BEST OF THE BROKERS May 18, 2010 AIR FRANCE Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) retains a “buy” recommendation on Air France-KLM. Notwithstanding the ash-cloud, RBS said the underlying trading is improving, the Amadeus transaction will have boosted the balance sheet and recent sovereign debt woes and scare stories around cargo weakness offer an attractive entry point. MAN GROUP Numis has issued a [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS May 18, 2010 RWC Partners The asset manager has hired Schroders fund managers Nick Purves (pictured) and Ian Lance. Purves and Lance will manage both value and income funds at RWC, building on their track record with the Schroder UK Equity Income Fund, the best-performing fund in the IMA UK equity income sector over the past five years. [...]
CITY PHILANTHROPISTS LURED BY PROMISE OF SOME GOLDEN EGGS May 18, 2010 OFF to the Merchant Taylors Hall on Threadneedle Street yesterday for what has become a stalwart of the City’s calendar – the annual Gulls’ Eggs lunch. This year marked the 22nd anniversary of the affair, which has traditionally used the excuse of what must be the shortest season of any earthly foodstuff to bring hundreds [...]
FTSE lifted by banks and commodities as investor fears over Eurozone recede May 18, 2010 BANKS and commodity-linked stocks pushed Britain’s top share index higher yesterday, with risk appetite returning among investors as Eurozone debt fears ebbed, and Man Group recouping the previous session’s losses. The FTSE 100 ended up 44.80 points, or 0.9 per cent, at 5,307.34, but after retreating from an earlier session high of 5,341.41. “Any move [...]
Regulation doubts spark a slide on US bank stocks May 18, 2010 US stocks sank yesterday, driven lower as the strengthening of financial regulation from Wall Street to Frankfurt crushed bank stocks, adding to worries about the sustainability of the global economic recovery. In Washington, several Republicans will vote with Democrats to wrap up debate on the sweeping reform of financial regulations and move toward final passage, [...]
The land of opportunity May 18, 2010 WHILE Europe desperately struggles to escape Greek contagion, the US is fighting its way out of recession. In the first three months of 2010, US GDP rose 0.8 per cent, putting the annualised rate at 3.2 per cent. Over the same period, Germany and the UK grew just 0.2 per cent, France and Spain grew [...]
LESS ACTION WOULD HELP THE MARKET May 18, 2010 MANAGING DIRECTOR, ARTEMIS PHEW. We all like a bit of excitement. But this is getting ridiculous. After the euro’s crisis and the forming of the UK’s coalition government, we could all do with a rest. If the FTSE 100 index could just get back to – and hold – 5,400 for a while, that would [...]
Treat yourself to a taste of luxury this year May 18, 2010 POSH frocks and designer handbags come in and out of fashion, but the companies that make them can be a prudent investment. Luxury stocks held up pretty well during the recession and there are now some signs that they will lead the pack as the global economic recovery gathers pace. Hermes, the French designer brand, [...]
FUND MANAGEMENT NEWS May 18, 2010 UK IS ABSOLUTE DIAMOND FOR GARTMORE Gartmore has been in the news recently for all of the wrong reasons. However, the fund manager has finally got something to celebrate. Its UK Absolute Return Fund, managed by Ben Wallace and Luke Newman, had its 10 year anniversary this week, and to top it off it posted [...]
Scandinavia is protected from Europe’s crisis May 18, 2010 IF YOU’VE read the popular Millennium Trilogy by Swedish crime author Stieg Larsson, any clichéd idea you may have had that Sweden is some kind of socially liberal paradise will have been put to the test. If there’s any truth beneath Larsson’s fiction, it’s that, like any European country, Sweden has its fair share of [...]
