FTSE lags over China’s rate hike and European debt fears April 5, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index edged lower yesterday as miners fell on concerns that an interest rate hike in China could hurt demand for metals and banks dropped on worries over European debt. The FTSE 100 closed down 9.92 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 6,007.06, having rallied 7.4 per cent off lows hit in March [...]
UK manufacturing slows as costs rise April 1, 2011 UK manufacturing growth came under pressure in March and output prices rose to a record high, according to a new report. Manufacturing activity fell to 57.1 on the Markit/CIPS purchasing managers index, down from a record high of 60.2 in February, as growth slowed to a five-month low. A combination of weak consumer confidence, surging [...]
MORE FIRMS JOIN NORTH SEA MUTINY March 30, 2011 PRESSURE mounted on George Osborne to rethink his oil profit tax raid yesterday, as more oil firms threatened to shelve lucrative projects in the North Sea in protest at the chancellor’s surprise levy. Gas giant Centrica, oil explorer Valiant and French group Total all said yesterday they are reviewing current and future investments in the [...]
EU bailout nears for Portugal March 28, 2011 PORTUGAL lurched closer to an EU bailout yesterday as its largest banks were downgraded by S&P and the European Central Bank (ECB) revealed that it was forced to intervene in bond markets last week for the first time in a month. The ECB bought €432m’s (£380.6m) worth of bonds on the secondary market, with economists [...]
FACT CHECKER March 24, 2011 THE CLAIM: THE SHOCK RISE IN SUPPLEMENTARY TAXES FOR OIL FIRMS FROM 20 TO 32 PER CENT WILL MAKE PETROL PRICES AT THE PUMPS RISE The chancellor said he will pay for a new fuel price stabiliser and 1p fuel tax cut with a massive hike for companies producing oil in the UK – from [...]
High-energy industries hit by carbon price floor March 24, 2011 ENERGY policy changes introduced in the Budget will heap costs on energy-intensive industries, pressure groups warned yesterday. Energy-intensive manufacturers of products such as steel, glass and paper will see their costs soar as the carbon price floor rises from £16 per tonne of CO2 today to £30/tonne by 2020. Jeremy Nicholson, director of the Energy [...]
CWW tanks after warning on its profits March 24, 2011 CABLE & Wireless Worldwide’s (CWW) shares plummeted more than 14 per cent to 54.2p yesterday after shocking the market with a profit warning. It downgraded its expectations for core earnings next year on weaker-than-expected demand for voice services and anticipated lower prices for data services. It said it does not expect to increase its Ebitda [...]
A useful but schizophrenic package March 23, 2011 SOME of the early reaction yesterday was that this was a slightly boring, forgettable Budget. Nonsense. It was far-ranging: radical in parts, brilliant at times, occasionally awful, way too political and often quite surprising. It wasn’t quite the Budget for growth that George Osborne should have delivered: populism all too often got the better of [...]
A political Budget in Gordon Brown’s mould March 23, 2011 GEORGE Osborne added the two most eye catching measures to his Budget at the very last minute. We know this because the Office for Budget Responsibility said it learned of the 2p cut in corporation tax and the 1p cut in fuel duty too late to consider their effects on its economic forecasts. Always the [...]
Oil explorers rage at 32pc North Sea tax March 23, 2011 NORTH SEA oil firms were left aghast by the chancellor’s surprise tax hike on offshore fuel explorations yesterday, which has been imposed immediately to fund the fuel duty cut. North Sea-focused oil explorers saw their shares hammered by the news yesterday that an existing levy on profits from UK production will rise from 20 to [...]