Bernanke vow on stimulus cheers Wall St February 27, 2013 NEW YORK REPORT US stocks rallied for a second straight day yesterday as Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke reaffirmed his strong support for the Fed’s stimulus efforts, while the euro climbed after solid demand at an auction of Italian government debt. Data on US housing and durable goods added to bullish sentiment in stocks, with [...]
FTSE falls back on uncertainty in Italian polls February 26, 2013 LONDON REPORT WEAK banks and commodity stocks sent Britain’s top shares to a more than two-week closing low yesterday after an inconclusive election result in Italy revived Eurozone debt crisis concerns. Europe’s most indebted state faced a political vacuum after a huge protest vote left no party or likely coalition with enough seats to form [...]
Fed comments soothe jitters on Wall Street February 26, 2013 NEW YORK REPORT US stocks rebounded from their worst decline since November yesterday after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke defended the Fed’s bond-buying stimulus and sales of new homes hit a four and a half year high. The S&P 500 had climbed six per cent for the year and came within reach of all-time highs [...]
UK share boost is tempered by Italian election February 25, 2013 LONDON REPORT UK shares shed all of their early gains yesterday as projected Italian election results suggested a clear-cut winner was unlikely to emerge, diminishing the prospects for a stable government. Early exit polls suggesting a healthy lead for a centre-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani in both houses of parliament were confounded by [...]
US stocks drop on fears over European debt February 25, 2013 NEW YORK REPORT US stocks yesterday suffered their biggest drop since November after a strong showing in Italian elections by groups opposed to the country’s economic reforms triggered worry Europe’s debt problems could again destabilise the global economy. The decline marks the biggest percentage drop for the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since 7 [...]
Analyst picks for 26 February 2013 February 25, 2013 DailyFX CURRENCY STRATEGIST CHRIS VECCHIO My pick: Short Aussie-dollar and sterling-dollar Expertise: Fundamental and technical analysis Average time frame of trades: A few hours to a few days Even as the US budget sequester looms, I remain a dollar bull. If the sequester happens, global risk-aversion is likely, which will support the dollar. With Luigi Bersani [...]
RBS and Lloyds results look set to show losses February 24, 2013 STATE-BACKED banks Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group are both expected to announce full-year results this week, with analysts forecasting both lenders will remain loss-making. Investec believes RBS, which will deliver its 2012 figures on Thursday, will announce an attributable loss of £2.2bn for the final quarter – or a £5.6bn loss for [...]
Wall Street on edge over talk of end to QE February 24, 2013 US investors face another Washington-imposed deadline on government spending cuts this week, but the cut-off not generating the same level of fear as two months ago when the “fiscal cliff” loomed large. Investors in sectors most likely to be affected by the cuts, like defence, seem untroubled that the budget talks could send stocks tumbling. [...]
Businessman who woke up and smelt the coffee February 24, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks to Andrew Rugasira, the Ugandan entrepreneur with a new book and a Good African story to tell THE lives of 14,000 farmers in the Ugandan Rwenzori Mountains have been transformed since Andrew Rugasira had his lightbulb moment in 2002. At the time, he was running a prosperous marketing and events company in [...]
Cloud computing could easily save your start-up money February 24, 2013 ACCORDING to technology consultancy IDC and IT firm EMC, the global digital universe will expand tenfold between 2012 and 2020, reaching a difficult to comprehend 40 zettabytes. To put this into perspective, in 2009 the internet was estimated to contain just half a zettabyte. Even then, if that quantity of data were printed and bound [...]