Best of the Brokers November 18, 2012 COMPASS Panmure Gordon has a “buy” rating on the outsourcing firm and an 820p price target ahead of results on Wednesday. The broker expects eight per cent operating profit growth. WM MORRISON UBS has cut its rating from “buy” to “neutral” and slashed its target from 340p to 270p. The broker thinks the supermarket’s trading [...]
Bank minutes to show appetite for QE as public borrowing is revealed November 18, 2012 MINUTES from the Bank of England’s November monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting will this week give further clues about the appetite for further quantitative easing (QE) and the extent to which the recent rise in inflation has affected the committee’s decision making. The release is due out on Wednesday, along with public sector net borrowing [...]
So-called fiscal cliff could lead to opportunity November 18, 2012 THE 1987 crash. The Y2K bug. The debt ceiling debacle of 2011. All these events, in the end, turned out to be buying opportunities for stocks. So will the fiscal cliff, some investors say as they watch favourite stocks tumble during the political give-and-take happening in Washington. The first round of talks aimed at avoiding [...]
China’s new leaders may struggle to fulfill their immense ambitions November 18, 2012 CHINA has announced its new leadership line-up. It’s a hugely significant event for the world’s second largest economy – indeed. for the world more generally. The new (and old) faces revealed last week will run the country for the next ten years. And their programme is certainly ambitious. On his first day in office, China’s [...]
The City is successfully adapting to a new role among its global competitors November 18, 2012 IN the past month, post-Olympics euphoria has been replaced by a more sober atmosphere. Downgraded growth forecasts and increased inflation expectations paint a decidedly mixed picture of the state of the economy. And to add to the woes, last week the Centre for Economics and Business Research claimed that the number of financial services jobs [...]
A radical proposal to rid Britain of its painful tax on jobs November 18, 2012 AS GEORGE Osborne approaches his Autumn Statement, there’s reason to hope he may finally do something about a tax albatross that hangs around the necks of employers and workers alike: national insurance. A consultation on integrating national insurance with income tax was first announced in the 2012 Budget, scheduled for this summer and then postponed [...]
Syria, the Gaza conflict and the rest: Is the Middle East crisis spiralling out of control? November 18, 2012 YES Allan Hogarth The situation in the Middle East is spinning dangerously out of control. The government ought to be playing a key diplomatic role in protecting human rights. We’d like to see them stressing the human cost of further escalation in the Middle East, and warning all combatants in Syria that there will be [...]
Rapid responses November 18, 2012 Reform agendas [Re: Will the new Chinese leadership implement necessary economic and political reforms? Friday] Maintaining the status quo isn’t an option. It would jeopardise the future of the Communist party. But the party has a habit of reinventing itself and I am cautiously optimistic that it will again. Success will depend on two things. [...]
Guard yourself against the dangers of biting inflation November 18, 2012 INFLATION is a silent thief that can rob the value of your investment capital. The consumer price index rose by 2.7 per cent in the year to October, up from 2.2 per cent in September. Though some argue that it will come down again, it has overshot the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target [...]
Why going for gold could be a wise investment choice November 18, 2012 GLOBAL gold demand may be on the decline – down 11 per cent, or 138.9 tonnes from the third quarter of 2011. But it has had a series of highs since the economic downturn. Gold is the classic “store of value”. It’s traditionally seen as a safe haven in troubled times, providing a hedge against [...]
