Playing the new uranium boom January 23, 2011 INVESTMENT COMMENT OVER the past six months, the price of uranium has risen more than 60 per cent to $68 an ounce and thanks to increasing demand and tight supply, prices could be headed even higher. There are 442 operating nuclear reactors worldwide but with 60 new ones under construction (a further 156 are in [...]
Stocks to start the week lower on China fears January 23, 2011 Despite closing on Friday on a mild high, over the course of the week the FTSE still dropped nearly 1.8 per cent, managing along the way to close at its lowest level for five weeks, and it looks like the bears could resume control once again this morning. GFT is quoting the FTSE 100 index [...]
WALL ST WEEK AHEAD January 23, 2011 The much anticipated pullback is finally under way, some investors say, after a mid-week wobble. But the market is showing it still has some juice left – if earnings can meet towering expectations. This earnings season, if you’re good, you’re just OK. If you’re just OK, you’re bad. And if you’re bad, you’re quickly taken [...]
S&P 500 is on the edge of a painful correction January 23, 2011 THE SCOTTISH journalist Bertie Charles Forbes once said: “Optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned”. He would have seen much to be happy about in the USA now. Though unemployment remains stubbornly high, American investors at least are seeing the bright side. The S&P 500 index of stocks has rallied by [...]
THE WEEK AHEAD January 23, 2011 COMPANY NEWS ● Electronics company Philips publishes its 2010 full year results on Monday. ● Sodexo, the food services provider, releases its first quarter 2011 results on Monday. ● Tuesday sees Ericsson report its fourth quarter 2010 results and Siemens its first quarter 2011 results. ● WH Smiths will hold its annual general meeting and issue [...]
THE TIPSTER January 23, 2011 AN INTERIM management statement is due from Sage, the software service provider, on Wednesday. Renewed confidence in the economy should bode well for the company, which has seen shares creep back to the levels it achieved before the credit crunch. Admittedly, the stock remains a long way below the all time highs of the dot-com [...]
Saving up your coppers in the vault January 20, 2011 IN JOSEPH HELLER’S modern classic, Catch 22, the entrepreneurial mess officer Milo Minderbinder seizes the opportunity to buy up the entire Egyptian cotton crop. The result is a disaster – Milo finds himself unable to sell the cotton to anyone. After trying to turn it into food, eventually he unloads it onto the government. Today [...]
FTSE mining and auto stocks hit by China tightening fears January 20, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index sank to its lowest closing level in more than five weeks yesterday, weighed down by mining stocks on concerns over potential further monetary tightening by China and its impact on demand. The FTSE 100 closed down 108.79 points, or 1.8 per cent, at 5,867.91, its lowest close since December 13. Miners [...]
Lacklustre earnings send Wall St lower January 20, 2011 US stocks fell yesteray as lacklustre tech and materials earnings failed to live up to heightened expectations, threatening to short-circuit a seven-week run. Declines were milder than on Wednesday, when a sharp drop pulled the market off two-year highs. Morgan Stanley posted stronger-than-expected revenue to help the banking sector rise modestly, and rose 4.6 per [...]
The disastrous date that made Mr & Mrs Smith January 20, 2011 PICTURE this: you’ve just started dating a gorgeous girl and she agrees to go away for the weekend with you. You’re excited, you want to spoil her, so you book a spa. Things are going well. You managed to clean out all the junk food boxes on the back seat of your car and you [...]