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, January 28, 0730 GMT
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Top stories
The Times: Steve Jobs unveiled the portable computer iPad, Apple's attempt to bridge the gap between laptop and smartphone.
The Times: George Soros, the billionaire investor, accused bankers of being "tone deaf" after they used Davos to launch a fightback against President Obama's proposed crackdown.
The Times: Alexander Lebedev denied that a £450 million ($730 million) buyout injection from the Kremlin would be used to buy The Independent.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: With banks' credibility close to zero, some suggest public apologies might help: Davos would be a good place to start.
Richard Fletcher in Daily Telegraph: Pets at Home may prove best in show against private equity's mongrels.
David Prosser in The Independent: Strength in numbers was the feeling at the World Economic Forum with a string of senior bankers speaking out.
Upside
New York Times: On the eve of a senate vote on Ben Bernanke's reign as Fed chairman, the central bank voted to keep short-term interest rates near zero.
The Times: Pets at Home, Britain's biggest pet food and equipment retailer, bought by a New York-based private equity firm for £955 million ($1.5 billion).
The Times: The sterling climbed against major currencies after Andrew Sentance, a Bank of England MPC member, hinted that quantitative easing could stop next month.
Downside
The Times: The AA says rises in fraudulent insurance claims and personal injury settlements drop a record leap in the cost of motor cover.
Daily Telegraph: Individual share ownership in Britain has fallen to an all-time low with a £120 billion ($195 billion) decline in two years.
New York Times: US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told a House panel that the $85 billion (£52 billion) AIG bailout helped prevent a depression.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Dalton Philips named to replace Marc Bolland as chief exeuctive of Wm Morrison but the grocer won't say when Bolland can start work at M&S.
Daily Telegraph: Oil companies could be offered up to £160 million ($260 million) in tax relief for each field they develop off the Shetland Islands.
The Times: Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, sang the praises of Laurence Kotlikoff, an obscure US economist with big ideas.
Around Asia
The Times: Applause greeted Michael Geoghegan as walked into his Hong Kong office; HSBC staff had waited 17 years for their chief executive to have an address there.
The Times: UC Rusal, the first non-Asian company to list in Hong Kong, plunged 9 per cent on opening before the aluminium producer ended the session down 11 per cent.
The Times: Toyota shares dropped 8 per cent in New York after it suspended sales of eight models in North American markets on safety concerns.
Look ahead
The Times: The Swiss Government to try to renegotiate its landmark tax treaty with the US in the hope of heading off a referendum on its banking secrecy laws.
New York Times: For the first time the US Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that companies should warn investors of global-warming risks.
New York Times: South Korean companies, including Samsung Life, could raise as much as $11 billion by selling their shares to the public for the first time.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,217.47 down 1.1%(Wednesday close)
Dow 10,236.16 up 0.4% (close)
S&P 500 1,097.50 up 0.5% (close)
Nasdaq 2,221.41 up 0.8% (close)
Nikkei 10,385.99 up 1.3% (latest)
Hang Seng 20,183.39 up 0.8% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6164/1.1566 euros (latest)
Euro $1.3976 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $72 down 24 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $73.42 down 25 cents (latest)
Gold $1,084.30 down $1.40 (latest)
New York
Reuters: Stocks rose on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it would keep interest rates near zero and ahead of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. But the Nasdaq got a late surge from a gain of almost 1 per cent in Apple after the iPad's debut. After the closing bell, Qualcomm tumbled 8.9 per cent after the biggest maker of cellphone chips cut its revenue estimate for the first quarter and current fiscal year, citing a slow economic recovery. During the regular session, Apple rose 0.9 per cent, reversing course from a drop of more than 3 per cent earlier in the day after the company unveiled its iPad tablet computer. Nasdaq also got a boost from Gilead Sciences, which jumped 7.1 percent after the biotech company posted fourth-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street's estimates and forecast a sales increase of 10 per cent for 2010. Boeing was the Dow's top advancer, up 7.3 per cent after the world's second-largest aircraft manufacturer reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results and forecast a profitable 2010. But Dow components Caterpillar and United Technologies slipped after giving cautious forecasts.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade for the first time in nine days, led by electronics and technology companies, after Canon forecast its biggest profit increase in a decade. Canon, a Japanese camera maker, rose 2.2 per cent. Sony and Honda jumped more than 5 per cent after the Nikkei newspaper flagged improved profitability at the two companies. Macarthur Coal added 2.9 per cent in Sydney after its share price estimate was raised at Royal Bank of Scotland.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.3 per cent to 118.48 in morning trade. Among stocks that fell, Toyota dropped 2.3 per cent in Tokyo after saying it will expand a vehicle recall to Europe. Woolworths, Australia's biggest retailer, sank 2.7 per cent as UBS downgraded the stock.
Myles McIvor
mjclub@bigpond.com.au
London
Investors in WH Smith followed the old adage that you should never judge a book by its cover yesterday when they marked shares in the retailer up by 1.7 per cent. The rise came despite the high street stalwart reporting a 4 per cent fall in like-for-like sales of books over Christmas. However, the City chose to ignore the numbers and instead looked at the words from Citigroup, which suggested that WH Smith had actually gained market share, mostly from Waterstone's, which suffered a 9 per cent drop. The FTSE 100 dropped 59.38 points to 5,217.47 before the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision and President Obama's first State of the Union address last night. Concerns about Chinese growth and disappointing results from BBVA, the Spanish bank, also weighed heavily on the increasingly negative sentiment washing around the Square Mile. Man group lost 6.5 per cent after another poor weekly performance from its key AHL fund and downbeat broker comments.
Peter Stiff
Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk
