 1,400 on optimism over Europe August 7, 2012 U S stocks rose for a third straight day yesterday, pushing the S&P above 1,400 for the first time since early May, on growing optimism the European Central Bank (ECB) would act soon to contain the Eurozone’s debt crisis. Trading was light, which could distort the level of optimism investors truly have that Europe will [...]