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
Thursday, August 20, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Bank of England forecasts that GDP would rise by 0.2 per cent this quarter heralded the end of the recession and surprised City analysts.
Daily Telegraph: Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, said the US's $1.8 trillion (£1.1 trillion) budget deficit could drive down the dollar.
Reuters: Wall Street is wary about whether the US pay czar will flex his muscle to "claw back" past bonuses paid to some of the biggest players in high finance.
Comment
Ian King in The Times: Anger at the way the Bank of England communicates its decisions is bubbling to the surface.
Ian Prosser in The Independent: Institutional investors have lost one excuse for their failure to properly exercise shareholder responsibilities.
Edmund Conway in the Daily Telegraph: Mervyn King's defeated push to increase QE raises the likelihood that the Bank of England will go down this path later.
Upside
The Times: The world's big investment institutions are dumping cash and bonds and scooping up equities amid a dramatic revival in investor confidence.
Daily Telegraph: UK manufacturers were the most positive in more than a year about future production levels, but order books fell sharply again in August.
The Times: Lloyds Banking Group surprised the City by reversing a decision made two months ago to sack all 930 staff at 164 Cheltenham & Gloucester branches.
Downside
The Times: UK authorities arrested seven people in connection with a suspected £38 million ($63 million) tax fraud in the carbon emissions trading market.
Daily Telegraph: Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, was overruled in a bid to increase the money injected into the British economy.
The Times: The US Government will pursue European wealth managers for helping its citizens avoid tax after UBS, the Swiss bank, identified 4,450 customers.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Guy Hands, the private equity magnate behind EMI, forced out the head of the music giant's UK pension fund in a long-running row over the scheme.
The Independent: News Corporation's MySpace will buy music sharing service iLike, which gets most of its customers from MySpace's bigger rival, Facebook.
The Times: Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 70 per cent owned by taxpayers, welcomed new executive Brian Hartzer with a £2.3 million ($3.8 million) bonus.
Around Asia
The Times: A feud between the world's richest brothers, Mukesh and Anil Ambani, is overshadowing an auction in the US for rights to drill for oil and gas off India.
New York Times: Macquarie Group, the Australian bank, and China Everbright, a financial services group, are seeking $1.5 billion for infrastructure projects in China.
The Times: A 4.3 per cent fall in Shanghai shares sent tremors across global markets and raised doubts about China's runaway recovery.
Look ahead
The Times: FirstGroup, the British owner of the famous US bus company Greyhound Lines, will start running budget Greyhound buses in the UK from September 14.
The Independent: Britain's banks are all but certain to rack up losses from their retail operations in the second half of the year, a KPMG analyst predicts.
Financial Times: A hedge fund has made a large bet that natural gas prices will triple by winter just as the price slides to a seven-year low.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,689.67 up 0.1% (Wednesday close)
Dow 9,279.16 up 0.7% (close)
S&P 500 996.46 up 0.7% (close)
Nasdaq 1,969.24 up 0.7% (close)
Nikkei 10,282.58 up 0.8% (latest)
Hang Seng 20,268.65 up 1.6% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6532/1.1624 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4223 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $74.34 down 25 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $72.21 down 21 cents (latest)
Gold $944.00 down 80 cents (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks rose, shaking off a slide in China's equity market, after a surprise drop in oil stockpiles suggested an improving demand outlook. Oil giant Exxon Mobil rose 2.3 per cent and rival Chevron rose 1.8 per cent. After the closing bell, NetApp fell 3.7 per cent after the data storage equipment maker reported its results. Drugmaker Merck rose 2.5 per cent and rival Pfizer rose 2.4 per cent. Tractor maker Deere fell 2.9 per cent on glum fourth-quarter predictions. With many traders on vacation, volume was light.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks gained in morning trade, led by energy and finance companies. Woodside Petroleum, Australia's No. 2 oil producer, rose 4.3 per cent. QBE, Australia's largest property and casualty insurer, rose 7 per cent on strong profit reports. Isuzu Motors, Japan's third-biggest maker of commercial vehicles, rose 5.4 per cent on brokers' recommendations. CSL, the world's second-largest maker of blood plasma products, fell 3.4 per cent on an analyst's downgrade. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.6 per cent to 110.99 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
