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
Friday, December 11, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: UK treasury gilt futures plunged over concern about the Chancellor's fiscal plans.
The Daily Telegraph: Some well-paid investment bankers may be exempt from the bonus tax because the advisory businesses they work for may not count as banks.
Wall Street Journal: Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street bank, will not pay its top 30 executives a cash bonus for 2009.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: The bond market had another look at Alistair Darling's budget numbers and took fright.
Jeff Randall in the Daily Telegraph: What will be the final bill for all the UK's extra debt? The government has no clue.
Matthew Lynn on Bloomberg: The UK's planned tax on bank bonuses is a spectacular own goal. It attacks the wrong target with the wrong weapon.
Upside
The Times: Apple is expected to launch a new way of selling music on its iTunes online music store after acquiring Lala, a digital streaming service.
The Daily Telegraph: Elite global funds are taking advantage of the Dubai storm to accumulate rock-solid assets at bargain prices.
Wall Street Journal: The US trade deficit narrowed unexpectedly in October, falling to $33 billion (£20 billion).
Downside
The Times: Royal Mail, the postal operator, reported a record deficit in its pension fund of £10 billion ($16 billion).
Financial Times: The least well-off half of UK households own just 9 per cent of the nation's wealth.
New York Times: France agreed to join Britain in levying a supertax on banking bonuses.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: James Lawrence, who failed last year to win the chief executive's job at Unilever, resigned as chief financial officer of the Anglo-Dutch giant.
The Daily Telegraph: John McCready, a senior accountancy partner, will head a new unit in the Shareholder Executive, which manages the UK's property portfolio.
The Times: JJB Sports, the beleaguered sportswear retailer, appointed Keith Jones, group retail director of DSG International, as its new chief executive.
Around Asia
Wall Street Journal: China rolled out new regulations that could curb billions of dollars worth of sales of high-tech gear to government agencies.
Bloomberg: Panasonic, the electronics maker, purchased Sanyo Electric, the maker of batteries used in electric cars, for $4.6 billion (£2.8 billion).
New York Times: China, the world's largest steel consumer, will impose provisional duties on some US and Russian steel imports.
Look ahead
The Independent: Sports Direct, the sportswear retailer, expects to get a boost from sales of England shirts with the World Cup Tournament next year.
Wall Street Journal: Urs Rohner, vice-chairman of Credit Suisse, will lead the Swiss bank after its annual general meeting in April 2011.
Bloomberg: US stocks are in a bear market that may last until 2018, predicts Alan Shaw, the former Citigroup technical analyst.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,244.37 up 0.8% (Thursday close)
Dow 10,405.83 up 0.7% (close)
S&P 500 1,102.35 up 0.6% (close)
Nasdaq 2,190.86 up 0.3% (close)
Nikkei 9,942.07 up 0.8% (latest)
Hang Seng 21,981.61 up 1.3% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6268/1.1051 euros (latest)
Euro $1.472 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $72.16 up 30 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $70.68 up 14 cents (latest)
Gold $1133.50 up $7.30 (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks gained on improving trends in the job market and a decline in the October trade deficit. Entertainment company Walt Disney rose 3.1 per cent. Softdrink maker Coca-Cola rose 1.3 per cent after it resolved a dispute with Costco Wholesale. Time Warner, the entertainment conglomerate, rose 4.2 per cent after completing its spinoff of AOL, which fell 0.6 per cent. On the Nasdaq, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion rose 2.6 per cent and Amazon.com rose 3 per cent, rebounding from the previous session. Ciena, the telecoms equipment maker, fell 11.4 per cent after it posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss. http://tinyurl.com/ycc6ewl
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade as a narrower-than-estimated US trade deficit boosted confidence an economic expansion is gathering pace. Nissan Motor, a carmaker that gets 35 per cent of sales in North America, rose 2.3 per cent in Tokyo on the stronger dollar. Nomura Holdings, Japan's largest brokerage, rose 1.5 per cent on an analyst's upgrade. Auckland International Airport rose 2.2 per cent in Wellington after saying annual earnings will fall less than anticipated. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.3 per cent to 119.46 in early trade. http://tinyurl.com/yzn5uot
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
London
Investors were happy to pay for Sky yesterday after the satellite TV group received a boost from Cazenove.
Shares in BSkyB rose 3.8 per cent after the broker upgraded its rating on the pay TV business to outperform, citing its strong growth prospects, potential margin improvement and a possible change of Government next year.
Overall, the FTSE 100 bounced back from three sessions of losses, gaining 40.48 points to 5,244.37, driven by financials.
Lloyds Banking Group was the biggest riser, up 6.5 per cent, after RBS talked up its prospects. Analysts at the fellow tax-payer controlled bank said Lloyds was a powerful restructuring opportunity, underpinned by margin expansion, cost savings and lower bad debt charges. It added that clarity on capital structure and EU forced asset disposals should allow investors to focus back on its recovery.
The mining sector lost ground amid weaker metal prices, with copper hitting a two week low due to a stronger US dollar and demand concerns. Xstrata, down 2.1 per cent, was the biggest faller.
Peter Stiff
Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk
