Building your portfolio July 13, 2010 THEY shunned infrastructure at the height of the downturn, but now pension funds are starting to flock back to the asset class in search of an inflation-hedged alternative with long-term attractive yields. The Global Alternatives Survey, conducted by Towers Watson and the Financial Times and published earlier this week, showed that pension funds allocated more [...]
CHOICE LIVES AMID THE ANTITHESIS July 13, 2010 MANAGING DIRECTOR, ARTEMIS MARKETS have recovered recently. But is this a sustainable rally – or a “dead cat bounce”? There are cogent arguments for both bull and bear. The former begins with the observation that the outlook for global economic growth remains good. Indeed, the IMF recently raised its forecast for global growth this year [...]
FUND MANAGEMENT NEWS July 13, 2010 NET OUTFLOWS FOR EUROPEAN FUNDS Data from Lipper, the fund management research company, has found that European funds had a net outflow of €18bn in May. Money market funds saw the biggest outflows, while mixed asset and bond funds saw inflows slow to their lowest level for 12 months. Equity fund withdrawals were relatively modest [...]
FTSE climbs for sixth day on optimism over US earnings and stress test hopes July 13, 2010 BRITAIN’S top shares climbed for the sixth consecutive session yesterday, led by banks on optimism that US peers would post strong earnings and lift the sector, and that Europe’s lenders would pass a key stress test. The FTSE 100 closed 104 points, or two per cent, higher at 5,271.02, hitting its highest close in over [...]
Alcoa and Intel’s quarterly results hearten investors July 13, 2010 STOCKS rallied for a sixth straight day yesterday after Alcoa’s quarterly results heartened investors that had fled to the sidelines on jitters about the sustainability of the economic recovery. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 146.75 points, or 1.44 per cent, to 10,363.02. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 16.59 points, or 1.54 per [...]
Our national neuroses require a subtle cure July 13, 2010 LAST week, David Cameron condemned what he calls a “national neurosis” driving health and safety regulation. He was quoted in the Daily Mail saying: “The rulebooks keep getting thicker. The restrictions keep getting sillier.” Presumably, he is paving the way for the summer release of Lord Young’s inquiry into “the rise of compensation culture (and) [...]
Osborne’s FSA reforms will cost consumers July 13, 2010 DURING the last few months, we have seen George Osborne outlining various plans for the future of UK regulation and a commission established to look into splitting up the banks. This has left some areas of the industry uncertain as to who is going to be supervising them and concerned that if we do not [...]
Service providers get squeezed by the cuts July 12, 2010 THE words austerity and budget are now commonplace in our national lexicon. For those with a glass-half-full mentality the shrinking of the state offers an opportunity for private outsourcing firms. However, some analysts have now thrown that into doubt. Execution Noble, the investment banking group, has produced research suggesting that service providers in the private [...]
CORPORATE EARNINGS TO SET THE TONE July 12, 2010 LAST week saw extraordinary gains on equity markets just when it looked like we were heading for another meltdown. In the preceding week, numerous technical support levels were breached as a number of major indices slumped below significant retracement levels. There was talk of “death crosses” appearing on various charts as 50-day moving averages slipped [...]
Depressed mining stocks are finally starting to look attractively valued July 12, 2010 IT WAS a tough second quarter for London-listed miners, which were dealt a severe blow by a toxic combination of general risk aversion, a planned tax on miners’ profits in Australia and a government-orchestrated slowdown in China. After reaching 25,356.51 on 6 April – its best level since July 2008 – the FTSE 350 mining [...]