Tax hikes and uncertainty to be bad news May 27, 2010 THE new government has wasted no time in swinging the axe on public spending. This week £6bn of cuts were announced. Business organisations are overwhelmingly in favour of the cuts, but what does this mean for entrepreneurs and start-up companies? Everything from government contracts to Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), which provide grants and funding to [...]
Q&A: PENSIONS May 27, 2010 Q. I am a small business owner and I?want to set up a pension fund for my employees, what is the easiest way to do this? A. It’s a timely thing for business owners to think about because the government are changing the rules for pension funds in 2012. The new rules will force employers [...]
FTSE closes above 5,000 led by miners who now may not face Aussie tax hikes May 26, 2010 BRITAIN’S top share index recovered to close above 5,000 points yesterday, led by miners after reports the Australian government may relax punitive tax measures, while Burberry jumped after strong earnings. The FTSE 100 ended up 97.40 points or 2 per cent at 5,038.08, having tumbled 2.5 per cent on Tuesday to its lowest close since [...]
Dow falls below 10,000 on Eurozone debt worries May 26, 2010 WALL Street staged yet another late-day reversal yesterday to end lower as news suggesting China was reassessing its Eurozone debt holdings pushed investors into profit-taking mode. The Dow closed below 10,000 for the first time since 8 February. The late turnaround in stocks showing investor psyche remains fragile, and investors are inclined to sell strength [...]
Don’t be caught unawares by bank volatility May 26, 2010 FEARS of sovereign debt contagion within the Eurozone have quickly turned into concerns about a European banking crisis. As if investors needed any further confirmation about the fragility of European banks, regional Spanish bank CajaSur was seized last weekend by the Bank of Spain after it had been crippled by property loan defaults. Plenty of [...]
Avoid a hasty decision about the CGT rate May 26, 2010 THE new Lib-Con coalition didn’t waste any time after the election to show it is serious about lowering the UK’s enormous public debt. And it looks like a hike in capital gains tax (CGT) is on the cards in a bid to raise much-needed revenue. So what does this mean for investors? Individual stocks, contracts [...]
THE TIPSTER May 26, 2010 TESCO has pulled back from its high of 454.9p at the end of April but has also bounced back from its decline to the 38.2 per cent Fibonacci retracement level. Look to purchase below £4 with a stop at £3.85. WorldSpreads offers a rolling spread on Tesco of 397.2p–398p. There’s been no shortage of volatility [...]
LISTED PRODUCT NEWS May 26, 2010 GOLD DRIVES SOURCE ETC JUMP Since the launch of its Exchange-Traded Commodities (ETC) platform in April last year, Source, the ETF provider, has seen its assets soar to more than €500m (£427m), making it the second biggest collateralised ETC provider in Europe. Most of Source’s products are US Treasury Bill-secured ETCs listed on Xetra but [...]
Principles and not rules are the way to encourage business to be ethical May 26, 2010 TOMORROW, the Financial Reporting Council will announce the first part of its new code of conduct for corporate governance. It is a welcome step towards ensuring that businesses behave in a responsible way, but more is needed. It has been striking in recent times that the public and policymakers have blamed business’s failures on ethical [...]
Embrace the alternative May 25, 2010 A RECENT survey by Mercer, the consultancy, found that nearly 5 per cent of UK pension funds and 14 per cent of European pension funds are looking to increase their allocation to fund of hedge funds. And well they might – over the past 10 years the HFRI Strategic Index, which measures the performance of [...]
