Splunk expects $10 IPO pricing April 9, 2012 SPLUNK, which makes software that collects and indexes data, said it expects its initial public offering of 13.5m shares to be priced between $8 and $10 apiece. In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it plans to sell about 12.5m shares, with its selling stockholders offering the rest. At [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS April 9, 2012 Oriel Securities The UK corporate and institutional stockbroker and advisory firm has announced the appointment of David Knox as head of equities. Knox joins in June from JP Morgan Cazenove, where he served as head of equity research and a member of the executive committee. GW Pharmaceuticals The AIM-listed pharmaceutical company has announced that David [...]
BEST of the BROKERS April 9, 2012 ASHMORE House broker UBS has upgraded the emerging markets fund manager from “neutral” to “buy” and upped its target price from 400p to 420p following recent share price underperformance and record inflows. The broker sees significant structural opportunities for growth in emerging market assets. BTG Deutsche Bank rates the specialist healthcare company as a “buy” [...]
Dow and S&P both end lower for fourth day April 9, 2012 THE Dow and the S&P 500 extended losses to a fourth day yesterday, as investors took their cues from last week’s disappointing jobs report, which raised fresh concerns about the US economy’s recovery. Despite yesterday’s declines, the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 ended above their session lows. But trading has been choppy in recent [...]
Would YOU do the right thing? A business ethics quiz with a twist April 9, 2012 IMAGINE you return from the Easter break to face the following dilemma. You are a non-executive director of a firm of fund managers. One of your firm’s star managers, Brian Poole, after spells as a fund manager with a number of competitors, has now been with your firm for seven years. Due to his consistent [...]
Bad numeracy is a black mark for British prospects April 9, 2012 LAST month saw the launch of a small charity with a big ambition – to improve the state of numeracy in the UK. National Numeracy aims to draw attention to a problem known about for decades but which, despite periodic hand-wringing, we’ve not yet fixed. Nearly 17m people in England – almost half the working-age [...]
Why Britain’s income tax system is already astonishingly progressive April 9, 2012 IF YOU want to say that something is too high or too low, you need to know its current level first. For instance, imagine a survey that suggests a majority of the public wants government to increase spending on defence. I would be immediately sceptical of such findings for two reasons. Firstly, the responder is [...]
After many years in a bull market, is it still a good time to stake your wealth on gold? April 9, 2012 YES Tom Clougherty Gold isn’t a traditional investment good: it is an alternative to paper money. From that perspective, its allure is all too clear. The purchasing power of gold is as good now as it was in 1900. The pound lost 99 per cent of its value over the same period. As a store [...]
RAPID responses April 9, 2012 Crime mustn’t pay [Re: We need a more radical answer to London’s crime-fighting nightmare, Wednesday] Jamie Whyte believes attaching revenue to policing would reduce crime. He hasn’t considered the wider consequences of a purely financially motivated police force: more corruption, greater reluctance to report crimes and reduced trust from the public. The police’s important impartial [...]
A new tax year: Start it as you mean to go on April 9, 2012 GOOD intentions are rarely in short supply, but most people are running huge deficits in acting on them. As always, the lead-up to the end of the last financial year saw a last-minute flurry of activity, with people rushing to sort out their tax, pensions and Isas. Old habits die hard, but it would pay [...]
