Defence stocks fuelled up on pledge to keep military spending at 2pc of GDP July 8, 2015 DEFENCE stocks were given ammunition yesterday after the government said it would meet the NATO pledge to spend two per cent of national income on the sector every year of this decade. FTSE 100-quoted BAE Systems saw its share price fire up around 3.5 per cent, while Meggitt shot up more than one per cent [...]
Renewable stocks slide as tax exemption is scrapped July 8, 2015 ANYONE wondering whether Prime Minister David Cameron really told his aides to “cut the green crap” in 2013 may feel more certain after yesterday’s Budget, which scrapped a renewable power exemption from a climate change tax. FTSE 250-listed Drax, which converts “dirty” coal into cleaner biomass, saw its share price plunge more than 28 per [...]
Firms reassured as investment allowance frozen at £200,000 July 8, 2015 BUSINESS groups yesterday heralded the government’s decision to freeze the annual investment allowance at £200,000, although some called for the tax break to be raised higher. The allowance aims to encourage business growth by offering tax relief to small and medium-sized firms investing in equipment, plant and machinery. The allowance is currently set at £500,000 [...]
City Moves for 09 July 2015 | Who’s switching jobs July 8, 2015 Markel International The insurer has appointed David Sawyer as senior underwriter and head of professional indemnity in its professional and financial risks division. He joins from Travelers Insurance Company, where he was responsible for running its professional indemnity portfolio. Axa Investment Managers Paul Squires has been promoted to global head of trading and securities financing [...]
Best of the Brokers for 09 July 2015 July 8, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com ASSOCIATED BRITISH FOODS Panmure Gordon reiterated its “sell” rating on the food group, noting that while there is a positive investment case to be made based upon sustained roll out of Primark, the current valuation already implies double digit growth for the next [...]
FTSE up despite hit for UK housebuilders from budget reforms – London Report July 8, 2015 A RALLY in Barclays after a management shake-up helped Britain’s top share index gain yesterday, but housebuilders took a hit from reforms introduced by finance minister George Osborne. The FTSE 100 closed 0.9 per cent up at 6,490.70 after posting its lowest close since mid-January in the previous session. However, London-exposed housebuilders and estate agents [...]
Tech glitch puts US in the ditch – New York Report July 8, 2015 US STOCKS ended sharply lower on yesterday after a hectic day that included market turmoil in China eclipsing Greece’s debt crisis, while the New York Stock Exchange suffered a major outage. Fears that a rout in Chinese stocks could seriously harm its economy pushed the S&P 500 below its 200-day moving average for the first [...]
Alternative finance in Asia: Cambridge’s Robert Wardrop on this exciting, untapped market July 8, 2015 Alternative finance is a growing business in the West. In 2014, UK peer-to-peer and crowdfunding platforms made £1.74bn available to firms and individuals, with growth of 168 per cent in Britain and 144 per cent across Europe. But what does the landscape look like on other continents? Set to be published by the end [...]
July Budget 2015: George Osborne embraced political cunning at the expense of economic prudence July 8, 2015 On the one hand, this was the first fully Conservative Budget in nearly two decades. On the other hand, it is effectively George Osborne’s third Budget in just eight months. He has become a master magician at the politics of presentation. Almost every sentence was crafted to confound and confuse the Labour opposition or to [...]
The 2015 July Budget did far too little to reform Britain’s highly damaging taxes on banks July 8, 2015 I've been taken aback in recent months by the number of international bank executives who have been telling me just how damaging the UK’s bank taxation policies are. The global banks constantly review where they base their business around the world. They carry out detailed cost-benefit analyses in pounds and pence, or dollars and cents, [...]
