Vodafone and BT get boost March 8, 2011 Vodafone and BT Group saw their shares surge yesterday after a broker upgrade. They also saw exceptionally high volumes, after getting a boost from a note on the telecoms sector from Morgan Stanley in which they were upgraded. The broker said: “Telecoms is our preferred defensive sector. It offers greater potential for a positive growth [...]
FTSE nudges higher as late rally boosts stocks March 8, 2011 A late afternoon rally nudged Britain’s top share index into positive territory yesterday, as investors eyed geopolitical turmoil in the Arab world and favoured defensive stocks. The FTSE 100 closed 0.98 points firmer at 5,974.76, having flirted with the key psychological 6,000 level earlier in the session after Kuwait’s oil minister said OPEC was considering [...]
FTSE finishes flat despite late rally March 8, 2011 Investors concerned over the long-term impact of Libyan violence shied away from risky stocks and left the FTSE flat today. Aside from a brief rally mid-morning when Kuwait’s oil minister said OPEC was considering boosting production, the FTSE 100 spent much of the day declining. However, a brief rally at the end of the day [...]
BT advertising war boosts UK broadband March 6, 2011 FIERCE competition between Sky and BT is the most likely explanation for the unusually high growth in the UK broadband market last year, according to analysts at Enders. It enjoyed an “exceptionally strong” final quarter of last year, adding 397,000 new customers, beating some forecasts by around 100,000. Enders says the most likely cause is [...]
COLD COMFORT AS ICE GALA NETS £150K FOR ARCTIC TREKKERS March 6, 2011 BATTERSEA Power Station was transformed into a chilly Arctic cave last Thursday for an “extravagant farewell” for a team of eight wounded servicemen preparing to walk to the North Pole. The private event for 500 guests was the Ice and Diamonds send-off ball to raise money for the trekkers’ charity Walking for Wounded before the [...]
News Corp wins right to make Sky bid March 3, 2011 NEWS Corp yesterday won full approval to bid for the 61 per cent of Sky it does not already own. Culture minister Jeremy Hunt accepted an eleventh hour News Corp concession that it would spin-off Sky News into a separate, publicly-traded entity, in order to counter media plurality concerns. Hunt said he accepted the terms [...]
Ofcom sides with Virgin in the battle of the broadband March 1, 2011 OFCOM yesterday sided with Virgin in the broadband war, ruling that firms must advertise “typical” rather than “maximum” internet speeds. BT – the major loser from the ruling given its high proliferation in low-speed rural areas – said it has “real concerns” with the decision, which it said could encourage “digital exclusion”. Ofcom found that [...]
Virus hits LSE website after trading glitch February 27, 2011 THE LONDON Stock Exchange (LSE) last night said it hoped for a week of glitch free trading following last week’s high profile closure. Although it could not promise there would be no problems, it pointed to the successful reinstatement of its trading system on Friday afternoon. A spokesperson said: “The problem was fixed and the [...]
Virgin posts strongest full-year results February 17, 2011 Virgin Media added a solid number of new customers in the fourth quarter and extracted record customer spend, helping it to post its best ever full-year financial results. Virgin Media, which competes with BT and BSkyB to provide broadband, telephony and pay-TV, said it added 17,100 net new subscribers in the last three months of [...]
Revenue flat at TalkTalk as users leave February 8, 2011 TALKTALK lost 25,000 broadband subscribers in its third quarter, as problems with its labyrinthine merger continued to bite. Billing issues were at least partly responsible for the churn, which left TalkTalk with 4.22m subscribers. However, the firm said this was partly offset by an increase in average revenue per user. Customers spent an average of [...]