The new Office for Tax Simplification won’t turn the UK into a low-tax state July 19, 2010 ANOTHER week, another independent body that could prove a headache for the chancellor. Hot on the heels of the creation of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which has had a less than illustrious start, George Osborne will today launch an Office for Tax Simplification. It has been charged with lighting a bonfire under Britain’s [...]
Government forced into U-turn over cost of scrapping quangos July 19, 2010 THE GOVERNMENT was forced into a U-turn yesterday, after it said it would save £8.62m by scrapping four quangos, before later admit ting that the real saving to the taxpayer would amount to just £603,000. The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy (Sabip), Sitpro (Simplifying International Trade), the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Advisory [...]
Fears of fresh oil leak hit BP July 19, 2010 NEWS THAT oil is seeping from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico sent BP’s shares down yesterday as concerns over the group’s future continued to grow. Engineers on the ground believe the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in 20 April, that killed 11 and led to the worst oil spill in US history, [...]
Halliburton warns offshore ban will hit full-year profits July 19, 2010 Halliburton yesterday reported an 83 per cent jump in second-quarter profit thanks to strong US onshore drilling, but a ban on deepwater activity in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to hurt its full-year results. The world’s second-largest oilfield services company, whose shares gained two per cent yesterday, said second-quarter net income rose to $480m [...]
CITY VIEWS: DOES BP STILL HAVE A FUTURE? July 19, 2010 ALEXANDRE ANDLAUER | ALPHAVALUE “The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico changes BP’s picture for three reasons: Development in deep water could be more difficult, costs are still difficult to estimate but will be significant and BP’s reputation has been hit and will lead to a discount versus peers.” HENRY DIXON | MATTERLEY ASSET [...]
Despite its progress, BP is now a high-risk bet July 19, 2010 WITH BP’s temporary capping of the leaking Macondo well last week, investors piled back into the stock. Fidelity’s star fund manager Anthony Bolton declared that investors have “a classic once in-alifetime opportunity to buy BP” and even after the announcement on Sunday that gas is now leaking from the ocean floor, most investment notes yesterday [...]
SCALE BACK EXPOSURE ON THE BOUNCE July 19, 2010 CFD MARKET STRATEGIST, GFT This is a big week for the markets with traders forced to consider the potential effects of a number of major events. Looking at the US, we get deeper into the second quarter earnings season with over 500 companies to report – up from less than 100 last week. The interpretation [...]
No blue skies for the Nikkei stock market this summer July 19, 2010 DESPITE the bearish fundamentals plaguing the Japanese currency, the yen has proved remarkably resilient over recent months, boosted first by safe-haven inflows as a consequence of the European sovereign debt crisis and then from the deterioration in the US recovery. This strength in the yen has had a detrimental effect on the health of Japanese [...]
THE TIPSTER July 19, 2010 EXPECTATIONS are high for Ryanair’s first quarter trading update that will be announced today. Its last update in June showed a 280 per cent jump in pre-tax profits for 2009. Back in June it announced that it expects growth to expand by 11 per cent in 2010. The airline is rarely out of the news [...]
Bid for Tomkins fails to boost investor cheer as BP’s woes drag down FTSE July 19, 2010 WEAK US housing data helped push Britain’s top shares lower yesterday, as cautious investors trimmed positions in riskier assets, while BP fell after leaks were discovered in its capped well. The FTSE 100 closed down 10.57 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 5,148.28, having shed one per cent on Friday. The index’s fall echoed a [...]
