City Moves for 13 February 2014 | Who’s switching jobs February 12, 2014 LGP Legal & General Property has announced the appointment of James O’Neill as head of international distribution. He was most recently at Grosvenor Fund Management, where he was director of capital markets. Prior to that, he held business development roles at PwC. KPMG The professional services firm has appointed Jim Grover as a senior adviser in [...]
Best of the Brokers for 13 February 2014 February 12, 2014 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com SMITH & NEPHEW Deutsche Bank analysts have upgraded Smith & Nephew (S&N) to a “buy” rating with a revised price target of 1125p. “S&N have substantial upside from earnings growth, earnings upgrades & multiple expansion,” analysts said. CINEWORLD Bad news for the cinema [...]
London Report: FTSE spurred to three-week high by Chinese data February 12, 2014 THE UK’S top share index reached a three-week closing high yesterday, buoyed by miners, after top metals consumer China reported robust trade data. Mining companies are recovering from a sharp decline in 2013, after a sector-wide drive to offset falling metals demand with cuts in spending. They got a boost yesterday from the fresh evidence [...]
New York Report: Wall St ticks up as US investors turn positive February 12, 2014 World stock markets edged up for a sixth straight session on Wednesday after upbeat trade data from China soothed worries about slower global growth, while the pound rose to a two-week high against the dollar. The Dow and S&P 500 closed down slightly, however, snapping four days of gains after Procter & Gamble, the world’s [...]
Why forward guidance 2.0 is not only laughable but entirely unnecessary February 12, 2014 AT A recent meeting of the Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, I was debating with Capital Economics’s Roger Bootle whether interest rates should rise. His view was that they should not rise yet. I challenged him in the obvious way: “If not now, when?” To this he responded: “Later.” Roger’s form of “forward guidance” is, in [...]
We’re building a virtual ring of steel to tackle the threat of cyber crime February 12, 2014 UTTER the words “cyber crime” and many minds will conjure up an image of an awkward teenager, tapping away in their bedroom well into the early hours. But cyber crime can be much scarier than that. Threats today also come from criminal networks and foreign governments that deploy cyber weapons. Some of these assailants are [...]
When bureaucracy goes wrong: The Environment Agency and onion futures February 12, 2014 THERE is something about onions that brings out the worst in bureaucrats. Orlando Figes’s A People’s Tragedy chronicles the early years of the Russian revolution. Under war communism, the Bolsheviks attempted to exert state control over the entire economy. A long list of vegetables was drawn up, specifying the prices at which they could be [...]
Letters to the Editor – 13/02 – Confused guidance, Scottish sterling, Best of Twitter February 12, 2014 Confused guidance [Re: Carney’s new focus is spare capacity. Here’s what you need to know, yesterday] Having clearly demonstrated that it is utterly incapable of producing credible forecasts for inflation, GDP, and unemployment, the Monetary Policy Committee is now going to determine policy based on something (spare capacity) that is not only unforecastable, but unmeasurable [...]
The rise and rise of indie games February 12, 2014 Flappy Bird may be gone, but independent gaming is in rude health IT’S ALL over. Any Flappy Bird players who didn’t get in at the ground floor may never get the chance to pilot that charmless chick through an endless series of decidedly Mario-esque pipes. Nguyen Ha Dong, the Vietnamese developer who released the infuriating, [...]
Premier League: Nerves stop Arsenal from moving top February 12, 2014 AT EMIRATES STADIUM ARSENAL 0 vs MANCHESTER UNITED 0 ARSENAL boss Arsene Wenger admits his team are psychologically bruised and struggling to revive their attacking fluency after missing the chance to return to the top of the Premier League last night. Manchester United came closest to the morale-boosting win both sides sought when former Gunners [...]
