UK trade deficit rises from 2-year low March 13, 2012 The UK’s goods trade deficit widened less than expected in January, keeping hopes alive that the economy is rebalancing. Total goods exports to non-EU countries rose to a record high, helped by car sales to the United States, Russia and China. Total oil exports also hit a record peak due to higher oil prices, though [...]
Standard Life profits surge March 13, 2012 STANDARD Life reported a better-than-expected 28 per cent increase in its 2011 profit, helped by cost cuts and a strong performance at its Canadian unit. Edinburgh-based Standard Life, Britain’s fifth-biggest insurer, made a pre-tax operating profit of £544m last year, ahead of the £476m expected by analysts. The improvement was driven in part by £45m [...]
UK and Europe on a collision course March 13, 2012 IT is the elephant in the room, the issue nobody wants to talk about. But the growing, irreconcilable gulf between what UK voters and their continental counterparts want from European integration will eventually become as important a question as the fallout from the economic crisis. The scale of the challenge is laid bare by YouGov-Cambridge [...]
Women now make up a quarter of new FTSE board members March 12, 2012 A QUARTER of new FTSE 100 board hires made in 2011 were female, research will reveal this morning, in a new record that highlights a dramatic change at the top of Britain’s largest companies. Of the 190 appointments made to FTSE 100 boards during 2011, 47 were women, boosting the total number of female-held directorships [...]
Housing plan under attack March 12, 2012 THE GOVERNMENT will back up high loan to value mortgages worth up to £500,000, it announced yesterday, as the scheme was attacked as ineffective and economically dangerous. “The government’s NewBuy guarantee scheme, like many such schemes over the years, smacks of desperation,” said Jonathan Samuels, CEO of Dragonfly Property Finance. “The concern is that NewBuy [...]
UK and Europe on a collision course March 12, 2012 IT is the elephant in the room, the issue nobody wants to talk about. But the growing, irreconcilable gulf between what UK voters and their continental counterparts want from European integration will eventually become as important a question as the fallout from the economic crisis. The scale of the challenge is laid bare by YouGov-Cambridge [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 12, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES EARNINGS FORECASTS TAKE A BULLISH TURN Analysts last week upgraded more companies’ earnings forecasts globally than they downgraded for the first time since May last year. After 41 weeks of consecutive downgrades, net earnings per share revisions for next year turned positive powered by a surge in upgrades of Japanese companies and industrial [...]
Yahoo is suing Facebook March 12, 2012 YAHOO is suing Facebook over 10 patents that include methods and systems for advertising on the web, opening the first major legal battle among social media’s technology giants. The lawsuit, filed in a San Jose, California federal court yesterday, marks a major escalation of patent litigation that has already swept through the smartphone and tablet [...]
CME loses its chief executive March 12, 2012 Craig Donohue is to step down as chief executive of US futures exchange operator CME Group at the end of the year, handing over the reins to CME’s president Phupinder Gill, the company said yesterday. Chairman Terrence Duffy, who has been the face of the company as it navigates the fallout from the failure last [...]
WTO rules on Boeing subsidies March 12, 2012 The World Trade Organisation said yesterday it had upheld the bulk of a ruling that Boeing received billions of dollars of subsidies to compete with Europe’s Airbus as both sides once again claimed victory in a long-running trade row. The unfair subsidies included at least $2.6bn (£1.7bn) in assistance from space agency NASA, which the [...]
