These vague plans won’t save Europe October 26, 2011 FORGET about all the nonsense, the acronyms, the double-speak and the details of last night’s communiqués from Europe’s leaders. The reality is this. A country that has too much debt and cannot repay it by raising taxes or selling assets faces three choices: it can default; try and inflate or depreciate the debt away by [...]
The latest plan to rescue the Eurozone is flawed: It sets the scene for another crisis October 19, 2011 AS EUROZONE leaders gear up for their umpteenth summit to solve the Eurozone crisis, they seem to have reached the conclusion that what the Eurozone needs is more leverage. Not only that, but they seem to believe that the best way to achieve this would be through using the EFSF, the Eurozone’s bailout fund, to [...]
Russia’s Evraz to list on LSE October 17, 2011 EVRAZ, the Russian metals and mining group backed by billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich, is moving its domicile to the UK and listing in London as it seeks greater international acceptance and access to capital. Evraz, which mines coal, iron ore and valladium and makes steel industrial goods, yesterday said it wanted to list on the [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS October 17, 2011 Nikko Asset Management Nikko Asset Management Group, the largest regional asset manager headquartered in Asia, has appointed Eleanor Seet as president and executive director of Nikko Asset Management Asia. Seet will be responsible for leading the growth of Nikko AM in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Prior to joining the firm, Seet held the role of [...]
LOOKING FOR SIGNS OF HOPE October 16, 2011 THE Eurozone is in dire need of a quick capital injection, perhaps €2 trillion, says economist Nouriel Roubini. Roubini is not the only economist alarmed by the Eurozone’s banking system. Even outgoing ECB head Jean-Claude Trichet said recently that the systemic crisis must be decisively tackled, as the interconnectedness threatens the Eurozone’s financial stability, and [...]
UK told to cut taxes on pay and business October 12, 2011 RADICAL changes to the tax system are needed to kick-start business activity and counter unemployment in the absence of strong UK economic growth, two think-tanks have argued. Taxes on employment could be cut by £14bn to create jobs and raise economic growth because current low growth levels threaten the government’s deficit-cutting target, the Centre for [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS October 12, 2011 Gazprom Gazprom Marketing and Trading, the subsidiary of the Gazprom Group, the world’s largest gas company by asset base, has appointed Tony West as power strategy manager. West joins from Scottish Power, where he managed the commodity market risks within the energy management division. Prior to joining Scottish Power, he worked at Sapient. He has [...]
Jobs data boosts FTSE but US markets falter October 7, 2011 London stocks have closed slightly higher after better-than-expected US jobs figures prompted an afternoon rally, but US markets remain down after fresh downgrades of Spain and Italy. The FTSE 100 index spiked sharply when US figures showed 103,000 new jobs created, and while it gave up most of the gains it still closed up 0.2 [...]
Crisis across the Eurozone is just getting started October 4, 2011 LOOKING at the chaos in the markets and the Eurozone yesterday, it would be tempting to claim that the sovereign debt crisis is nearing its endgame. But that would be the wrong call to make. The crisis is intensifying, obviously, but political incompetence in the European Union, as well as its faulty political institutions, means [...]
Wall Street slumps to a 13-month low October 3, 2011 US stocks slumped in heavy volume to a 13-month low yesterday as investors dumped bank shares on fears that Greece’s worsening financial crisis could cause a large European lender to fail. Investors pegged losses to the sharp fall in Franco-Belgian financial group Dexia, which fell 10 per cent after a Moody’s warning about its liquidity [...]