Philips needs solid numbers if he’s to see through his three-year plan – Bottom Line September 11, 2014 So you’ve had a row with your other half, and the next day, with the ensuing awkwardness still lingering, your eyes drift towards the posh chocolates in Waitrose. Combine ’em with some flowers, you reckon – chuck in a faux-sentimental card and maybe even a two-day break in Bruges – and hey presto, problem solved. [...]
Manchester United’s share price gets a kicking in run up to results September 8, 2014 Manchester United’s embarrassing start to the football season appears to be weighing heavily on the club’s stock, with shares in New York tumbling by a further 4.5 per cent yesterday. The drop reflects an increasingly bearish sentiment among investors towards the club, which publishes its latest set of results tomorrow. Shares reached a peak of [...]
Think tank says most pensioners have saved more than they need September 8, 2014 THE VAST majority of couples who have retired over the last decade are financially comfortable enough to carry on with their standards of living, according to a leading think tank report published today. The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) says that 80 per cent of couples born in the 1940s have annual gross pension income at 65 [...]
Euro tanks after Draghi unveils surprise stimulus September 4, 2014 THE EURO took a nosedive yesterday after central bank chief Mario Draghi surprised markets with a new wave of dovish policies designed to help save the ailing single currency area. Interest rates were cut to fresh record lows, while Draghi’s European Central Bank (ECB) will also try to boost credit conditions further by snapping up [...]
Planning laws are a threat to this house-building bull run – Bottom Line September 2, 2014 Rising revenues and climbing profits have become par for the course for British house-builders this summer. Redrow was the latest to post a bullish update yesterday, boosted by the coalition’s controversial Help-to-Buy programme which effectively uses taxpayer cash to prop up cash-poor house-hunters. But despite this gift to construction firms’ bottom lines, the government is [...]
A step towards Scottish independence? TV debate victory sees Yes camp narrow the gap September 1, 2014 The likelihood of Scotland breaking apart from the rest of the UK appears to have been significantly boosted by last week’s TV debate between First Minister Alex Salmond and ex-chancellor Alistair Darling. With just over a fortnight until Scotland goes to the polls, a shock survey published last night reveals a seven-point swing towards support for [...]
Advertising giant WPP need not fret over black swans – Bottom Line August 26, 2014 The sun, I hope, has finally made an appearance this morning, to remind us that – despite this week’s cold and wind and rain – we are still, technically, in summertime. There have been several common themes to the summer months of 2014. A constant stream of miserable data about the Eurozone economy, is one. [...]
Marshall Plan needs more than a cash boost – Bottom Line August 20, 2014 ANTHONY Gutman, the Goldman Sachs banker, is something of a high-flyer. Having worked on several of the biggest deals of 2014, his summer job has been to advise Balfour Beatty over the proposed merger with Carillion. This may have been an intriguing situation to manage at first, back when the chairmen of the two construction [...]
Banker belt boom outside London will be a boon to Bovis Homes – Bottom Line August 18, 2014 Six weeks ago I wrote on these pages that I thought there was “scope for housebuilders to continue their bull run”. Bovis Homes is thus well and truly in my good books. Yesterday’s strong set of results boosted its share price, which is now 7.5 per cent higher than when I penned my last bullish [...]
Three reasons why it looks like wages are doing so badly – Bottom Line August 17, 2014 The picture seemed to be crystal clear. With pay packets getting smaller, and Bank of England governor Mark Carney striking a notably dovish tone, any rise in interest rates could be assumed to be some way off. This was the mood half-way through last week, when the pound dropped more than one cent against the [...]
