Pennon flush with profit May 24, 2011 Waste and water company Pennon yesterday reported a pre-tax profit rise of 1.5 per cent to £188.5m for the first three months of the year and recommended a final dividend per share up 9.9 per cent to 17.15p. The company says it is well positioned in the current economic conditions with South West Water continuing [...]
Victrex plastics has strong sales May 24, 2011 Hi-tech plastics company Victrex announced a rise in pre-tax profit of 57 per cent to £48.3m boosted by strong sales of its polymer products used in aircraft components and car parts. The company, whose revenues increased as major markets showed a significant recovery, raised its dividend by 25 per cent for the first-half of 2011 [...]
Extended use for Roche drugs May 24, 2011 Roche’s cancer drug MabThera has been recommended as a maintenance drug for NHS patients with follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). NICE said it could postpone the spread and growth of cancer by up to four years.
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS May 24, 2011 May Gurney Margaret Ford, Baroness Ford of Cunninghame, will become non-executive chairman at the company’s AGM on 7 July 2011. In the interim she will be appointed to the board as a non-executive director, with immediate effect. Gurney, 53, recently retired from Serco as senior independent director and has extensive public company experience, including Grainger [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS May 24, 2011 BT UBS has upgraded the telecommunications company to a “buy” and has raised its target price to 230p. The broker has raised its earnings per share forecast ahead of consensus, and notes the firm’s positive earnings growth, which contrasts with mobile-driven earnings cuts for other telecoms firms. UBS is also upbeat about BT’s pensions deficit, [...]
FTSE rallys on commodities but Eurozone doubts linger May 24, 2011 BRITAIN’S top shares rose yesterday as rallying commodity stocks helped the index recover some of its poise, but the advance may be short-lived as investors find themselves hemmed in by Eurozone debt concerns. The FTSE 100 closed up 22.52 points or 0.4 per cent at 5,858.41, having hit a two-month closing low on Monday after [...]
Manufacturing dip affects US shares May 24, 2011 US stocks dipped in light volume yesterday as lingering concerns about a slowdown in growth more than offset gains in energy shares. Investors kept trimming large-cap technology positions, pushing the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lower. The S&P energy sector index rose 1.3 per cent, while its industrials index slipped 0.6 per cent, sending the market down [...]
Forex traders can get a free education if they go online May 24, 2011 THERE is no shortage of online information for forex traders, whether through newswires, providers, dedicated websites, blogs or Twitter. Our favourite, of course, is cityam.com, which you should all visit. Here are some others. WORD ON THE FX STREET Kathleen Brooks of Forex.com says “the Reuters market reports along with FX Street and the Bloomberg [...]
THE PROBLEM WITH THE EURO IS IN THE CORE May 24, 2011 AS CURRENCY markets opened this week in Asia, euro-dollar traders were already on edge, after the Socialists lost badly in Spain and Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded Italy’s sovereign debt. In a report published over the weekend, the ratings agency affirmed Italy’s A+ long-term rating and its top-ranked A-1+ short-term rating but lowered the credit [...]
THE TIPSTER May 24, 2011 A SURPRISE shortfall in tax receipts and news that the Chinese downgraded UK sovereign debt took the shine off sterling in yesterday’s trade, but there’s little reason to be cheering the euro now, either. Eurozone debt concerns remain high and even the release of some marginally better than expected economic readings from Germany isn’t going [...]
