ETFs are ideal for commercial property plays February 10, 2010 ONE of the biggest casualties of the financial crisis was the commercial property sector – capital values slumped 45 per cent in the UK, according to the Investment Property Databank (IPD). The recession also saw occupier demand contract, which drove up vacancy rates and forced down rents. But since the summer, we have seen an [...]
Bernanke’s brakes on bonds good for stocks February 10, 2010 THE snow forced Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to submit a written testimony to Washington’s legislators yesterday rather than go to Capital Hill in person, but the message the Fed governor delivered was the same regardless of the weather: he plans to withdraw support from the financial markets at some point soon. Bernanke outlined a [...]
INVESTORS’ GLOSSARY February 10, 2010 ALPHA Alpha is one of the two measures traditionally used to judge the performance of a money manager. It refers to the excess return that a money manager can generate by using his skills to pick the best performing stocks in the financial markets. If a money manager generates a positive alpha this means they [...]
LISTED PRODUCT NEWS February 10, 2010 THREE ETFS TRACKING FRENCH CAC 40 Three new exchange-traded funds listed in Paris yesterday, all tracking the French blue-chip CAC 40. Comstage ETF launched the products on behalf of its parent company Commerzbank. The ComStage ETF CAC 40 aims to track the performance of the underlying index and charges an annual fee of 0.20 per [...]
Weak economy means Belgium could be next to join the Pigs February 10, 2010 GREEK public deficit worries have been widely reported in the mainstream media. The government’s problems with its budget led to severe pressure on Greek sovereign bond yields and credit default swap spreads, which at one point were over 400 basis points over equivalent German sovereign yields. On 3 February the European Union executive announced that [...]
UK AT RISK | THERE’S ROOM IN THE STY February 10, 2010 CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling might have hoped that the Greek sovereign debt crisis would draw attention away from the parlous state of Britain’s own public finances. He will have been sorely disappointed – the Eurozone’s troubles have only highlighted the problems facing other highly indebted countries such as the UK and the US. The ratings agencies [...]
Moving jobs at the right time boosts prospects and pay-packets February 10, 2010 HECTOR Sants’s decision to step down ahead of time from his post heading up the Financial Services Authority has been greeted with shock, not least because he has only been in the post three years. Perhaps he feels that, having headed the regulator through the downturn, he has done his stint. No doubt he will [...]
Careers clinic February 10, 2010 One of the people on a team I manage made a costly mistake recently. I’m worried about him becoming demoralised, so what’s the best way to manage it? The first thing to realise is that this shouldn’t be too much about finger pointing. You need to acknowledge a mistake has been made, but do it [...]
Brushing up on your email etiquette can make you more successful and efficient February 9, 2010 LAST week, I received an unsolicited email that began, “Alright mate”. I did not read on. Email etiquette can be tricky, and it is easy to inadvertently cause offence. Lawyers, I am told, often receive emails from their superiors ending with “pls dl”, shorthand for “please deal with this”. Something which is more likely to [...]
Hawks, hares and tortoises in Scandinavia February 9, 2010 SCANDINAVIAN economies managed a soft landing during the global financial crisis. Unemployment and GDP held up strongly in Norway, and Sweden’s economy is starting to accelerate. With the Swedish central bank expected to strike a more hawkish tone when it meets later this week, now is a good time to pit the two currencies against [...]
