BEST OF THE BROKERS December 8, 2010 XSTRATA Standard & Poor’s rates the miner “buy” with a target price of £14.61. The broker was impressed by the firm’s confident outlook at a recent investor day, when it announced $23bn extra investment over the next five years that S&P thinks will grow volumes by 80 per cent compared with 2009. It adds the [...]
FTSE to touch 6,300 in 2011, finds survey December 8, 2010 BRITAIN’S FTSE 100 is seen gaining more than eight per cent by the end of 2011, with equity investors shrugging off economic gloom, a Reuters poll, published yesterday, found. The median forecast of 19 equity strategists indicated the FTSE 100 would rise to 5,950 by mid-2011, up 2.4 per cent from its close on Tuesday [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS December 8, 2010 Monitise Monitise, the mobile money firm, has appointed Sushovan Hussain (pictured) to the board as a non-executive director. Sushovan has worked at Autonomy Corporation and LASMO. In addition, Monitise has hired Peter Radcliffe as chairman of emerging markets. Currently a non-executive director, Radcliffe will move to the management side of the business to oversee the [...]
CITY VIEWS: DO YOU THINK THE FTSE 100’S RALLY WILL CONTINUE? December 8, 2010 ALI ALIDJAN | THOMAS EXCHANGE “I find every bit of this good news, because things are getting much better. Investors have more confidence in the future. Everything that’s low is only going to get better again.” GAVIN CLARK | GARTMORE “I think it could be too early to tell. For one thing, the housing market [...]
Ireland takes tough medicine December 7, 2010 EUROZONE leaders breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as the Irish parliament narrowly elected to swallow the bitter pill of fiscal austerity in return for its €85bn (£72bn) bailout. Eighty-two MPs voted in favour and 77 against the plan to deliver €6bn of budget cuts next year. Finance minister Brian Lenihan said the budget, which [...]
Halliburton man missed rig dangers December 7, 2010 AN ENGINEER responsible for monitoring gas levels on BP’s ill-fated Deepwater Horizon rig missed clues it was about to explode because he had gone out for a cigarette, a US panel probing the accident heard yesterday. Joseph E. Keith, who worked for Halliburton’s Sperry subsidiary, failed to see pressure data indicating the well was filling [...]
Insider trade probe widens December 7, 2010 US authorities have expanded an investigation into insider trading on Wall Street, bringing to more than one dozen the number of subpoenas sent to hedge funds and other investment firms over the past two weeks. The new subpoenas signalled an intensification of one strand of the investigation, which focuses on funds that did business with [...]
Public sector must do more with less December 7, 2010 AN intriguing book has just dropped onto my desk (and no, I’m not referring to Gordon Brown’s massive self-justificatory opus, which I shall ignore for as long as possible). Called More with Less, it summarises the findings of one of the largest independent studies into public sector performance in the UK to date, conducted by [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING December 7, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES FSA CHIEF WARNS ON BANK RULES Ensuring that the heads of failed banks face punishment would likely require a set of rules that held them to higher standards than other company directors, the head of the City watchdog has warned. Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, makes this argument while defending [...]
Stanford in drug plea December 7, 2010 BILLIONAIRE Allen Stanford, accused of leading a $7bn (£4.4bn) investment fraud scheme, is on so much medication he is unable to prepare for his upcoming trial, his lawyer said in a bid for bail. Stanford has been on drugs since a fellow in-mate attacked him in September 2009, which left him with concussion, brain injury [...]
