Accountants can save the world, report November 11, 2009 THERE has been no shortage of talk about the forthcoming Copenhagen climate change conference in December, at which presidents and prime ministers will discuss ways to save the world by reducing carbon emissions. Already, many suspect that little will be decided at the meeting. The reality is that if the world is saved, it will [...]
CHOOSING SURVIVAL OVER LITIGATION November 11, 2009 MARCUS MCCAFFREYPARTNER, FORENSIC SERVICES, BAKER TILLY WHERE previous recessions have seen problems of funding, this time round global financial liquidity has shrunk to unprecedented levels. There are still few re-financing options and what is available is only on offer to those entities with strong balance sheets or guarantees. One result of this is that international [...]
Investors ignore bubble concerns and flock to high-yielding bonds November 11, 2009 INVESTORS’ memories are notoriously short, so when Standard & Poor’s (S&P) recently warned that they were getting even shorter, it was something of a wake-up call. Despite one of the biggest financial meltdowns and dislocations of credit in history, European investors are once again being seduced by the high yields on offer with junk bonds. [...]
THE TIPSTER November 11, 2009 DYED in the wool chartists may still be hanging onto the longer term downtrend in the S&P 500 and claiming that the 65 per cent recovery since March is just a bear market rally – or even a dead cat bounce. But reasons to be bearish on the US stock market are rapidly vanishing as [...]
UK COVERED WARRANTS SURE TO GROW November 11, 2009 ALEXANDRE HOUPERTHEAD OF LISTED PRODUCTS UK, SG CORPORATE & INVESTMENT BANKING WHILE covered warrants might seem like a relatively new means of trading the markets to UK investors, this month marks their 20th birthday in continental Europe, where they are now a well developed market widely recognised by the private investor. And Société Générale not [...]
Reassurance on UK growth boosts the blue chip index November 11, 2009 BRITAIN’S top share index closed higher yesterday, as risk appetite received a boost after reassuring signals on the UK economy, and with miners the biggest gainers after a jump in Chinese factory growth. The FTSE 100 index ended 36.20 points higher, or 0.7 per cent, at 5,266.75, having touched a high of 5,301.14 earlier in [...]
China data pulls up Dow and S&P 500 November 11, 2009 THE Dow and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index closed at 13-month highs last night as an upbeat forecast from a top homebuilder and data from China pointed to a strengthening global economy. The Dow’s advance was its sixth straight as comments from top Federal Reserve officials suggesting low interest rates will stay for some [...]
Eco case raises philosophical questions November 10, 2009 ALL those people who designated their religion as “Jedi Knight” in the last census may have delighted at the case of the so-called “eco-employee” last week. The employee in question is Tim Nicholson, who formerly worked for residential landlord Grainger. Nicholson claims that he was made redundant because of his environmental beliefs, and has been [...]
DIRECTORS: PREPARE FOR INSOLVENCY November 10, 2009 JULIAN TURNERPARTNER, REED SMITH LAST week the Insolvency Service released its statistics for the third quarter, showing that the number of company insolvencies – including liquidations, administrations and receiverships – were slightly lower than they were for the second quarter of the year, but significantly higher than for the same period in 2008. There were [...]
Oversold pound offers buying opportunities November 10, 2009 RATINGS agencies might have got a bad press during the financial crisis but yesterday’s volatile moves in sterling-US dollar indicate that they still command plenty of attention from the markets. David Riley, Fitch’s co-head of global sovereign ratings, told Reuters Television early yesterday morning that Britain’s coveted triple-A rating is more at risk than that [...]
