Heir to Blair says Labour has not fallen out of love with business August 31, 2010 WITH a week to go until MPs return from their summer break, Westminster is a ghost town. Its tearooms and canteens, normally buzzing with political gossip and intrigue, sit deserted. David Miliband cuts a lonely figure as he strides purposefully across the empty atrium of Portcullis House, the modern extension to the House of Commons. [...]
FTSE gains ground as mining shares are lifted by US data August 31, 2010 BRITAIN’S top shares closed up yesterday as miners gained on firmer US economic data which eased investor anxiety on the global economic recovery, while ARM Holdings jumped on renewed takeover talk. The FTSE 100 gained 23.66 points, or 0.5 per cent at 5,225.22, adding to the 0.9 per cent gain on Friday, as UK traders [...]
Wall St choppy as tech shares decline August 31, 2010 US stocks ended little changed in choppy trading yesterday, closing out an August the bulls would like to forget. Positive data surprises sustained a rally for most of the session, but declines in technology shares capped overall gains. The S&P 500 bounced off the key technical level of 1,040 for the third time in the [...]
BORIS OUT FOR A RIDE WITH KELLY BROOK TO LAUNCH BIKE SCHEME August 31, 2010 Boris Johnson’s love affair with two wheels continued yesterday with the launch of his driver-frustrating Sky Ride scheme, where roads are cleared throughout central London to allow cyclists to take in the sights. But The Capitalist can’t help but think bikes weren’t the only thing on the mind of the red-blooded Mayor. Accompanying him on [...]
Indian elephant offers the investor steady success August 31, 2010 ANALYSTS comparing the prospects for the world’s two most populous countries often evoke an Asian version of Aesop’s famous fable of the tortoise and the hare – the elephant and the tiger. The elephant makes slow and steady progress to reach its goal while the tiger bounds forward more quickly and more powerfully, but risks [...]
The drawbacks of defined contribution pensions August 31, 2010 IT HAS been a rocky couple of years for pension funds. Some high profile defined benefit plans, such as those of BT and British Airways, have suffered badly since the on-set of the financial crisis. But the problems that have hit defined contribution (DC) plans have not made the same waves in the media. The [...]
FUND MANAGEMENT NEWS August 31, 2010 NORTHERN TRUST OPENS DOOR TO CHINA Asset manager Northern Trust announced that it has been granted permission to open a branch office in Beijing. The new office plans to support institutional clients in China with global custody, accounting, compliance and performance management services. The firm has offered services to clients in China since 2005 through [...]
Buck gets cold-shoulder August 31, 2010 THE dollar is at a cross roads. At the peak of the financial crisis it was firmly in the set of “safe haven” currencies and was bought in favour of the euro, the pound and most emerging market currencies. However, as threats of a double-dip recession grip the markets, the greenback has been given the [...]
JAPAN ISSUES CAN’T STOP YEN STRENGTH August 31, 2010 DIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT ONE of the inviolable rules of speculative markets such as foreign exchange is that traders will push prices beyond all rhyme and reason as long as momentum remains on their side. Witness the price movements in the yen as markets opened for trade at the start of this week. The [...]
Cross-border bids will affect the FX markets August 31, 2010 DRAGONS and tigers are known for their voracious appetites. China and India, it appears, are no exception – these Asian powerhouses’ demand for raw materials has proved unrelenting despite the subdued global backdrop. The outlook for sustained commodities’ demand has spurred the natural resources sector into action. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity has stepped up [...]
