House prices plunge July 21, 2008 Distressed sellers driving the gloomy housing market down cut average asking prices by a dramatic £4,345 or 1.8 per cent in July, new figures out today show. The 1.8 per cent fall in values this month follows a 1.2 per cent drop in June, as house prices registered their first year-on-year decline since property website [...]
Reprieve for foreign profit taxation plan July 21, 2008 Chancellor Alistair Darling is considering axe-ing unpopular plans to reform the taxation of foreign profits that threatened to drive businesses away to tax havens outside the UK. Since the Treasury set out proposals last year to clamp down on tax avoidance, including introducing UK taxes on foreign profits and passive income, several companies have already [...]
City: FTSE to bounce back July 21, 2008 London’s benchmark equity market could stage a dramatic recovery by the end of this year, according to leading strategists who predict the FTSE 100 will end the year above 6,000. Analysts at brokerages Charles Stanley and Brewin Dolphin expect the FTSE 100 to end the year at 6,800 and 6,200 respectively. The more optimistic forecasts [...]
HBOS suffers rights issue humiliation July 21, 2008 Morgan Stanley and Dresdner Kleinwort to lose tens of millions of pounds on the deal High street banking group HBOS is today expected to announce that as few as 10 per cent of investors took up its £4bn share offer, making it one of the biggest rights issue failures in corporate history. Shareholders, who were [...]
Padraig deserves his place on the list of all-time greats July 21, 2008 Carnoustie 12 months ago we aw one of the most dramatic and nail-biting finishes in Open Championship history. At Royal Birkdale yesterday, we probably witnessed the best closing nine holes ever to win an Open. Two contrasting ways of winning golf’s greatest prize but one winner in Padraig Harrington – a deserved back-to-back champion. Not [...]
Centurion De Villiers spurred on by Headingley jeers July 21, 2008 AB de Villiers insisted he was motivated by the boos of the home crowd as he batted the tourists into a commanding position in the second Test against England. The South African hero was jeered by the Headingley fans after claiming a slip catch off Andrew Strauss on the opening day, despite clearly spilling it [...]
Ditch the crystal ball and just keep on trading to win July 21, 2008 It’s impossible to call the market’s bottom, so stick to trading its actual moves, says Sandy Jadeja Has the market reached an important low, and are stocks cheap? That’s a crucial question, but given present market conditions, also a tricky one. For several weeks now I have been arguing that the FTSE 100 would need [...]
Rising food costs getting you down? Try a spread bet July 21, 2008 A spread bet on commodities offers you an excellent opportunity to get even, according to Katie Hope You would have had to have spent the past year in a cave not to be interested in commodities. For car drivers, the price of petrol is an ever-growing concern, while rising food prices have caused riots in [...]
Brown calls for release of five Britons July 21, 2008 Gordon Brown called for the release of five British hostages held in Iraq yesterday, after the release of a video claiming that one had killed himself. earlier this year. The prime minister, who is visiting Israel, described the video as “abhorrent”. He said: “I call on the hostage-takers to release those people who have been [...]
London and New York need each other July 21, 2008 Much fuss is made about the “lead” or “lag” that London shows vis-ą-vis New York in the financial and business sector. Whenever studies such as the Global Financial Centres Index report is published, many commentators pore over the tables to see by what degree London or New York is ahead. This misses the point: more [...]
