Inside the psychology of your logo: There’s a reason Gap’s redesign was such a failure November 18, 2015 While they’re commonly called “intangible assets”, logos matter. Gap learned this lesson in 2010 when it attempted to change its logo, but quickly abandoned the endeavour after it met with a furious backlash from followers on Twitter and Facebook. What the retailer hadn’t realised was how the subtle aspects of its logo were perceived, and [...]
City Moves for 18 November 2015 | Who’s switching jobs November 17, 2015 CAPITAL GROUP The investment management company has appointed Chris Miles as director, financial intermediaries. He joins from Fidelity Worldwide Investment, where he was associate director, wealth manager sales, responsible for the sales and relationship management of discretionary accounts. PwC The professional services firm has appointed Leo Ring and Hannah Carter to its pensions and investment [...]
Indices hit after German bomb scare – New York Report November 17, 2015 AFALSE alarm which caused the cancellation of the Germany-Netherlands football match last night put the brakes on what was an otherwise good day on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 0.04 per cent at 17,489.5 and the S&P 500 lost 0.13 per cent to 2,050.44. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.03 per cent [...]
Paris terror attacks: There’s no case for rushing in illiberal snooping laws in the new surveillance bill November 17, 2015 Lest my position on current events be misunderstood, let me restate a basic truth I’ve set out in these pages before. Killing terrorists is good. However, achieving that desirable end does not mean that the state needs to become more powerful. Nor does it mean that the state should snoop on all of us, “just [...]
Why it’s time for Ofcom to red card the rising cost of watching live football on TV November 17, 2015 The ever-increasing cost of watching Premier League matches on live TV is hitting fans where it hurts. UK fans pay at least twice as much to watch half the games as fans in Europe. In Germany, France, Spain and Italy, all their live games are available to watch at a much lower cost than in [...]
We’ve nothing to fear from job-killing automation – and the pace of change will be manageable too November 17, 2015 The chief economist of the Bank of England Andy Haldane has been in the news with his prediction that up to 15m jobs in the UK are at risk of being lost to automation. This is a huge number, around half the total number of people in work today. Haldane injected a note [...]
With consumer price index inflation negative but house price rises strong, is CPI failing to capture the cost of living? November 17, 2015 Shaun Richards, an independent economist, says Yes A fundamental problem with the UK official CPI inflation measure is its exclusion of owner-occupied housing costs. Without them, it arrives at an ice-cold annual rate of inflation of -0.1 per cent for October. However, our official statisticians also report house prices rising at an annual rate of [...]
Best of the Brokers for 17 November 2015 November 17, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com WOLSELEY The analysts at Deutsche Bank have changed their recommendation for Wolseley, downgrading the building materials supplier from a “buy” to a “hold” rating. Deutsche Bank said Wolesely is a “good company”, but macroeconomic factors could negatively impact the firm’s performance. The analysts [...]
FTSE fends off Paris panic and ends the day up – London Report November 17, 2015 A RALLY by AstraZeneca after a delay in the approval for a rival drug and strong gains by builder Taylor Wimpey helped the FTSE to a positive day yesterday despite tourism stocks falling in the wake of the deadly attacks in Paris on Friday night. The UK’s blue-chip index closed up 0.46 per cent at [...]
Japan recession: Has Abenomics failed? not quite November 17, 2015 The latest data from Japan revealed that the world’s third largest economy slipped back into recession in the past quarter, at least technically. Has Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “three arrows” plan to revive the Japanese economy – Abenomics – failed in spectacular fashion? Well, yes and no. MIXED PICTURE Let’s start with the economy. [...]
