Best of the Brokers September 17, 2012 RBS Investec has cut the bank from “hold” to “sell” with a price target of 245p. The broker believes RBS’s return on equity is too weak to prop up its current share price. ADMIRAL Espirito Santo has lowered its rating to “sell” with a fair value price of 900p. The broker thinks the insurer is [...]
FTSE retreats from half-year highs reached after Federal Reserve fillip September 17, 2012 BRITAIN’S FTSE 100 retreated from half-year highs yesterday, in what strategists said was likely to be a profit-taking pause in a threemonth- long rally stimulated by global central banks. The benchmark share index has risen some 12 per cent since the start of June, propelled by expectations of central bank action that took effect in [...]
Scrapping dysfunctional GCSEs will return rigour to British classrooms September 17, 2012 CONSIDERING the howls of outrage that greeted this year’s GCSE results, the reaction to Michael Gove’s new English Baccalaureate Certificate has been surprisingly muted. This is not altogether surprising: GCSEs are corrupt and corrupting, and it’s hard to find a teacher with anything good to say about them. Under New Labour, ministers showed little evidence [...]
Fiscal stimulus: Too much of a good thing can prove a country’s undoing September 17, 2012 IN THEORY, when the economy is performing below its potential, governments can get things moving with a well-designed fiscal stimulus. Sadly, in practice, a stimulus is rarely well-designed, and even their greatest advocates are forced to ignore history and argue that “this time will be different”. Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has admitted that the [...]
Ten golden rules of investing September 17, 2012 IT IS often tempting for companies to expand capacity or even invest in areas outside their core area of expertise. One should be very wary of such ambition, as it naturally means a reduction in focus on core capacity, let alone the implications for balance sheets. A focus on the top line tends to be [...]
One year after the start of Occupy Wall Street, has the movement had any positive impact? September 17, 2012 YES Sam Bowman Occupy asked the right questions. The Great Recession ravaged the people at the bottom of society, while governments have spent trillions of pounds protecting the ones at the top. Some have called Occupy anti-capitalist, but its target has mainly been the incestuous relationship between big business and the state. Rightly so. We [...]
Rapid Responses September 17, 2012 Economic renewal [Re: Welcome to the New Normal: Pay can go down as well as up, yesterday] This article is right. Politicians must grapple with a new reality – the UK is unlikely to see real wage growth again unless it faces up to some extremely unwelcome truths. However, a painful process of stagnant wages [...]
Learning how to live with open-ended QE September 17, 2012 FEDERAL Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke last week did what the markets had been waiting for. He announced that the US central bank would be rolling out another round of its controversial quantitative easing program (QE3). The Fed will commit to monthly asset purchases of $40bn (£ 24bn) until a substantial improvement is seen in the [...]
A Grexit scenario may be disastrous for Germany September 17, 2012 FX360 ACCORDING to a recent report, some economists predict that the likelihood of a Greek exit (Grexit) from the European Monetary Union (EMU) is between 50 and 75 per cent. Some even put the chances 90 per cent – an awfully high number. If Greece does leave the EMU, we should consider the potential unintended [...]
The Tipster | Imperially smoked September 17, 2012 AFTER a difficult period in early September, investors in Imperial Tobacco will be hoping that Thursday’s update will give the company momentum. Share prices sit in the middle of its 52-week range, after being hit by Russia’s ban on smoking in public. But continued growth in emerging markets should give investors something to cheer about. [...]
