BEST OF THE BROKERS February 16, 2012 ROLLS-ROYCE Investec rates the aerospace and defence giant “buy” with a target price of 850p. The broker has lifted its pre-tax profit forecasts by two per cent for this year, with defence and new acquisition Tognum more than offsetting lower profits at marine and energy. Investec now predicts pre-tax profit of £1.5bn in 2012. It [...]
FTSE bounces off lows after good US data February 16, 2012 BRITAIN’S FTSE 100 closed off intraday lows yesterday as upbeat US economic data brought some cheer to an otherwise gloomy macro outlook, helping oil stocks pare losses, while banks and miners sagged as Greece’s debt crisis rumbled on. London’s blue chip index closed down 6.78 points, or 0.1 per cent at 5,885.38, bouncing off an [...]
S&P hits a nine week high on hope for Greece February 16, 2012 THE S&P 500 hit a nine-month high yesterday, fueled by strong US economic data and increased hopes for a deal on a Greek bailout next week. The benchmark index posted its strongest percentage gain in two weeks, bouncing back from several sessions of back-and-forth action. Sectors sensitive to economic growth paced the market, with technology, [...]
Ireland is plagued with debt it cannot repay and remains exposed to euro contagion February 16, 2012 FOR many, Ireland is the poster boy for how to deal with a banking crisis. I disagree. Lauded by European governments for its quick decisive actions, Ireland effectively contributed to bailing out the entire European banking system and, in doing so, has left a legacy of bankruptcy that puts huge financial pressure on its citizens [...]
We need better communication, not extra rules February 16, 2012 BRITAIN’S comply-or-explain system of corporate governance has come in for some stick in Brussels since the banking crisis. Sometimes dubbed self-regulation, it is seen as unreliable, and a number of senior officials have indicated their preference for codes to be replaced by more prescriptive regulation. Yet the facts tell a different story. Systematic research by [...]
Licensing journalists – it’s just not very British February 16, 2012 OUR national poets understood how much freedom matters. Milton! you should be living at this hour: England has need of you – William Wordsworth sighed at the dawn of the nineteenth century. In the second decade of the twenty-first, when British journalists are rounded up by the police in dawn raids and both a senior [...]
RAPID RESPONSES February 16, 2012 Debt is soaring [Re: The real reasons why the UK is in trouble, Wednesday] Government spending has exceeded income for most years post WWII. There is a cycle which goes from growth, when tax receipts eventually catch up with spending, almost immediately followed by recession, when deficits return. The busts have been getting ever bigger [...]
TANK GOODNESS February 16, 2012 THE war machines which lumbered across the battlefields of World War One might seem odd inspiration for a watch seen as the last word in chic, but that’s supposedly how the Cartier Tank got its name. Louis Cartier, the original genius of wristwatch design, apparently saw some French Renault battle tanks and dreamed up the [...]
GMT WATCHES Time for travellers February 16, 2012 BEING an hour behind the rest of the Continent is probably rather proudly lodged in the British psyche – as is the fact that it’s actually they who are out from us, or rather from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), from where the world is divided into its 24 time zones. For a Brit, the fact [...]
It’s getting haute in here February 16, 2012 THE high-luxury watch world’s favourite device is the tourbillon – the word means “whirlwind” in French, and denotes a mechanism which mounts a watch’s escapement (the vibrating part regulating power from the mainspring) in a constantly rotating cage to counteract the effects of gravity on accuracy. Nowadays everyone and his brother puts these hypnotic gizmos [...]
