KILL THE COMPETITION
Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're saying, what they're saying, from Michael Beh
Wednesday, August 19, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Hogarth Davies Lloyd, the headhunting firm, will sue Nomura, the Japanese bank, claiming tens of millions of pounds in unpaid fees.
The Daily Telegraph: World recovery from the recession had begun, but it would be unpredictable and protracted, the International Monetary Fund said.
The Times: Northern Rock, the nationalised bank, halted payouts to its junior bonds holders.
Comment
Ian King in The Times: Almost unnoticed, and earlier than expected, Ofcom, the communications regulator, slipped out an interesting set of documents.
David Prosser in The Independent: There's just one problem with the deflation bogeyman - inflation hasn't yet fallen below 1 per cent.
Kenneth Rogoff in the Financial Times: Too many people think we should stop greater financial regulation since it was the government that dropped the ball.
Upside
The Times: Sterling rose by more than 1 per cent against the dollar as CPI inflation surprisingly remained steady.
The Daily Telegraph: Germany is planning special measures to head off a fresh financial crisis it expects early next year.
The Times: The Big Four accounting firms stand to reap millions of pounds in fees since the Financial Services Authority turned to outside advisers.
Downside
The Times: The number of young people not in education, employment or training has risen to a record 959,000.
New York Times: Many of the best-known names in US retailing suffered another quarter of earnings declines, beating expectations only by cutting costs.
Wall Street Journal: Nearly 10 more Swiss and European banks have been identified in the US probe into potential tax crimes.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian miner, sold its aluminium packaging division to Amcor, the Australian packaging firm, for $2 billion (£1 billion).
Wall Street Journal: Freddie Mac, the US government-backed mortgage company, appointed industry veteran Bruce Witherell as chief operating officer.
The Independent: Turquoise, the pan-European share trading system, effectively put itself up for sale and Nasdaq OMX is the favourite to buy it.
Around Asia
The Times: ExxonMobil and PetroChina, the oil giants, signed an A$50 billion (£25 billion, $41 billion) deal to supply liquefied natural gas from Australia to China.
Bloomberg: China Minsheng Banking, China's first privately owned bank, won approval from the nation's securities regulator to revive a share sale in Hong Kong.
The Independent: Star TV, the Asian broadcaster owned by Rupert Murdoch, will sack up to 30 per cent of its Hong Kong headquarters' staff.
Look ahead
The Times: British Land, the UK's second-biggest commercial property company, is set to begin a two-year buying spree.
Bloomberg: Bad loans at UK banks will not peak before 2010 at the earliest because of rising unemployment and declining house prices.
The Times: Regulated commuter train fares will drop by 0.4 per cent next year, raising fears rail operators will raise the cost of other fares to compensate.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,685.78 up 0.9% (Tuesday close)
Dow 9,217.94 up 0.9% (close)
S&P 500 989.67 up 1% (close)
Nasdaq 1,955.92 up 1.3% (close)
Nikkei 10,260.50 down 0.2% (latest)
Hang Seng 20,348.33 up 0.2% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6528/1.1688 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4141 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $72.81 up 44 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $69.95 up 76 cents (latest)
Gold $942.00 up $2.80(latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks rose rebounding after sharp losses in the previous session.
Big retailers reported better-than-expected results helped by cost-cutting. Home Depot rose 3.1 per cent, Target rose 7.1 per cent and Saks rose 6.9 per cent. Lowe's fell 2.3 per cent on disappointing results. Among finance stocks, American Express rose 4.3 per cent, Bank of America rose 2.1 per cent and Citigroup rose 3.5 per cent. Among technology stocks, Apple rose 2.8 per cent, RIM rose 4.6 per cent and Palm rose 4.9 per cent on analysts' upgrades. Printer maker Hewlett-Packard rose 2 per cent on good results. After the bell, semiconductor maker Analog Devices fell 5.6 per cent on disappointing results.
Asia
Bloomberg: Most Asian stocks rose in morning trade led by automakers and mining companies. Toyota, the world's biggest car maker rose 1.5 per cent and rival Honda rose 2.3 per cent on an analyst's upgrades. Qantas, Australia's biggest airline, rose 5.4 per cent on improving passenger volumes. Sanyo Electronic, the maker of rechargeable batteries, rose 14 per cent on reports it will supply lithium-ion batteries to Toyota. Canon, the world's biggest maker of office equipment, rose 2.7 per cent on an analyst's upgrade. Rio Tinto, the world's third-largest miner, rose 2.6 per cent and Fortescue Metals rose 2.5 per cent on higher metals prices. Woodside, Australia's second-biggest oil and gas producer, rose 3.8 per cent on better-than-expected profit. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.2 per cent to 110.90 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
London
The fortunes of the Chinese economy are increasingly important to many FTSE 100 stocks but perhaps none more so than HSBC and Standard Chartered. Shares in both Asia-focused banks made ground yesterday after Goldman Sachs talked up the size of the banking opportunity in China. The American investment bank thinks that Chinese banking industry earnings could rise by 9 times from 2008 to 2050 and forecasts that as foreign banks gradually increase their market share their Chinese banking profits could equal $79 billlion by 2050, 45 times what they made in the country in 2008. HSBC rose 2.8 per cent and Standard Chartered gained 2.1 per cent. The FTSE 100 bounced back after two sessions of losses to rise 40.77 points to 4685.78 driven by financials and miners. British Land was the biggest faller, down 2.7 per cent, after the commercial property group rebuffed takeover speculation at its first quarter results.
Peter Stiff
Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk
