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
Tuesday, January 5, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: The John Lewis Partnership, the employee-owned retailer, reported strong Christmas sales, sparking fresh hope of a consumer bounceback.
Wall Street Journal: The Dow Jones Industrial Average leapt 1.5 per cent as investors began 2010 on a buying spree following strong manufacturing data.
The Times: Britain's 18-month-long recession is set to draw to a close after figures showed UK manufacturing was at its most buoyant for two years.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: Nestlé's sale of Alcon certainly raised the temperature ahead of a key period that could determine the fate of Cadbury.
Nicholas Brady in the Financial Times: Should a bank's operations include activities that could threaten the system as a whole?
Stephen Roach on Bloomberg: Shocks can deal lethal blows to anemic recoveries and that remains a real risk in this still fragile post-crisis climate.
Upside
The Times: Lending to UK consumers and businesses increased during November as the amount of money available rose by 0.9 per cent.
Wall Street Journal: US insurers will save more than $5 billion (£3 billion) after regulators changed the way they calculate life insurers' risks.
The Times: Equitable Life, the mutual group that nearly collapsed ten years ago, reintroduced interim bonuses for the first time since the credit crunch.
Downside
The Daily Telegraph: Greece faces intrusive European Union surveillance amid reports of a growing budget deficit.
The Times: City bankers are seriously considering whether parts of their business can be relocated to avoid the UK tax on bonuses.
Financial Times: The US public pension system faces worse-than-expected shortfall of more than $2 trillion (£1.2 trillion).
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Nestlé, the food giant, sold its stake in Alcon, the Swiss eye-care firm, to Novartis, the drug maker, sparking rumors it may bid for confectioner Cadbury.
The Daily Telegraph: Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank, was hit with a $24 billion (£15 billion) lawsuit filed by a clutch of luxury resort owners.
Financial Times: Total, the French oil producer, paid $2.25 billion ($1.4 billion) for a stake in the natural gas assets of Chesapeake Energy, the US gas producer.
Around Asia
Wall Street Journal: China's insurance regulator will let insurance companies buy AAA-rated nonguaranteed bonds on the domestic interbank market.
The Times: Japan Airlines is just days away from sealing a deal that could save Asia's largest carrier from liquidation and reshape the global airline industry.
Wall Street Journal: General Motors, the car giant, expects sales in India to exceed 100,000 vehicles this year, helped by a new small car.
Look ahead
Wall Street Journal: Apple, the iPod maker, will unveil a new multimedia tablet device this month, but is not planning to ship the product until March.
New York Times: New US regulations will hold paid tax preparers to higher standards for the first time by the 2011 filing season.
Bloomberg: There is a 30 per cent chance the US economy will slide into a recession during 2010, predicts Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,500.34 up 1.6% (Monday close)
Dow 10,583.96 up 1.5% (close)
S&P 500 1,132.99 up 1.6% (close)
Nasdaq 2,308.42 up 1.7% (close)
Nikkei 10,756.42 up 1% (latest)
Hang Seng 22,019.85 up 0.9% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.609/1.1163 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4413 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $80.20 up 8 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $81.54 up 3 cents (latest)
Gold $1121.60 up $3.30 (latest)
New York
Bloomberg: US stocks rose on the first day of trading for 2010 on better-than-expected manufacturing data. Construction equipment maker Caterpillar rose 2.7 per cent and manufacturer United Technologies rose 3.2 per cent. Among oil producers, Exxon rose 1.4 per cent and Chevron rose 2.7 per cent on higher oil prices. Oil refiners rose on an analyst's upgrade of the sector. Tesoro rose 9.3 per cent and Valero Energy rose 6.8 per cent. Gold producer Newmont Mining rose 2.4 per cent, aluminium maker Alcoa rose 3.3 per cent and copper producer Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold rose 4 per cent on higher metals prices. Banking giant Morgan Stanley rose 4.4 per cent on analysts' upgrades. Chipmaker Intel rose 2.4 per cent on an analyst's upgrade.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in early trade, after US manufacturing expanded and commodities gained. Sony, maker of the Playstation games console, rose 1.2 per cent and Nikon, the camera maker, rose 3.1 per cent. Mitsubishi, Japan's biggest trading company, rose 3.6 per cent and Korea Zinc, which produces gold and silver, rose 2 per cent on higher oil and metal prices. STX Pan Ocean, South Korea's biggest bulk carrier, rose 4 per cent and Nippon Yusen KK, Japan's biggest shipping line, rose 3.9 per cent on higher shipping rates. Elpida Memory, Japan's biggest computer-memory chipmaker, rose 7.8 per cent on reports its Taiwanese unit will double output. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 1 per cent to 123.29 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
London
Royal Bank of Scotland was the biggest riser yesterday as the FTSE 100 hit a 16-month high on the first day of trading of the new year. Shares in RBS rose 9.9 per cent amid reports that Itau Unibanco, one of the largest banks in Brazil, was interested in taking a stake in the government-controlled bank. Gains for RBS were also driven by Exane BNP Paribas, which said a sharp decline in the bank's share price since the end of August, combined with hopes of progress on asset disposals and greater certainty about the broader economy should prompt investors to look at the stock in 2010. The FTSE 100 exceeded the 5,500 points level, closing up 87.46 points at 5,500.34. The mining sector made ground amid higher metal prices, with copper driven by a strike in Chile and encouraging Chinese manufacturing data, and bullish comments on the sector from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The broker said that Kazakhmys, up 3.8 per cent, offered the best leverage to rising copper prices.
Peter Stiff
