Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're saying, what they're saying, from Michael Beh
Thursday, October 22, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Talks to avert a national postal strike broke down and the union accused Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, of colluding with Royal Mail's executives.
http://tinyurl.com/yhnqmt2
The Daily Telegraph: Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, doubled the amount it will hand out in bonuses despite a 91 per cent drop in profits last quarter.
http://tinyurl.com/ygt7qre
The Times: The Land Registry plans to cut 1,500 jobs and close a quarter of its national offices before a possible sale of the government department.
http://tinyurl.com/yj9msbu
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: Things have calmed down since Kraft's bid for Cadbury because there has been no sign of a rival purchaser entering the sweet shop.
http://tinyurl.com/ygdgwkm
Jeremy Warner in the Daily Telegraph: It is hardly the first time the Bank of England Governor has rubbed his political masters up the wrong way.
http://tinyurl.com/yfcev69
Matthew Lynn on Bloomberg: Here's a puzzle to test investment bankers: How are you going to justify the massive bonuses you pay your staff this year?
http://tinyurl.com/yg9sj87
Upside
The Times: The UK Government will announce a list of major energy projects that it wants to fast-track through the planning system.
http://tinyurl.com/yj6yyee
New York Times: The US government will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives.
http://tinyurl.com/yh5e793
Wall Street Journal: Cadbury, the UK confectioner, posted strong third-quarter sales figures, bolstering defence against a takeover by Kraft, the US food group.
http://tinyurl.com/yl66gjj
Downside
The Times: The Prime Minister and the Chancellor attacked Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, over banking reform plans.
http://tinyurl.com/yjgcw62
Wall Street Journal: Galleon Group, the embattled hedge-fund giant, will close as co-founder Raj Rajaratnam fights charges of insider-trading and fraud.
http://tinyurl.com/yhncflv
The Independent: The US Chamber of Commerce spent a record $34.7 million (£20.9 million) lobbying against US legislation that it said would be bad for business.
http://tinyurl.com/ygge47u
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Gartmore, one of Britain's best-known fund managers, is being groomed for a stock market flotation that could take place before Christmas.
http://tinyurl.com/yf5gyoq
The Times: Microsoft launched a partnership with Twitter, the microblogging service, to allow the software giant's Bing search engine to index millions of tweets.
http://tinyurl.com/yjwjl6m
The Times: The Serious Fraud Office is investigating Nicholas Levene, the City financier who vanished amid allegations that he owes tens of millions of pounds.
http://tinyurl.com/yz7b676
Around Asia
Wall Street Journal: Japan's merchandise trade surplus expanded to its largest level in 18 months in September.
http://tinyurl.com/yjrq564
Financial Times: China needs to tighten monetary policy to prevent inflating stock and property bubbles, warned Qin Xiao, the chairman of China Merchants Bank.
http://tinyurl.com/yz8w8un
Wall Street Journal: AXA, the French insurer, will sell its stake in Taikang Life Insurance, the Chinese life insurer, for about $1 billion (£600 million).
http://tinyurl.com/yg8doz8
Look ahead
New York Times: Google, the search giant, will announce a new music service for users to find and sample songs on the internet next week.
http://tinyurl.com/yjfaxgr
Bloomberg: Rio de Janeiro officials hope the China Development Bank will finance infrastructure investments tied to the 2016 Olympics.
http://tinyurl.com/yj4etlw
Reuters: US car sales are projected to rise nearly one-fifth to 11.8 million units in 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/yhmfoub
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,257.85 up 0.3% (Wednesday close)
Dow 9,949.36 down 0.9% (close)
S&P 500 1,081.40 down 0.9% (close)
Nasdaq 2,150.73 down 0.6% (close)
Nikkei 10,210.78 down 1.2% (latest)
Hang Seng 22,130.83 down 0.8% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6618/1.1074 euros (latest)
Euro $1.5006 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $79.53 down 16 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $81.16 down 21 cents (latest)
Gold $ 1061.10 down $3.40 (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks fell, hurt by a late sell-off in financial shares. Among banks, Wells Fargo fell 5.1 per cent on an analyst's downgrade, JPMorgan fell 3 per cent and Bank of America fell 2.9 per cent. Morgan Stanley rose 4.8 per cent on forecast-beating results. Aircraft maker Boeing fell 2.4 per cent on a disappointing quarterly loss. Retail giant Wal-Mart fell 2.1 per cent after it predicted a tough holiday shopping season. After the bell, eBay, the global e-commerce site, fell 5 per cent on a lower-than-expected profit forecast. Biotechnology company Genzyme fell 6.2 per cent on disappointing quarterly earnings. iPhone maker Apple rose 3.1 per cent on better-than-expected earnings.
http://tinyurl.com/yzuulz2
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell in early trade on concern about rising loan losses at banks. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, Japan's second-largest bank by market value, fell 3 per cent and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Japan's biggest publicly traded bank, fell 2.9 per cent after shares in US banks fell. BHP Billiton, the world's largest miner, rose 0.8 per cent and rival Rio Tinto, rose 1 per cent on higher oil and metals prices.The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.6 per cent to 119.81 in morning trade.
http://tinyurl.com/yffjgwm
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
London
Shares in Tesco were in demand yesterday after Nomura talked up the supermarket group's growth in financial services and abroad. The broker said such developments would allow Tesco, up 2.3 per cent, to effectively create a new company worth £16.4 billion, or 209p per share, in the next five years with sales of £27.3 billion. As such it thinks the market is undervaluing its shares and has raised its price target to 526p from 405p.
The FTSE 100 advanced 14.45 points to 5,257.85, regaining earlier losses after upbeat results from Morgan Stanley, the US investment bank.
Icap gained 2.8 per cet after reports a consortium led by the interdealer broker had scrapped plans to buy LCH.Clearnet, the clearing house. The Icap consortium made a EUR813 million offer in May.
London Stock Exchange was one of the session's biggest fallers, losing 2.2 per cent, after Goldman Sachs downgraded its rating to neutral from buy citing its recent good run. It said Xavier Rolet, the exchange's new chief executive, had shown a clear understanding of the LSE's challenges and opportunities but that investors continued to focus on the fact it was losing market share in UK equities to new platforms.
Peter Stiff
Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk
