China trade surplus drops February 14, 2011 China’s trade surplus fell to its lowest in nine months in January after imports surged, supporting the government’s case ahead of a G20 meeting that it is doing enough to spur domestic demand without speeding up currency appreciation. The trade surplus shrank to $6.5bn (£4.05bn) from $13.1bn in December, well short of forecasts for a [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 13, 2011 Barclays Wealth Solomon Soquar (pictured) has joined the asset manager as head of the strategic solutions group, which is a core part of its ultra-high net worth operation. He will report to Stefanie Drews. Soquar joins the firm from Citi Private Bank, where he was in capital markets. Previously, he has worked at Merrill Lynch [...]
Chelsea’s superluxe new development February 10, 2011 LIKE bees to a hive, wealth comes to London property. Certain prime areas of the capital are magnets for international superstars in finance and business – Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Mayfair. But if you’re truly discerning, do you aim to be Harrods’ neighbour? Perhaps not, according to the people behind Henry Moore Court, a super-luxe development [...]
The Malthusian bull market carries on February 10, 2011 IN 1980, two academics, Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich, agreed a now famous wager. Ehrlich chose five commodity metals and bet that over the next 10 years, they would get more expensive. Ultimately, Simon won, and all five metals – copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten – got progressively less expensive all the way up [...]
What the other papers say this morning February 9, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES TPG LOSES ANOTHER SENIOR ASIA EXECUTIVE Mary Ma, a Chinese executive at TPG Capital, is leaving to start a fund, joining other mainland executives from western buy-out firms who will start out on their own. Ma, former chief financial officer of Lenovo, joined TPG’s Asia team as managing director and a partner in [...]
VAT shock yet to be passed to consumers February 8, 2011 INFLATION in UK shops rose to 2.5 per cent in January – from 2.1 per cent in December — despite retailers absorbing much of the hike in VAT, a comprehensive survey revealed today. Even more price pressure could spill through to consumers in the coming months, the British Retail Consortium warned. “Retailers generally took the [...]
The screws are tightening, but it’s not torture yet February 8, 2011 CHINESE interest rate rises are, it seems, rather like coffee. The effect gets smaller with each extra dose. When the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) first announced an interest rate increase in mid-October last year, the trade-weighted dollar strengthened 1.7 per cent. The second rate rise, announced on Christmas day, produced a smaller reaction, but [...]
The world lists in New York February 8, 2011 America is home to many of the world’s biggest companies. However, as mentioned above, NYSE Euronext has a truly global reach. Leading business from Asia, Latin America and Europe choose the exchange for their primary or secondary listings. And this includes many of the UK’s largest blue chip businesses. The top five UK companies listed [...]
Forget gold, here’s the copper rush February 6, 2011 CRACK open your piggy bank and empty your penny jar. Do it now and do it fast. Forget about the gold rush; it is all about the copper rush now. The price of the metal is going through the roof, hitting $10,000 a tonne. This sort of price action means the two pence piece in [...]
ETFs – what they are and how to use them February 3, 2011 THIS page usually deals with listed exchange-traded products (ETPs) in great depth. Last week, for example, we covered the ins and outs of leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – which offer all the exposure of an ordinary ETF, except doubled up. But while the UK market for ETFs has expanded dramatically over the last few years, [...]