FIRMS NEED NEW WAYS TO RAISE CASH February 15, 2010 IT has not been good news of late for UK IPOs. First the US travel group Travelport pulled its £1.2bn London flotation after failing to win investors’ support in turbulent markets. The next day, Madame Tussaud’s operator Merlin Entertainment put its £2bn flotation on hold, with severe market volatility blamed for the delay. Fashion retailer [...]
ECONOMIC DIARY February 14, 2010 THE European Union’s rescue plan for Greece is expected to continue to take centre stage this week as traders look for greater clarity from policymakers. The Eurogroup – a committee of the finance ministers of the eurozone – meets today and we may see some market-moving announcements later on. With the US markets closed for [...]
We will soon find out whether the Bank is right February 14, 2010 AMERICAN markets are closed today for Presidents Day but that does obviously not equate to nap time for London traders. With an exceptionally busy economic calendar, this should be a very active week for everybody in the UK. Some of the big, potentially market moving releases include consumer prices, employment numbers, retail sales and the [...]
Buy on the dips to make your profits February 14, 2010 TROUBLES in the Eurozone have caused a retrenchment in risk appetite over the past couple of weeks, and as a result, we have seen equity indices lose their upward momentum. At the start of last week the US Dow dipped below the 10,000 mark for the first time since early November, while the FTSE 100 [...]
Dax’s big fat Greek boost February 14, 2010 THE prospects for Europe’s southern economies may be fading fast, but what is one country’s loss can be another’s gain. The euro, driven lower by investors’ fears over a Greek debt crisis, could be a boon for German exporters. The single currency has fallen steeply against the US dollar; it is down 9 per cent [...]
SPREAD BET GURU February 14, 2010 Q.Dear Josh, what should I keep an eye out for this week when trading equities? A.We are getting stuck in to the UK earnings season now and there are a number of firms announcing this week, including Barclays, Intercontinental Hotels, BAE Systems and the miner Anglo American. Barclays will be the major focus because it [...]
THE TIPSTER PROFIT FROM THE SELL-OFF AND BUY CHEAP February 14, 2010 A STRONGER dollar and concerns about the global economic outlook have caused a pullback in commodity prices in recent weeks. This has put downward pressure on the shares of oil majors such as BP and Shell, which have both fallen 10 per cent since 12 January. By buying these at current levels, you are getting [...]
Banks suffer as concerns over their Greek exposure weigh February 11, 2010 BRITAIN’S top share index closed 0.6 per cent higher on Thursday, as gains in commodities outpaced falls in banks, which remained mired in uncertainty over Eurozone’s plans to deal with Greece’s debt problems. BT Group slumped 8.8 per cent, topping the losers’s list on the FTSE 100 and hitting a more than six-month low after [...]
Caterpillar’s profits give Dow a boost February 11, 2010 US stocks rose on Thursday after a pledge by European leaders to support debt-laden Greece eased fears of a broader Eurozone crisis and upbeat data from China spurred mining and material stocks. Data pointing to stabilisation in the US labor market gave the market a further boost, along with a broker upgrade of bellwether 3M, [...]
Why every firm needs a Facebook February 11, 2010 BACK when they started out in the corporate world Mike Powell and Ken Yeadon can remember a time when computers were rare. That was back in the mid 1980s when they both started work in HSBC’s trading department. A quarter of a century later and things have changed. Now, through their private equity company Thematic [...]