Best of the Brokers for 06 May 2014 May 5, 2014 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com BRITVIC Barclays has cut the drinks maker from “overweight” to “equalweight”, after a strong share price rise over the past year. The broker remains confident in Britvic’s management and its credentials as a safe haven investment, but sees the stock as well-priced with [...]
London Report: Supermarkets’ results to show split in fortunes May 5, 2014 THE varying fortunes of the UK’s supermarkets will be revealed this week as Morrisons gives its quarterly results while Sainsbury’s announces full-year figures. Sainsbury’s annual results are forecast to show that underlying pre-tax profits rose 3.5 per cent to £782m. However investors will be anxious to see the company’s plans for the next year, especially [...]
New York Report: US shares rise as Apple stocks top $600 mark May 5, 2014 US stocks ended slightly higher yesterday as data showed strength in the services sector and Apple shares rose above $600 for the first time since 2012. Limiting the day’s gains, however, were concerns over an escalation of tensions between Ukraine and pro-Russia separatists. Ukrainian forces were ambushed by separatists, triggering heavy fighting on the outskirts [...]
Blame Europe’s 70 year holiday from history for the West’s terrible decline May 5, 2014 THE US public has had it with being the world’s policeman. An April 2014 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that only 19 per cent wanted America to engage in a more activist foreign policy. Fully 47 per cent wished the US to conduct a less activist policy, a camp that has quadrupled in size over [...]
We will not apologise for defending British worldbeaters like AstraZeneca May 5, 2014 Amid the speculation surrounding the potential takeover of UK pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca by Pfizer, some facts are now known. Pfizer made an approach to take over AstraZeneca on 5 January 2014. The deal valued the company at around £60bn, which AstraZeneca rejected. On 26 April, Pfizer made a second approach, which AstraZeneca also rebuffed. A [...]
Why Piketty’s socialist manifesto doesn’t stack up May 5, 2014 THOMAS Piketty makes some bold claims about the future of capitalism. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, he observes that, in capitalist economies, the rate of return on capital (r) tends to be higher than the growth rate of the economy (g). Provided capital owners save a high proportion of capital income, the power of [...]
Three ways to get more from LinkedIn May 5, 2014 While you’ll have to put more work into your account, you can also easily monitor your success WHEN LinkedIn announced it had surpassed 15m UK members in March, the accompanying statistical breakdown put a new perspective on what passes for professional in Britain. Although the biggest UK employers represented included RBS and Lloyds, 146 chimney [...]
Behind the curve: Beware of Fed-induced asset bubbles May 5, 2014 Yellen risks making the same mistake as Greenspan in 2004 FEARS that the US recovery may falter were reawakened last week, with the advanced estimate of first quarter GDP coming in at an annualised 0.1 per cent, down from 2.6 per cent in the final quarter of 2013 (see chart). The dollar fell by 0.4 [...]
CNBC Comment: Bulls versus bears on stock valuations May 5, 2014 IT MIGHT seem a long time until 13 September, but at the beginning of May it’s a key date. This year it brings Britain’s classic horse race, the St Leger. It’s also the day when, according to the old saying, investors should put their money back into the stock market after selling in May. There’s [...]
DailyFX Tips & Picks: Why the Eurozone’s problems haven’t disappeared May 5, 2014 IT’S HARD to imagine, but it wasn’t even two years ago that the potential for a break-up of the Eurozone was front page news. The euro was in a tailspin from May 2011 into July 2012, losing roughly 20 per cent of its value against the US dollar. Break-up scenarios emerged; difficult talk of abandoning [...]
