PERSONAL FINANCE NEWS July 29, 2010 STAYCATION IS STILL IN FAVOUR Britons are feeling the pinch when it comes to holidays with almost 40 per cent of us actively trying to spend less money on our holidays this year. And of those looking to cut back, more than half have decided not to go abroad to cut costs. A survey by [...]
Grape escapes: make the vineyard dream come true July 29, 2010 I’D guess that at some point in your career in the City you’ve sat back and daydreamed about a life outdoors, working the land, relaxing at sunset on a terrace overlooking your vines and sipping the product of your labour. Vineyard properties are among the most magical, particularly those in the well-known grape regions of [...]
The million euro silver lining July 29, 2010 THE final moments of a sports match can be excruciating. Even more so if you placed a heavy bet on one of the teams to win. That was what happened to Conor Foley, an avid rugby fan, when he watched New Zealand lose in a shock defeat to France in the quarterfinals of the Rugby [...]
Social networking, is it really worth it? July 29, 2010 LAST week Facebook, the social networking site, announced it had surpassed the 500m-user mark. So if you want to reach half a billion people then you should sign up, right? It’s easy to get swept up in the buzz that surrounds social media, but does all of that posting and tweeting really have an effect [...]
ACCOUNTS July 29, 2010 Q.I have just started a new business and want to adopt the best practices for filing my accounts. Do you have any advice? A.Each private company has to file its accounts at Companies House, the official government register of UK private companies. The deadline is nine months after the company’s financial year-end, so if that [...]
Energy firms drag down the FTSE as BG fails to deliver July 28, 2010 Britain’s top shares fell yesterday, dragged lower by energy stocks after BG Group reported its quarterly results, and weak US data knocked sentiment. The FTSE 100 index closed down 45.99 points at 5,319.68, having gained almost 4.5 per cent over the last five days, and falling away from the psychologically important 5,400 level. “The near-term [...]
US stocks fall after poor durable figures July 28, 2010 US stocks fell yesterday after weak durable goods figures and a downbeat assessment of the economy from the Fed’s Beige Book kept the benchmark S&P 500 trapped below its 200-day moving average. A three-day rally built on strong earnings boosted the index to close Monday above its 200-day moving average, a closely watched measure of [...]
Domestic demand adds to South Korea’s roar July 28, 2010 FROM shipbuilding and car manufacturing to world-class information technology and high-tech white goods, South Korea has gone from strength to strength since the 1960s. In the 1990s, South Korean multinational firms made a deliberate shift towards more high-technology goods and it is now home to well known household names such as Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo and [...]
Investors need to hedge their equities risk July 28, 2010 SAVVY investors should be moving into any asset class except equities – that’s at least according to Saltus Partners’ Jon Macintosh. Macintosh says that advanced economies’ stock markets are in for a period of downward or sideways movement, potentially for the next decade or more. He claims there’s only one scenario in which investors should [...]
LISTED PRODUCT NEWS July 28, 2010 EUROPEAN ETFS ENJOY NET INFLOWS Data provided by iShares, the ETF provider, found that there were more than $226m of net inflows to European sector ETFs that track the Eurostoxx 600 last week. The largest flows went to industrial goods and services, which had $103m of inflows. Utilities experienced the second largest flows of $50m. [...]