Amazon: Is this the end for ‘old-school’ retailers? August 22, 2017 If you are a regular reader of the financial press, you could be forgiven for thinking some kind of corporate serial killer is currently on the loose. On an almost daily basis, fresh obituaries appear for retail businesses and there is a strong consensus on who is to blame – the global phenomenon that is [...]
Global dividends hit record highs, according to Janus Henderson Global Dividend Index, as oil prices rally and banks begin to heal August 21, 2017 Global dividends have hit an all-time quarterly record of $447.5bn (£347.6bn) in the second quarter of this year, according to Janus Henderson’s Global Dividend Index, notching up the highest growth rate since 2015. The amount in dividends paid out by companies across the globe rose 5.4 per cent year-on-year, or 7.2 per cent when exchange [...]
Embracing a brilliant new era of close UK-South Korea relations July 27, 2017 Anyone who has walked through the graves at the UN Memorial Cemetery in Busan will never forget the huge sacrifices made by British forces in the Korean War. Yet, whether because of insufficient media coverage or post-World War II fatigue, many veterans returned to a country which did not acknowledge their service, and the Korean [...]
Graphcore lands $30m from top AI experts Demis Hassabis from Deepmind, Uber’s Zoubin Ghahramani and more along with Atomico and others | City A.M. July 20, 2017 Some of the world’s leading experts in artificial intelligence are among fresh investors to plough $30m into a Bristol-based chip startup. Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis and Zoubin Ghahramani, Uber’s chief scientist and Cambridge university professor, are among new investors in Graphcore, which makes chips that can process machine learning faster and more efficiently. It [...]
The new 10.5 inch iPad Pro is the best tablet there is – but is it too good? July 6, 2017 Apple is so far ahead of the pack when it comes to tablets that it inadvertently invented an entire class of products of which it has never made a single one. All those hybrid laptops, where the screen snaps off, for reasons largely unspecified, are the result of the technology industry shrugging its shoulders in [...]
Transport for London (TfL) says one billion contactless payment journeys have now been made across London’s transport network July 6, 2017 Over one billion journeys have now been made on London’s transport network using contactless payment cards, according to new figures from Transport for London (TfL). Almost £2bn has been spent by customers using pay as you go with contactless since it was introduced at the end of 2012, And TfL said that customers have saved [...]
Is South Korea still an investment ‘value trap’? June 23, 2017 ‘Value trap’ is a term used by investors to describe an asset that appears to have been under-priced by the market but turns out to be cheap for a reason. This is often because its ability to make profits has in some way been severely and permanently impaired. It tends to be used in relation [...]
London is home to more of the hottest fintech startups than ever before according to the Fintech50 2017 June 7, 2017 London’s status as the world leading centre of fintech has been questioned in the wake of Brexit, but new figures suggest the capital continues to be a global powerhouse for financial technology. The city has produced more of the hottest fintech startups than ever before, with over half of the Fintech50 calling it home. Challenger [...]
Nokia charms consumers with the revival of its retro-style 3310 handset March 17, 2017 Ordinarily, when a new device hits the market, the talk is of innovation and revolutionary new features. However, the big story in the tech sector in recent weeks has been Nokia’s reincarnation of its 3310 phone. The original handset was wildly popular in the early 2000s, characterised by its long battery life and its popular game [...]
South Korean president Park Geun-hye has been forced from power following corruption allegations March 10, 2017 South Korean president Park Geun-hye has been formally removed from office in a unanimous vote by constitutional judges. Park's ousting, the first for a democratically elected South Korean president, sparked angry scenes outside the courtroom with two of people killed in clashes with police, according to the local Yonhap news agency. Read more: Samsung accused of bribing South Korea’s president The [...]