Carcass of a failed tech firm may be worth more than you thought April 23, 2012 JUST three months ago, everyone thought Cable & Wireless Worldwide was a busted flush. After de-merging from the C&W mobile business in 2010, it was forced to make three profit warnings and went through the same number of chief executives. A roster of impressive blue-chip clients couldn’t hide the fact it lacked the scale and [...]
Wall Street is in retreat over euro worries April 23, 2012 US stocks fell yesterday as political turmoil in Europe cast doubts on the Eurozone’s ability to push through measures to end its debt crisis and as Wal-Mart sank following a report it stymied a bribery probe. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 102.09 points, or 0.78 per cent, at 12,927.17. The Standard & Poor’s [...]
LONDON REPORT April 22, 2012 UK investors are set for a busy week with a slew of earnings both here and on Wall Street, the release of Britain’s quarterly GDP rate and a decision from the Fed on the US Bank rate. Both the Nationwide Housing Prices report and Nationwide Consumer Confidence report are due out this week and today’s [...]
WALL ST THE WEEK AHEAD April 22, 2012 A SPIKE in bond yields has brought Europe’s debt crisis back to the forefront last week, and traders will be anxiously watching the sovereign debt markets alongside corporate earnings in the week ahead. US economic figures point to steady-but-uninspired growth, and stocks have backed off the sharp gains that recently pushed indexes to near four-year [...]
William Hill in boost from mobile apps April 20, 2012 Britain’s biggest bookmaker William Hill said first-quarter profit rose 19 per cent as marketing drives and a new mobile application helped attract customers. William Hill said online revenues grew 33 per cent in the quarter with sports betting exceeding 50 million pounds of turnover in a single week for the first time. The firm, which [...]
Microsoft beats expectations to push shares up April 19, 2012 MICROSOFT beat its profit forecast as PC sales held up better than expected, it revealed last night, lifting its shares 2.5 per cent in after hours trading. The results buoyed optimism around the world’s largest software maker, which is lining up a new tablet-friendly version of Windows for later this year and is looking to [...]
Wall St falls for second day as job fears grow April 19, 2012 US stocks fell for a second day yesterday as labour market data showed more signs of weakness, while a warning from Qualcomm and poor results from Stanley Black & Decker also discouraged investors. A late bounce cut the losses of the Dow and the S&P 500 nearly in half. Apple shares, down 3.4 per cent, [...]
Will Windows 8 be smashing? April 18, 2012 Microsoft has announced more details about its hotly-anticipated Windows 8 operating system, which promises to streamline its products across your all your devices. The company says it will be the biggest overhaul of the world’s best-selling operating system since the iconic Windows 95. But what exactly will the changes mean for the average user? We [...]
Make or break for Microsoft April 18, 2012 Given all the publicity Apple receives, it can be easy to forget that Microsoft still controls 85 per cent of the operating system market (Apple has 10 per cent across both desktop and mobile). So a complete overhaul of Windows is going to affect the vast majority of computer users over the next few years. [...]
Oracle eyed up BlackBerry buy April 17, 2012 ORACLE considered building its own smartphone to compete with Apple and Google, but decided it was a “bad idea” after a weeks-long cost and market analysis, chief exec Larry Ellison said yesterday. Oracle had pondered at one point buying Blackberry-maker Research in Motion, he added. On the second day of a legal battle between Oracle [...]