NEW YORK REPORT June 23, 2009 THE S&P 500 rose yesterday as investors hunted for bargains a day after a steep sell-off, but another delay for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner kept the Dow in the red. Shares that led the market down on Monday, when the market suffered its worst one-day loss in two months, were among the positive influences, including banks, [...]
All change for the law, post downturn June 23, 2009 LAW firms have been hit hard by the recession, and many have been radically slimmed down to survive plummeting demand. Increasingly, it looks that the industry will look dramatically different after this downturn. One area where there will be change will be in terms of leverage structures – the number of junior lawyers per partner. [...]
WITCHING WEEK MEANS VOLATILITY June 22, 2009 MARTIN SLANEYHEAD OF DERIVATIVES, GFT LAST Friday saw the quarterly event that is known in the markets as “quadruple witching”. It’s when we have the combined expiry of US index futures, index options, stock futures and stock options, all on the same day. The haunting moniker that is attached to this infamous occurrence suggests a [...]
THE LONDON REPORT June 22, 2009 THE FTSE 100 ended 2.6 per cent, or 111.88 points, lower at 4,234.05 yesterday as falling commodity prices pressured miners and oil majors. Bucking the trend, Anglo American was the biggest blue chip gainer, rising 4.6 per cent, after rival Xstrata said it wanted talks about a proposed merger of equals. Xstrata shed 6.7 per [...]
History tells us that indices have further upside to come June 22, 2009 FOLLOWING a three-month rally in global equities, stock market indices have eased off as investors face the prospect of a slow and protracted recovery and question whether a correction – of some magnitude, at least – is now overdue. Given the sharp rise in equity prices since March, many investors are now wondering what is [...]
NEW YORK REPORT June 22, 2009 US STOCKS suffered their worst one-day loss in two months yesterday, dropping the S&P 500 back into negative territory for the year in a broad-based sell-off, as investors reconsidered the health of the economy. A sharp drop in US crude oil futures and other commodities hit shares of companies sensitive to those prices, including Exxon [...]
TROUGHING UK ECONOMY WILL BOOST POUND June 21, 2009 JANE FOLEYRESEARCH DIRECTOR, FOREX.COM WE might still be knee deep in recession, but policy makers have started to talk about how they will mop up in the aftermath of their generous fiscal and monetary incentives. In essence, it is prudent that this discussion takes place now. Even when deflation was a real fear in many [...]
THE LONDON REPORT June 21, 2009 THE JUNE gauntlet of retail company statements is set to continue this week, with two UK electronics giants due to issue full-year 2009 results. DSG, Kesa and Inchcape are lining up to report, following last week’s announcements from Tesco, J Sainsbury, Whitbread and Morrison. Kesa Electricals, which runs electronics store Comet among its Europe-wide retail [...]
MARTIN ON THE MARKETS June 21, 2009 AFTER three months of virtually non-stop rallying, are the brakes finally on? Despite a US data-led push ahead on Friday, the FTSE 100 index still finished the week down nearly 100 points. Even Friday’s fight-back may be tested this morning following a fade in US stocks after London’s close. GFT is calling the FTSE to [...]
British stocks lead the way in defence aerospace boom June 21, 2009 IT was a bad few days for civil aerospace firms at the Paris Air Show last week. After the first four days, total orders and commitments for civil aircraft totalled $14.1bn. To put that in context, at Farnborough in 2008, total orders and commitments for Airbus and Boeing alone came to more than $64bn. The [...]