Tobacco firms take the puff out of FTSE amid merger talks – London Report March 31, 2015 WEAKER tobacco and commodity company stocks hit Britain’s leading share index yesterday – but the FTSE 100 still managed to make its biggest quarterly gain since 2013. The FTSE was down 118.39 points, or 1.7 per cent, at 6,773.04 by the close, but is up 3.2 per cent this year. Consumer staple stocks were responsible [...]
Stocks retreat on energy fall – New York Report March 31, 2015 US STOCKS ended down yesterday in a retreat from the previous session’s sharp rally as energy shares declined and the dollar edged up. However, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq registered their ninth straight quarterly rise. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 200.19 points, or 1.11 per cent, to 17,776.12, the S&P 500 lost 18.35 points, [...]
Labour’s corporation tax plans would be a disaster for investment and growth March 31, 2015 The most important challenge facing the British economy today is finding ways to increase productivity growth. So it was particularly disappointing to hear shadow chancellor Ed Balls confirm yesterday that Labour would increase corporation tax to 21 per cent if it wins the General Election. Even worse, instead of then pledging to keep the tax [...]
Zero inflation is the new normal: The world can’t evade its debts forever March 31, 2015 Zero inflation is trending. The consumer price index in the UK was at the same level in February as it was a year earlier. The reporting of this figure on the BBC website created some unintended amusement, however. The drop to zero, we were told, was “sharper than many analysts had expected”. And what was [...]
Forget the media darling equity: Debt is the biggest area of UK crowdfunding March 31, 2015 City A.M. published an article last week entitled Crowdfunding: A brief history. It acknowledged that there are four types of crowdfunding – donation, rewards-based, debt and equity – and yet the entire piece focused on equity crowdfunding. At the end of last year, Cambridge University and Nesta released a report called Understanding Alternative Finance. It [...]
As deflation eases and unemployment falls, has the Eurozone finally turned a corner? March 31, 2015 Christian Schulz is senior economist at Berenberg, says Yes The tailwinds of cheap oil, an undervalued euro and aggressive ECB monetary easing have already propelled business, investor and consumer confidence indices across the Eurozone to multi-year highs, even though this is only beginning to filter through to the real economy. Above-trend growth is now baked [...]
Pensions: Act now to avoid 55 per cent tax March 31, 2015 Don’t be caught out by the lower lifetime savings allowance. New rules on the total amount of money that can be saved tax-free in a pension are set to come into force in April 2016. The lifetime allowance was £1.8m in 2011-12, but George Osborne reduced this to £1.25m in 2014, and the limit will [...]
What Google’s new office can teach other firms March 31, 2015 You can achieve real flexible working without the tech giant’s budget. Google received its customary share of attention when it released plans for a new headquarters in California recently. While the workplaces most of us travel to each day may not yet reflect the tech giant’s utopian Mountain View vision, the plans provide a glimpse [...]
Restaurant review: Second time lucky for Kensington’s Zaika? March 31, 2015 Zaika has a pleasingly convoluted history. Pay attention, now. It opened in 1999 under the auspices of chef Vineet Bhati and two years later won a Michelin star – the first time an Indian restaurant had received the accolade (two did that year). It held onto the star for four years, during which time it moved [...]
Mix it up: In praise of SushiSamba’s Kobe Cocktail and the inimitable Tom Yam March 31, 2015 For years I’ve been hearing the general buzz about Heron Tower’s bars and restaurants, but until recently I hadn’t taken the memorable ride in its near supersonic elevator to find out more. Prior to my elevation, I had conflated the building’s Japanese-Brazilian-Peruvian SushiSamba with its modern European Duck & Waffle into a mush of quacking [...]
