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, October 29, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: National Express, the beleaguered transport group, walked away from a merger with rival Stagecoach over concerns that regulators could derail a deal.
The Daily Telegraph: Lloyds Banking Group will question its investors about a £25 billion ($41 billion) capital raising plan as the bank's share price falls.
The Times: Henry Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary, accused Alistair Darling of double-crossing the US when he vetoed the acquisition of Lehman Brothers by Barclays Bank.
Comment
Ian King in The Times: The only unpleasant surprises in the splitting of Northern rock, unfortunately, are yet again for British taxpayers
Ian King in The Times: The only unpleasant surprises in the splitting of Northern Rock, unfortunately, are yet again for British taxpayers.
Jeremy Warner in the Daily Telegraph: You can thank Neelie Kroes, Europe's competition commissioner, for the chance of competition in high-street banking.
David Reilly on Bloomberg: The big idea is to make Wall Street, not taxpayers, clean up financial messes. As good as that sounds, it may not work.
Upside
The Times: Swinton Group, the insurance broker, was fined £770,000 ($1.3 million) by UK authorities for mis-selling payment protection insurance.
The Daily Telegraph: SSE, Iberdrola and GDF Suez, the utility companies, bought the right to build a nuclear plant in Cumbria for £70 million ($115 million).
Reuters: CIT Group, the commercial lender which is on the brink of bankruptcy, secured $4.5 billion (£2.7 billion) of additional financing.
Downside
The Times: Slaughter and May could lose its crown as the Government's preferred legal adviser on the banking crisis as other firms tender for the business.
The Times: The unexpected "mini-boom" in house prices continued but a slowdown in the pace of the recent rebound has begun.
The Times: Royal Mail accused its union adversaries of playing havoc with customers by going ahead with a three-day national strike from today.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: The Los Angeles City Council agreed to use internet giant Google's office products over rival Microsoft's for 30,000 workers.
Financial Times: Globe Pub Company, the ailing pub operator owned by property entrepreneur Robert Tchenguiz, is on the brink of administrative receivership.
New York Times: Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank, agreed to buy Sal. Oppenheim, the private bank, for €1 billion euros (£890 million, $1.5 billion).
Around Asia
The Times: Indian government officials were accused of orchestrating a 600 billion rupee (£7.8 billion, $13 billion) mobile phone licence scam.
Reuters: China's retail sales will grow around 16 per cent in 2010 as boosting domestic demand will remain the focus of government policy.
Bloomberg: Japanese manufacturers increased production in September, extending the longest stretch of gains in 12 years.
Look ahead
The Times: Two thirds of City economists polled expect the Bank of England to extend the quantitative easing scheme at the bank's rate meeting next week.
The Independent: Best Buy, the world's largest electrical retailer, will create 8,000 UK jobs in the next five years and will open its first stores this spring.
The Times: Airbus, the aerospace giant, will invest €400 million (£358.9 million, $588 million) in the UK next year as it makes its new A350 plane.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,080.42 down 2.3% (Wednesday close)
Dow 9,762.69 down 1.2% (close)
S&P 500 1,042.63 down 2% (close)
Nasdaq 2,059.61 down 2.7% (close)
Nikkei 9,879.37 down 1.9% (latest)
Hang Seng 21,250.65 down 2.4% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6372/1.1125 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4717 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $75.76 down 10 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $77.30 down 16 cents (latest)
Gold $1032.40 up $1.90 (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks tumbled in a broad sell-off after weak data on new home sales heightened concerns about the pace of the economic recovery. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed below their 50-day moving average for the first time since July, a bearish technical signal. Among financials, JPMorgan fell 2.8 per cent and American Express fell 3.6 per cent. iPod maker Apple fell 2.5 per cent. Aluminium company Alcoa fell 6.9 per cent and heavy equipment maker Caterpillar, fell 4 per cent. Diversified manufacturer 3M fell 2 per cent. Among home builders, Beazer Homes fell 11.6 per cent, DR Horton fell 5.8 per cent and Toll Brothers fell 5 per cent after sales of newly built homes unexpectedly fell.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell in morning trade on falling new-home sales in the US. ANZ Bank, Australia's second-biggest business lender, fell 2 per cent on disappointing earnings. Advantest, the world's No. 1 maker of memory-chip testers, fell 4.5 per cent after posting a wider loss on slumping orders. BHP Billiton, the world's largest miner, fell 3 per cent and rival Rio Tinto fell 4.4 per cent on lower commodity prices. Woodside Petroleum, Australia's second-largest oil producer, fell 2.5 per cent and Inpex, Japan's largest oil explorer, fell 2.6 per cent on lower oil prices. Nippon Mining Holdings, Japan's biggest copper producer, fell 3.9 per cent on disappointing forecasts. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.8 per cent to 115.43 in early trade.
Michael Beh
London
The FTSE 100 marked the 80th anniversary of the Great Crash of 1929 in fitting fashion, dropping by more than 2 per cent. The blue chip index was already under pressure amid losses for miners and financial stocks, before a weak opening on Wall Street - due to an unexpected fall in new home sales in September - further unnerved investors. The FTSE closed down 120.55 points at 5,080.42. Prudential was the biggest faller, down 9.8 per cent, even though the insurer reported a better than expected 9 per cent decline in third-quarter sales. Xstrata led the mining sector lower, dropping 9.4 per centamid concerns about demand for commodities, with copper hitting a one-week low.
Peter Stiff
