Don’t be caught unawares by bank volatility May 26, 2010 FEARS of sovereign debt contagion within the Eurozone have quickly turned into concerns about a European banking crisis. As if investors needed any further confirmation about the fragility of European banks, regional Spanish bank CajaSur was seized last weekend by the Bank of Spain after it had been crippled by property loan defaults. Plenty of [...]
Avoid a hasty decision about the CGT rate May 26, 2010 THE new Lib-Con coalition didn’t waste any time after the election to show it is serious about lowering the UK’s enormous public debt. And it looks like a hike in capital gains tax (CGT) is on the cards in a bid to raise much-needed revenue. So what does this mean for investors? Individual stocks, contracts [...]
THE TIPSTER May 26, 2010 TESCO has pulled back from its high of 454.9p at the end of April but has also bounced back from its decline to the 38.2 per cent Fibonacci retracement level. Look to purchase below £4 with a stop at £3.85. WorldSpreads offers a rolling spread on Tesco of 397.2p–398p. There’s been no shortage of volatility [...]
LISTED PRODUCT NEWS May 26, 2010 GOLD DRIVES SOURCE ETC JUMP Since the launch of its Exchange-Traded Commodities (ETC) platform in April last year, Source, the ETF provider, has seen its assets soar to more than €500m (£427m), making it the second biggest collateralised ETC provider in Europe. Most of Source’s products are US Treasury Bill-secured ETCs listed on Xetra but [...]
Principles and not rules are the way to encourage business to be ethical May 26, 2010 TOMORROW, the Financial Reporting Council will announce the first part of its new code of conduct for corporate governance. It is a welcome step towards ensuring that businesses behave in a responsible way, but more is needed. It has been striking in recent times that the public and policymakers have blamed business’s failures on ethical [...]
Job interviews are back, so it’s time to work on your technique May 26, 2010 FOLLOWING two years of relative stagnation in the City jobs market, where any movement tended to be of the non-voluntary nature, hiring is back in the Square Mile. The most recent employment report from KPMG shows that hiring is up 29 per cent in the private sector, compared to the previous quarter. Unsurprisingly, the biggest [...]
Pullman pulls off Jesus triumph May 26, 2010 THE GOOD MAN JESUS AND THE SCOUNDREL CHRIST BY PHILIP PULLMAN Canongate, £16.99 by Joanna Elias A book about Jesus? Risky business. The son of God has inspired libraries of works on the quest for his true historical life. Geza Vermes’ controversial Jesus the Jew, which takes Jesus back to his Jewish roots, proved JC [...]
OUT OF OFFICE May 26, 2010 PINTER PLAY COMES TO FLEET STREET Legend has it that Harold Pinter’s career was saved by Harold Hobson’s single favourable review of The Birthday Party: “a skull-beneath-the-skin play, exposing the horrors and fears that lurk under the calm, dull surface of our everyday existence”. In 1959, a year after its disastrous opening, The Birthday Party [...]
How to eat like a (vegetarian) king May 26, 2010 DESPITE the cult status acquired by super-deli Ottolenghi, known for its heavenly salads and cakes, and the super-sleek vegan Saf (see Joe McCanta’s column below), vegetarian restaurants aren’t exactly alluring to a professional, urban and carnivorous crowd. But Andrew Dargue and his wife Donna Conroy, from Teeside, think things should be different, and so two [...]
Wines to match your gourmet veggie dinner May 26, 2010 JOE MCCANTA SOMMELIER, SAF RESTAURANTS; FOUNDER, PURSIP DRINKS CONSULTANCY WORKING with primarily vegetarian (and even vegan) foods, I’m constantly having to look at innovative ways of matching food to wine. It seems that even in some of the top restaurants most sommeliers are terrified by the concept of not resorting to their good old stand-by [...]
