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
Wednesday, January 27, 0730 GMT
The Davos Download
Sign up for our new email from the 40th World Economic Forum for breaking news, top stories and the inside track on the best of the speeches straight to your inbox twice a day.
Click here for the Davos Download www.timesonline.co.uk/vip/davos
Davos daily coverage at www.timesonline.co.uk/davos
Talk live to the Editor of The Times at Davos www.timesonline.co.uk/davoslive
Top stories
The Times: Fears are growing that the UK could tip back into recession after a tiny 0.1 per cent rise in economic growth during the last quarter of last year.
The Daily Telegraph: Spyker, the Dutch car maker, struck a deal with General Motors to rescue Saab, the larger Swedish car maker owned by the car giant.
The Times: Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, said bankers should take a permanent pay cut to align them with other professionals.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: None of the corporate types should expect an easy ride from the other "stakeholder" delegates at Davos, least of all the bankers.
Richard Fletcher in The Daily Telegraph: While I'm loath to trample on green shoots, lets face it 0.1 per cent is hardly something to shout about.
William Pesek on Bloomberg: All the buzz about losers if Google leaves China ignores a potential winner: India.
Upside
The Times: First Capital Connect, the railway operator, will pay passengers additional compensation after three months of disruption and cancelled trains.
Wall Street Journal: Yahoo's advertising business is stabilising as the internet company slowed its revenue slide and swung to a profit.
The Independent: The number of mortgages approved in the UK jumped to the highest level for more than two years last month.
Downside
Wall Street Journal: Toyota, the Japanese car giant, suspended US sales of eight models recalled to fix potential problems with sticky accelerator pedals.
The Times: The dispute at Mitchells & Butlers, the pub company, over £500 million ($808 million) of hedging losses grew as investors called for a new board.
New York Times: More than half of the dealers terminated by General Motors and Chrysler applied to an arbitrator to be reinstated with the auto giant.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: The board of the Port of Dover, the largest British port still in the public sector, applied for voluntary privatisation.
The Daily Telegraph: UK authorities charged two former executives at Torex Retail in connection with the collapse of the Aim-listed software group.
The Times: Daniel Vasella, the chief executive of Novartis, the Swiss drugs company, will step down after 14 years at the helm.
Around Asia
Financial Times: Greece is wooing China to buy up to €25 billion (£22 billion, $35 billion) of government bonds.
New York Times: Standard & Poor's, the rating agency, cut its outlook for Japan's sovereign rating for the first time since 2002.
Wall Street Journal: Japanese exports posted their first year-on-year rise in 15 months in December, led by strong demand from Asia.
Look ahead
The Times: The UK construction industry will not emerge from recession until 2011, predicts ConstructionSkills, the industry body.
The Independent: The Church of England will decide this week whether to maintain its investment in Vedanta Resources, the controversial mining group.
Wall Street Journal: The US Congressional Budget Office called the US budget outlook "bleak" and predicted a $1.35 trillion (£837 billion) deficit for 2010.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,276.85 up 03% (Tuesday close)
Dow 10,194.29 steady (close)
S&P 500 1,092.17 down 0.4% (close)
Nasdaq 2,203.73 down 0.3% (close)
Nikkei 10,355.62 up 0.3% (latest)
Hang Seng 20,261.51 up 0.8% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6131/1.1464 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4071 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $73.17 down 12 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $74.61 down 10 cents (latest)
Gold $1102.40 up $2.90 (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks slipped late due to trepidation over churning political and regulatory developments, offsetting solid earnings and improved consumer confidence data. After the bell, internet company Yahoo rose 1.9 per cent on good results. Telecoms company Verizon Communications fell 1.6 per cent after saying it faced a slower-than-expected recovery. Insurer Travelers was the top boost on the Dow and rose 2.7 per cent on better-than-expected results. On the Nasdaq, iPhone maker Apple rose 1.5 per cent, a day after reporting strong quarterly results and on growing anticipation over its tablet product launch. Software giant Microsoft rose 0.7 per cent.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks fluctuated in morning trade as gains among health-care and consumer companies overshadowed declines by mining shares on lower commodity prices. Fuso Pharmaceutical Industries, a Japanese maker of drugs and medical equipment, rose 14 per cent after forecasting a full-year profit. Kao, Japan's biggest maker of household products, rose 6.9 per cent after reporting better-than-expected profit. BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner, fell 2.1 per cent in Sydney. Toyota, the car making giant, fell 1.9 per cent after saying it will halt US sales of models involved in a recall. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was little changed at 119.43 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
London
PartyGaming was the biggest faller in the FTSE 250 yesterday after one of the co-founders of the online gaming group sold his remaining shares.
The group, down 5.4 per cent, said Anurag Dikshit had sold his 9.5 per cent stake, or 38.8 million shares at 270p, netting him about £105 million.
The FTSE 100 closed up 16.54 points at 5,276.85 after a slow start, lifted in the afternoon by US consumer confidence data.
Standard Charted rose 2.5 per cent after upbeat broker comments.
Kazakhmys lost 2.3 per cent as the mining sector fell due to lower metal prices.
Peter Stiff
Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk
