Lenders sell off Connaught loans August 4, 2010 Lenders to troubled housing maintenance firm Connaught have begun to sell off their loans to private equity firms. Barclays has already disposed of its exposure, while other non-primary lenders Bank of Ireland and Lloyds are understood to have made moves to sell out. “It’s just a sensible move to get rid of such risky assets,” [...]
Bond St tube gets £300m facelift August 4, 2010 Transport for London (TfL) has awarded a £300m contract to Costain and Laing O’Rourke to redevelop Bond Street Tube station, with the upgrades expected to take up to seven years. Once finished, Bond Street station is expected to have a new entrance and ticket hall north of Oxford Street, new escalators, improved interchanges between the [...]
Cookson returns to pre-tax profit August 4, 2010 Materials science firm Cookson moved into pre-tax profit for the first half of the year, and expects performance to improve during the rest of the year. Revenues rose to £1.23bn for the half, translating to £92.5m pre-tax profit. The world’s biggest producer of ceramic smelting liners said it won’t resume its interim dividend despite the [...]
Seek exposure to a broad set of EU stocks August 4, 2010 AFTER a tumultuous and testing first six months of 2010 for Europe, a calmer and less chaotic second half appears to lie ahead. This is, perhaps, unsurprising – after all we have just endured a sovereign debt crisis and a stagnation of growth, which sent stock markets sharply southwards. The more optimistic outlook – it [...]
Bearish sentiment boosts short ETFs August 4, 2010 THE global economy is at a crossroads. Fears about a slowdown in China, persistently high unemployment in the US and ongoing concerns about sovereign debt problems in Europe all threaten to weigh on financial markets in the coming weeks. But the Vix index, the traditional fear gauge for financial markets, has steadily ticked down in [...]
The european bank sector marches toward the rubicon August 4, 2010 HEAD OF INVESTMENT RESEARCH, MINT EQUITIES IT HAS been a good couple of weeks for the European banking sector. Firstly, the stress test results for banks across Europe were good; secondly, profits for the second quarter have been impressive. As you can see in the chart below, the European banking sector has pushed on strongly [...]
THE TIPSTER August 4, 2010 BIt’s a busy day for central bankers. The Bank of England (BoE) and European Central Bank (ECB) both announce the outcome of their latest rate-setting meetings. Market participants expect a “no change” decision. But the market will get excited by the ECB’s statement this afternoon. This should tell us how happy the Bank is with [...]
MARKET NEWS August 4, 2010 SOCGEN OFFERS NINE NEW WARRANTS This week saw the launch of nine new covered warrants from Societe Generale. Four are cocoa call warrants; the rest are divided between two dollar-Swiss franc put warrants that expire in December and three copper put warrants. Meanwhile, RBS Markets has launched two new products: one is the UK Accelerated [...]
Individual banks buck dreary session as volumes stay thin August 4, 2010 LONDON equities ended flat yesterday as better-than-expected US services and private sector employment figures offset weaker retail shares that fell on concerns of a decline in consumer demand. The choppy session witnessed weaker banks, with the STOXX Europe 600 banking index down 0.4 per cent. Standard Chartered fell 5.2 per cent despite forecast-beating earnings, as [...]
Retail earnings give hope to Wall Street August 4, 2010 US stocks rose in thin trade yesterday as retailers’ earnings and a report showing a slight improvement in private employment boosted optimism ahead of Friday’s payrolls report. Priceline.com soared 22 per cent to $281.30 on its stronger-than-expected quarterly results and outlook, suggesting consumers are opening their wallets to spend on travel. Traders also noted many [...]
