There’s more pain and selling to come for banking stocks November 28, 2010 EACH time that European banks have taken a step towards recovery since autumn 2008, it seemed that they suffered another a setback. Whether it was revelations of bad debts, government bailouts, exposure to indebted sovereigns or tighter regulation, it has been hard for their share prices to make sustained headway. The second bout of the [...]
No bonus cut at Stan Chart November 25, 2010 EMERGING markets bank Standard Chartered yesterday distanced itself from talks between the UK’s biggest banks over limiting bonus payouts. RBS, HSBC and Barclays are reportedly in discussions with each other and the government over potentially cutting 2010 bonuses as well as lending more to businesses. The UK’s five biggest banks may also contribute up to [...]
PERSONAL FINANCE NEWS November 25, 2010 TRYING TO TIME THE MARKET IS COSTLY Research commissioned by Barclays Wealth has revealed that investors’ habit of chasing performance is costing more than one percentage point a year in returns. The study, which analysed fund flows between 1992 and 2009, discovered that market timing decisions by retail investors (when investing in equity mutual funds) [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 25, 2010 Grant Thornton Grant Thornton has appointed a new head of retail: Barry Knight. Knight brings 20 years’ of financial advising experience in retail, tourism and travel. He has worked for Littlewoods, Burton Group (now Arcadia Group), Sears, Selfridges, Jaeger and Boots. In his new role at Grant Thornton, he will be leading the retail team [...]
Slump in Japanese exports to harm GDP growth as inflation falls again November 25, 2010 JAPAN’S export market stalled in October, failing to grow on the previous month, it was announced yesterday. Compared to October 2009 Japanese exports grew 7.8 per cent, yet this was below the Bloomberg median projection of 10.7 per cent – and far weaker than September’s year-on-year growth of 14.3 per cent. Year-on-year improvements peaked in February, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 24, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES TOYOTA STILL ON ALERT AFTER CRISIS Toyota remains on a “crisis” footing a year after the first of a wave of recalls of more than 12m vehicles, an executive at the Japanese carmaker has said. Shinichi Sasaki, the board member responsible for quality, told the Financial Times: “I don’t think the crisis is [...]
Resolution ditches Citi November 24, 2010 RESOLUTION, the life funds group run by Clive Cowdery, yesterday ended its broking relationship with Citigroup following the summer departure of Andrew Thompson, one of the bank’s most senior corporate brokers. Sources said that Resolution was “very much a relationship driven company” and that Thompson’s departure to Deutsche Bank was bound to make a difference [...]
Barclays sets up new office in Hong Kong November 24, 2010 BARCLAYS Wealth has set up a booking centre in Hong Kong, the firm announced yesterday, as part of its plans to quadruple assets under management and double its number of private bankers in Asia over the next four years. An undisclosed number of UK staff will temporarily relocate to help set up the booking centre, [...]
Incomes boost for US hopes November 24, 2010 Consumer growth could hold the key to a US recovery, a survey showed yesterday. Personal incomes were up 0.5 per cent in October according to the Personal Income and Outlays report compiled by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. “Growth in personal income is increasingly being driven by wages and salaries, rather than government transfers,” [...]
Success of ETFs among private investors hangs on regulation November 24, 2010 GIVEN that exchange-traded products (ETP) have been available in the UK for just over a decade, the speed at which they have managed to penetrate the private investor market can only be described as glacial. Around 85 per cent of the European ETP market is still institutional. Yet there are signs that private investors are [...]