CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 14, 2012 The Salamanca Group Jeremy Wrathall has been appointed as managing director of Salamanca Resources, the recently formed division of Salamanca that will focus on the metals and mining sector. He joins from Renaissance Capital, where he was head of investment banking for the London operation and had responsibility for metals and mining, focusing on Africa. [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 14, 2012 BARCLAYS Shore Capital has upgraded the bank from “sell” to “hold” with a target price of 240p following its full-year 2011 results, saying the company has made better progress than expected in rebuilding its core tier 1 ratio. The broker is also more positive due to the ECB’s intervention into bank funding markets, which it [...]
Wall St steady as shopping stats flat February 14, 2012 US stocks erased losses to end little changed yesterday after a Greek government source said the conservative party leader was expected to deliver a letter of commitment to the country’s international lenders. And US retail sales fell short of forrecasts, rising 0.4 per centin January. A sign of Greece’s commitment to the tough austerity measures [...]
Disappointing data dents the recent strength in the FTSE February 14, 2012 BRITAIN’S top shares went into retreat yesterday after disappointing US retail sales data raised concern over the strength of the economic recovery, prompting a move out of banks and miners into more defensive sectors. A 0.4 per cent rise in retail sales fell short of the 0.7 per cent increase expected by economists polled by [...]
Why we should speak out against moves to curtail the UK’s freedom of speech February 14, 2012 DAWN raids by police on the homes of reporters are not something we expect to happen in the UK. But that’s what happened last weekend, when the Metropolitan police sent teams of up to 10 officers to the homes of senior Sun journalists. Reactions were mixed. Brian Cathcart of the Hacked Off campaign, which has [...]
We need radical reforms to raise NHS productivity February 14, 2012 EVERY now and then academic disputes break out into the mainstream. In an article for The Lancet medical journal, Professor Nick Black claims it’s a myth that NHS productivity has fallen over the last decade. Productivity (what we put in against what we get out) may not actually be down 0.4 per cent a year [...]
Donating organs could prove a costly decision February 14, 2012 NEVER make yourself worth more dead than alive. This was the sage advice my father gave me as a boy and I have stuck to it ever since. That is why my life insurance pays out less if I die than the net present value of my likely future earnings. I trust my wife, but [...]
RAPID RESPONSES February 14, 2012 Account for waste It’s impossible to disagree with Anthony J. Evans’ article [A nation of tax cheats changed by new rules, yesterday]. The Greeks largely got into a pickle because their attitude was that paying tax was for wimps. However, one of the deterrents to paying taxes is waste by government. When we see pictures [...]
No Valentine’s Day love for Euro sovereign debt February 14, 2012 THE move made by Moody’s this week to downgrade a number of Eurozone sovereigns, as well as putting the UK and France on the naughty step, caused more of a political fall-out than any real effect on the markets. Politicians squabbled like teenagers as to whose economic policies were the object of Moody’s affections, but [...]
CABLE RALLIES DESPITE JUMP IN QE NUMBER February 14, 2012 THE Bank of England (BoE) voted on 9 February to maintain its reserve rate at 0.5 per cent and to increase the size of its asset purchase program by £50bn to a total of £325bn. This increase reflects concern that slower 2011 growth and a 0.2 per cent fourth quarter contraction of GDP raises the [...]
