FTSE hits a one-month low as financial stocks plummet January 21, 2010 ASHARP retreat in miners on sinking metal prices and worry about a tax from Australia and weakness in banks on fears about US curbs pushed Britain’s top share index 1.6 per cent lower by the close on Thursday. The FTSE 100 index ended 85.70 points lower at 5,335.10, its lowest since 22 December. The index [...]
Wall St recoils over Obama bank plans January 21, 2010 US stocks suffered their worst one-day percentage drop since October yesterday as US President Barack Obama proposed tough restrictions on banks that would squeeze profits. Major banks slid, with Goldman Sachs falling 4.1 per cent despite posting stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter results, and JPMorgan Chase shed 6.6 per cent, after Obama proposed limiting how banks invest their [...]
EX-BANKING HOTSHOTS DON’T HOLD A GRUDGE January 21, 2010 ON the face of it, you’d have thought there would be a good deal of simmering resentment beneath the surface of the outward relationship between Sir James Sassoon – the investment banker-turned-Treasury finance guru-turned-Tory bank adviser – and Financial Service Authority (FSA) chief Hector Sants. Sassoon last year caused a storm when he authored that [...]
Car sales plunge despite scrappage scheme January 21, 2010 CAR production plunged last year despite a late surge fuelled by the Government’s scrappage scheme. Many companies cut back on manufacturing early in the year as recession-hit Brits cut back. Honda was one of the companies badly hit – reducing production at its plant in Swindon, Wiltshire, for four months from February. The introduction of [...]
Tube strike over Jubilee line pay row January 21, 2010 LONDON Underground maintenance workers on the Jubilee Line are to stage a series of 24-hour walkouts in a row over pay. Members of the Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT) employed by Alstom on the Jubilee line will walk out from 7.29pm next Wednesday. They will also strike each Sunday evening at the same time [...]
Rusal raises $2.2bn with Hong Kong listing January 21, 2010 RUSSIAN aluminium giant Rusal has sold $2.2bn (£1.36bn) of shares in a public listing in Hong Kong. Rusal sold 1.61bn shares at 10.80 Hong Kong dollars (86 pence) each. Shares in the company will start trading on 27 January. Rusal, which is the first Russian company to list in Hong Kong, is controlled by the [...]
Fraud costs UK economy £30bn a year January 21, 2010 FRAUD costs the UK £30bn every year – more than double previous estimates. The total equates to £621 per adult in the UK, according to the annual report buy the National Fraud Authority. A massive 58 per cent of fraud was in the public sector at a cost of £17bn. False insurance claims cost the [...]
John Lewis sales up after thaw January 21, 2010 JOHN Lewis’s sales shot up last week as the big thaw saw customers flooding back. The department store chain reported an 11.1 per cent rise in turnover – with more than half its outlets up on last year’s equivalent sales. Fashion sales were up 19 per cent with cold weather clothing. Oxford Street grew sales [...]
New rules would be bad for London January 21, 2010 HOW predictable. No sooner was Barack Obama humiliated by the Massachusetts electorate earlier this week – his left-wing candidate lost Ted Kennedy’s ultra safe seat to a radical conservative – than he announces another war on Wall Street. It is easy to forget in Britain, where Obama remains extraordinarily popular, that his administration is no [...]
Tories give their full support to Obama’s plans January 21, 2010 THE Tories yesterday threw their weight behind Barack Obama’s plans to break up Wall Street institutions and hinted that a Conservative government could follow suit. “This is a welcome move by President Obama that accords very much with our thinking. I have said consistently that we should look at separating retail banking from activities like [...]
