Vital statistics on what some investors think of Isas March 28, 2012 ANDREW Lang, the nineteenth-century the Scottish poet, was onto something when he observed: “An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts – for support rather than for illumination.” With this in mind it would be a mistake to lean too hard on the statistics garnered from Interactive investor’s website survey. Yet, there’s [...]
Income versus growth isn’t the crunch choice March 28, 2012 MOST funds can be broadly classified as either income or growth oriented and most managers focus their abilities on one to the exclusion of the other. There is plenty of debate about which investors should favour, and although there are good reasons to lean towards one or the other, ultimately investors should focus on diversification [...]
Save like a superhero – what to do to protect your children’s future March 28, 2012 COLUMN inches are being racked up, extolling the virtues of getting your child a Junior Isa. And surely nobody could decry a tax wrapper that aims to build a stash of cash for the next generation? However, there is a potential problem – and it’s not the abolition of the £250 cheque the government handed [...]
Contract work is a lucrative option for IT professionals March 28, 2012 IT PROFESSIONALS in contract work may seem to have it easy. Daily rates are high, they regularly move between jobs and, when their skills are in demand, they can select projects that suit their interests and professional development. They have loyalty to their industry, but not always to any one firm. But IT contracting rests [...]
JOBS of the WEEK March 28, 2012 SENIOR JAVA DEVELOPER INVESTMENT BANKING £45k-£60k pa A senior developer is required to join a global financial services vendor based in the City. The roles involves working on low latency, multi threaded systems. http://www.cityamcareers.com/job/7665 DIRECTOR QUANTITATIVE RISK DEVELOPER NEW YORK CLEARING HOUSE $150k-$180k pa + 30% bonus A leading New York clearing house is looking [...]
Employees and customers are primed for video: Be prepared March 28, 2012 1 IF A COMPANY DOES NOT CURRENTLY USE VIDEO, IS THIS A TREND THEY CAN IGNORE? Over 4bn YouTube videos are viewed every day, and 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. So even if customers are not deploying video for business use, that doesn’t mean their employees are not flooding their [...]
The future of video: From the boardroom onto the high street March 28, 2012 THE current demands for video conferencing and communication technology in the office and the boardroom are clear. Businesses need a cohesive, mobile and robust system capable of responding to their needs for communication on a global scale – whether in a video conferencing suite or communicating via an iPad camera. But where are we going [...]
CASE STUDY REGUS – ANTHONY BROWN, GLOBAL DIRECTOR March 28, 2012 One of the biggest challenges of video conferencing is that, because of so many early launches, people can have a misconception of video conferencing as being crackly and poor quality. But video communication has now come of age, not just with the HD picture but also the sound. With stereo audio and HD video it [...]
Apple gains again despite Wall St slide March 27, 2012 US stocks retreated from near four-year peaks yesterday, while a batch of large-cap shares hit new highs, with the help of portfolio managers snapping up top performers near the end of the quarter. With the first quarter ending on Friday, portfolio managers adjusted holdings by buying some of the best performers to dress up their [...]
Oil stocks lead the FTSE 100 lower despite good gains in bank shares March 27, 2012 HEAVYWEIGHT oil stocks dragged Britain’s top shares lower yesterday, reversing earlier gains that had been driven by strength in banks and miners, as investors proved loath to push the blue-chip index back up to 2012 highs. The FTSE 100 index closed down 33.15 points, or 0.6 per cent, at 5,869.55, near session lows having swung [...]