The good, the bad and the ugly from Las Vegas January 18, 2012 The dust is settling after what turned out to be something of a damp squib at the Consumer Electronics Show. The ultrabook (read: thin laptop) was king, with most manufacturers launching rivals to Apple’s lauded MacBook Air. Mobile had a big presence but hero releases were thin on the ground – perhaps waiting for Mobile [...]
No Lolcats for a day? Now you’ve got me really angry January 18, 2012 The internet is angry. Yesterday icanhascheezburger.com threatened to go offline. And if you take away my pictures of cats yawning, so help me God I’ll cut you. It wasn’t just Lolcats, either. Reddit switched off. And something called Wikipedia (which, as a journalist, I’ve never visited). It was a dark day for the internet. Literally: [...]
City wins court battle to evict St Paul’s protesters January 18, 2012 The City of London Corporation has won its High Court bid to evict protesters from outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The demonstrators have been occupying the site since 15 October when they set up tents in the shadow of the historic building. The corporation applied for a possession order after the Occupy London group ignored an [...]
Goldman Sachs cuts pay as profits plunge 56pc January 18, 2012 Goldman Sachs has been forced to slash pay as the turmoil engulfing the banking industry slammed revenues last year. The bank has announced a 56 per cent fall in fourth quarter profits, earning only $978m (£636m) compared to $2.2bn (£1.4bn) for the same period last year. The earnings report still beat analysts predictions, causing shares [...]
Portuguese bond yields drop January 18, 2012 Portugal has sold €2.5bn (£2.08bn) of short term debt at lower yields than the last equivalent issue. Half the debt was sold in the form of 11 month bonds at an average yield of 4.968 per cent. The last equivalent issue was on April 6 2011, when Portugal sold 12 month bonds at average return [...]
German growth hit by falling exports January 18, 2012 Germany will rely on domestic demand for growth in 2012 after announcing that exports will rise only 2 per cent as imports rise 3 per cent. As a result the Economy Ministry says it expects economic growth to slow to 0.7 per cent in 2012 before increasing to 1.6 per cent in 2013. It had [...]
Resource stocks peg back FTSE January 18, 2012 The FTSE 100 edged down this morning amid continuing fears of a Greek economic meltdown and a lowering of world growth forecasts by the World Bank. Resource stocks were the worst hit overall as the bank predicted world economic growth of 2.5 per cent in 2012 and 3.1 per cent in 2013, well below the [...]
Unemployment hits 17-year high January 18, 2012 The number of Britons out of work rose to its highest level in more than 17 years in November, but a slowdown in benefit claims in December provided some hope that the labour market downturn may be flattening off. The number of people claiming jobless benefit rose by only 1,200 last month after a downwardly [...]
Man Group hit by more client outflows January 18, 2012 Man Group, the world’s biggest listed hedge fund manager, reported a second consecutive quarter of heavy client outflows and announced plans for further cost cuts, as nervous investors pulled out of its poorly-performing funds. The firm, which shocked investors in September when it reported its fastest rate of outflows since early 2009, said clients pulled [...]
Shell and Tullow in Atlantic exploration venture January 18, 2012 Royal Dutch Shell is teaming up with independent explorer Tullow Oil to explore for oil in the Atlantic, in a sign the biggest oil companies accept dramatic measures are needed to turn around their weak record on finding oil. Tullow said the planned partnership would focus on making “transformational” discoveries in “underexplored frontier basins”.
