WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 13, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES YANZHOU DIGS DEEP IN BID FOR FELIXChina’s largest takeover bid for an Australian company was formally launched yesterday when Yanzhou Coal Mining made a recommended cash offer for Felix Resources worth just over A$3.5bn (£1.78bn). The offer is pitched at A$16.95 a share, valuing Felix at A$3.33bn, but shareholders will also receive A$1 [...]
Facebook tries to climb the great firewall of China August 13, 2009 WHEN a screenshot of Facebook Lite was leaked earlier this week, the blogosphere went crazy, proving that Web 2.0 scribblers have a silly season too. Most bloggers were convinced the slimmed-down version of the social network was an attempt to take on Twitter, something Facebook emphatically denies. Instead, it forms part of the firm’s attempt [...]
ONLY A WEAK YEN POINTS TO REAL GROWTH August 2, 2009 JANE FOLEYRESEARCH DIRECTOR,FOREX.COM President Obama last week claimed that the US may be seeing the “beginning of the end” of the recession and his words coincided with subtle improvements in the tone of some central banks, whose rhetoric provides a useful gauge as to how the world is moving on in the wake of the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 30, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES VW BRACED FOR “ZERO GROWTH” IN CAR MARKETVolkswagen warned yesterday that it could face flat sales in 2010 as Europe’s largest carmaker reported a sharp profit drop in the second quarter. The third-biggest carmaker behind General Motors and Toyota said it expected “zero growth” in the car market next year. PRIVATE EQUITY SUFFERED [...]
Cost cutting at carmakers boosts profit July 29, 2009 CARMAKERS Honda and Nissan reported surprise profits for the last quarter yesterday, as cost-cutting at the firms started to pay off, while Peugeot Citroen blamed a drop in sales for heavy losses. Honda’s executive vice president Koichi Kondo said sales in the US, its key market, were falling short of expectations, and that it planned [...]
China’s banks weigh heavily on Wall St July 29, 2009 US STOCKS fell yesterday as investors worried that China’s banks could hit the brakes on lending to stem market excesses, a move that could curb the global economic recovery. Concerns about China hurt commodity prices and hit shares in the energy and raw materials sectors, while a steep drop in US durable goods orders in [...]
Bullish Aussie dollar will be threatened by Chinese bubble July 28, 2009 THREE weeks ago, risk aversion was firmly back in the markets and commodity currencies were looking shaky. But equities and commodities have been surging across the board as investors rediscover their taste for risk. In such an environment, the Australian dollar ought to be doing well thanks to its economy’s dependence on exports of base [...]
China on alert for asset bubbles July 27, 2009 Chinese regulators yesterday warned banks to ensure unprecedented volumes of new loans are channelled into the real economy amid concerns that banks ignored basic lending standards in the first half of the year. Over 7,370bn yuan was issued in new loans during the first six months of 2009, more than twice the amount lent in [...]
Canny traders should look to buy crude oil on the correction July 27, 2009 CRUDE’S inexorable rise over the past few weeks in line with rallying equity markets pushed September Brent through the $70 a barrel mark in intraday trading yesterday, touching a session high of $71.28. Signs of an improving world economy and resilient Chinese GDP growth as well as relatively upbeat second quarter earnings in the US [...]
CHINA LOOKS OVER-COOKED RIGHT NOW July 27, 2009 DAVID MORRISONSENIOR DERIVATIVES TRADER, GFT YESTERDAY saw the result of the first Chinese initial public offering (IPO) in over a year since Chinese regulators suspended IPOs in September 2008 after worries that too many companies were anxious to tap investors for funds. And what a success the debut was. On the first day of trading [...]