THE TIPSTER November 21, 2011 Utility stock Severn Trent reports interim results on Thursday and investors will be hoping to hear that their bumper dividend payout is safe. A typical defensive play, the shares have performed well in 2011 gaining over 7 per cent. With uncertainty continuing, equity investors may well continue to seek the safe haven properties of the [...]
Rumoured ECB loans to IMF will keep all eyes on the euro November 20, 2011 ONCE again, investors spent last week battling with the effects of Europe’s ongoing debt crisis. Italian, French and Spanish bonds all fell sharply despite support from the ECB. The European Central Bank bought bonds in the secondary market as part of its Securities Markets Programme (SMP). However, yields on these troubled countries continued to rise [...]
WALL STREET WEEK AHEAD November 20, 2011 WALL Street is in for a volatile run this week as escalating problems in Europe’s debt crisis continue to keep investors on their toes. With light trading volume expected due to the US Thanksgiving Day holiday on Thursday, intraday swings are likely to be wide and frequent as traders instantly react to headlines out of [...]
Trading on global risk sentiment November 20, 2011 AS IS the case across all asset classes, sentiment in the commodity markets hinges upon the belief, or lack thereof, in the ability of politicians and policy makers to find a solution to the European debt crisis. With no sign of a meaningful, long-term cure for Europe’s ills on the cards, cyclical commodities, like industrial [...]
THE TIPSTER November 20, 2011 THE hawks have been circling over Mitchells & Butlers, seeing them as a potential takeover target, but the bid was so low that it was rejected without much thought. After a large spike in the price mid-September, the excitement of potential offers has worn off Mitchells and Butlers’s shareholders and the price of the share [...]
A LONG CHAIN OF DISAPPOINTMENT November 20, 2011 I SUPPOSE many would call me a cock-eyed euro-optimist. Certainly I’ve been supportive of the common currency since the early days and had high hopes for the euro – a novel concept in its inception. But I have to admit, I am beginning to lose all hope that the euro, at least the euro we [...]
THE WEEK AHEAD November 20, 2011 COMPANY NEWS ● Mitie Group announces its half-year results today. The facilities management company offers a range of building and support services, from industrial painting and engineering, to catering and cleaning. ● Mitchells & Butlers announces its final results and De La Rue announces its interim results tomorrow. M&B runs about 2,000 pubs and restaurants [...]
Journalist to lawyer to two-time entrepreneur November 20, 2011 DANA Denis-Smith is accustomed to starting new careers. She began professional life as a journalist, before changing tack and training as a solicitor with Linklaters in 2005. Just three years later she left to set up her own business and then three years after that she set up another. “I left journalism because I often [...]
IT IS TIME TO CLOCK UP MORE NEW BUSINESSES November 20, 2011 FOR anyone running or thinking of starting a business right now, the landscape is undeniably pretty bleak. The Eurozone is in crisis, our politicians are bickering and we’re in the midst of what might be a decade-long deleveraging across the economy – growth is hard to come by. But there is one point on which [...]
FTSE falls as debt turmoil intensifies November 17, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index retreated yesterday, with nervous investors ditching riskier assets such as banks and retailers, as corporates showed signs of stress in the face of the intensifying debt contagion in Europe. London’s blue chip index shed 85.88 points, or 1.6 per cent to 5,423.14, with the FTSE volatility index, up 10.2 per cent [...]