Ithaca profits soar on Valiant deal August 13, 2013 Ithaca Energy, a North Sea oil producer, saw its pre-tax profits in the second quarter jump to $69.1m compared with $21.7m in the same period in 2012, which it attributed to the $309m acquisition of Valiant Petroleum in April. Yet the firm’s Aim-listed shares closed down 3.36 per cent at 115p, with analysts pointing to [...]
Sefton output improves in July August 13, 2013 Aim-listed oil and gas explorer Sefton Resources yesterday said that it had seen a “significant improvement in production” in July, producing an average 171 barrels of oil per day (bopd), totalling 5,308 barrels of oil, compared to 110 bopd, totalling 3,310 barrels of oil, the previous month. The firm added that water disposal issues had [...]
City Moves for 14 August 2013 | Who’s switching jobs August 13, 2013 Aviva Investors The asset management business has announced the appointment of Sunita Kara as portfolio manager for European high yield. Kara has over 14 years’ experience in the investment industry. She was most recently at Baring Asset Management, where she was global high yield portfolio manager. Prior to that, she was a senior credit analyst [...]
Best of the Brokers for 14 August 2013 August 13, 2013 WHITBREAD Panmure Gordon has downgraded the leisure group from “hold” to “sell”, with a decrease in target price from 2688p to 2644p. Despite a strong performance from Costa, the broker thinks that the coffee chain and Premier Inn will reach saturation in the UK sooner than anticipated. HOCHSCHILD MINING UBS has started covering the miner [...]
London Report: Housing pickup sparks rise in blue chip stocks August 13, 2013 F RESH signs of a recovery in the UK housing sector helped nudge Britain’s benchmark share index higher yesterday, with several traders expecting more minor gains over the coming month. The blue-chip FTSE 100 index closed up 0.6 per cent, or 37.60 points, at 6,611.94 points. A survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors [...]
New York Report: Shares lifted by better macro data and Apple August 13, 2013 US STOCKS rose yesterday after strong economic data boosted confidence, while Apple bolstered the Nasdaq after billionaire investor Carl Icahn took to Twitter to reveal a long position in the stock. Rising US retail sales in July, combined with a higher Zew German sentiment index and Eurozone industrial production, painted a rosier picture of the [...]
Housing bubble threat underscores pressing need to revise Help to Buy August 13, 2013 HELP to Buy has been widely criticised by experts, academics and journalists as a dangerous policy. In the long term, in a supply constrained system, simply increasing lending does not build a single extra house. And due to the planning system’s failures, we have an incredibly supply constrained system. From 2000 to 2007 lending doubled, [...]
Against the Grain: We should prescribe zero hours contracts for the Monetary Policy Committee August 13, 2013 THE NEW governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said last week that interest rates will not be raised until unemployment falls below 7 per cent, a process he thinks will take three years. The battle of Austerlitz in 1805 was one of Napoleon’s greatest victories, leading to his complete domination of Continental Europe. [...]
Manufacturing sector’s untapped potential can lift us out of recession August 13, 2013 THE government claimed a “march of the makers” would drive Britain out of recession. Fast-forward a few years, and it might just be becoming a reality. Figures last week showed UK manufacturing is on the up – rising at its highest pace since the end of 2010. Overall output rose by 1.9 per cent in [...]
Letters to the editor – 14/13 – Fracking safety, Silicon Roundabout, Best of Twitter August 13, 2013 Fracking safety [Re: Is David Cameron right to say the UK is missing out by not exploiting shale reserves? Monday] David Morris MP’s comments are to be welcomed. To say that fracking is dangerous is unfounded. It can be carried out sensibly and carefully by skilled engineers. Consider this: in some towns and cities in [...]
