Black Ops sells 5m copies on first day November 9, 2010 Activision Blizzard’s new installment of its Call of Duty franchise sold an estimated 5m units during its first 24 hours on sale. Call of Duty: Black Ops, released yesterday, is widely tipped to have outsold last year’s Modern Warfare 2, which shifted 4.7m copies in its first day on sale. Shares in the firm surged [...]
Number of London-based firms in trouble is up 84pc since 2009 November 9, 2010 THE number of London businesses in financial difficulties increased dramatically last month according to new figures from a Begbies Traynor/City A.M. study. Across the UK a staggering 40 per cent more firms are in financial dire straits than in the depths of the recession in January 2009. In London this grows to 84 per cent [...]
The markets think that the G20 is a talking shop November 9, 2010 YOU HAVE to feel slightly sorry for modern diplomats. Whereas in 1944, Stalin and Churchill could carve up Europe on the back of an envelope, now, the leaders of the world’s twenty largest economies cannot even decide on the simple matter of financial reform. The G20 meeting, due to begin on Thursday, is looking like [...]
France passes controversial pensions bill November 9, 2010 France’s Constitutional Council approved President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pension bill yesterday, clearing the last hurdle to a controversial reform that will raise the retirement age by two years to stem a huge pension deficit. Despite a late challenge by the opposition Socialist party, the council ruled that the proposed pension law does not breach constitutional rules. [...]
AUSSIE NOW VULNERABLE TO A SELL-OFF November 9, 2010 DIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT IN CONTRAST to last week’s wild gyrations in the currency market, this week promises to be considerably more sedate. After the Fed announced $600bn in additional QE and the better than expected US jobs report, the FX market turned very bullish with traders ploughing into high-yield currencies like the Australian [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 9, 2010 Colliers International Anthony Michael Horrell has taken up the chief executive’s mantle at the real estate advisory firm. The 49-year-old was until recently head of Jones Lang LaSalle’s capital markets group in Europe, spearheading the expansion of the international capital markets business. He spent a total of 27 years at the firm and is also [...]
The spotlight will shine on periphery woes November 9, 2010 IRELAND is in trouble. The markets think it’s more likely to default on its debt than Argentina. It’s not alone though. Portugal is having a rough time too. Yesterday Portuguese and Irish 10-year bond yields hit 7.94 and 6.67 per cent respectively – record highs since the launch of the euro. The euro duly fell [...]
THE TIPSTER November 9, 2010 WITH currency wars high on the agenda at the G20 meeting this week, Barack Obama may face attacks over the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy. The dollar-yen pairing could be particularly worth watching, as Japan explicitly intervened in the foreign exchange market only a few months ago. Trading continues at around the ¥80–¥81 area, but [...]
Chevron snaps up rival Atlas Energy November 9, 2010 Chevron has agreed to buy US natural gas producer Atlas Energy for $3.2bn (£1.9bn), excluding debt, becoming the latest energy giant to break into into the lucrative Marcellus shale field. The field in Pennsylvania and surrounding states, one of the largest US natural gas finds in decades, has attracted a crush of industry heavyweights that [...]
FOREX ANALYST PICKS November 9, 2010 FOREX STRATEGIST ILYA SPIVAK My pick: Short euro-US dollar near $1.41 Expertise: Global macro Average time frame of trades: 1 week-6 months Euro-US dollar has fallen sharply to start the week and a deeper downward correction looks likely given that the rally can be retraced back to August when the Fed first introduced the idea [...]
