 | March 3, 2010 |
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Kill the Competition: Pru shakes ... tax impost ... gloomy BPTop stories The Times: Prudential lost a fifth of its stock market value in two days as it battled to convince UK investors to pay up for its $35.5 billion (£23.6 billion) Asian expansion. Daily Telegraph: Britain's largest companies handed over more than half their gross profits to the Government in taxes last year. The Times: BP’s chief executive forecast years of weak demand for oil and depressed refining margins; aiming to cut costs to their 2004 levels. Comment David Wighton in The Times: It’s now or never for the Pru, if it can calm nerves. Jeremy Warner in Daily Telegraph: The sterling crisis has become a hanging matter. David Prosser in The Independent: 'Red Knights' were once seen as devils by "true’ Manchester United fans. Upside The Times: The cost of fresh groceries dropped for the first time since 2006 as competition among retailers forced down the price of electrical items and clothes. Wall Street Journal: Japan's jobless rate and consumer spending improved in January with the jobless rate falling to a 10-month low. The Times: Persimmon helped restore confidence in the housing market by moving back into the black with a £78 million ($117 million) pre-tax profit. Downside The Times: Up to 1,000 UK workers to lose their jobs at AstraZeneca when the pharmaceutical company closes research facilities in Leicestershire and Cambridge. Wall Street Journal: General Motors voluntarily recalling 1.3 million compact cars because their power steering could fail. The Times: US Senate hearing into Toyota’s recall of cars told fears over potential problems surfaced in 2006. Mergers and shakers The Times: Comparethemarket.com overtook its rivals last year after the introduction of Aleksandr Orlov, the aristocratic meerkat. The Independent: Two charities win an injunction stopping the Serious Fraud Office from closing its corruption investigation into arms manufacturer BAE Systems. The Times: Allied Irish Banks, Ireland’s biggest bank, reported a full-year net loss of €2.3 billion (£2.1 billion), the first loss in its 44-year history. Around Asia The Times: Apple filed a lawsuit against HTC, which manufactures Google’s Nexus One, accusing the Taiwanese company of stealing its technology. Wall Street Journal: Videogame companies rush to tap China's market, but many find a slow-moving bureaucracy and rampant piracy remain hurdles. Wall Street Journal: Chinese car dealer Zhongsheng shelved its planned $1 billion (£665 million) Hong Kong IPO because of volatile market conditions. Look ahead The Times: Cipriani London, the fashionable Italian restaurant, calling in administrators to protect the Cipriani family assets. Daily Telegraph: Financial regulators plan to scrutinise the profits investment banks make from client trading to ensure "casino" activities are not being concealed. The Independent: The UK’s construction industry faced a third year in the doldrums, according to a survey of managers in the section. MARKETS FTSE 100 5,484.06 up 1.5% (Tuesday close) Dow 10,405.98 unchanged (close) S&P 500 1,118.31 up 0.2% (close) Nasdaq 2,280.79 up 0.3% (close) Nikkei 10,224.48 unchanged (latest) Hang Seng 20,906.11 down 0.7% (latest) Currencies Sterling $1.503/1.103 euros (latest) Euro $1.3627 (latest) Commodities Brent crude $78.11 down 7 cents (latest) West Texas crude $79.65 down 3 cents (latest) Gold $1133.40 down $4 (latest) New York Reuters: Stocks ended slightly higher on Tuesday as mergers and acquisitions supported selected sectors, but investors pulled back from recent gains in some big-cap technology and bank shares. Fertiliser maker CF Industries raised its hostile bid for Terra Industries Inc and Dow Chemical said it would sell one of its units to private equity firm Bain Capital Partners. That helped boost sentiment a day after AIG announced a record-breaking deal to sell a major Asia insurance unit. More dealmaking is a sign that the financial markets are normalizing and the economy improving. Dow components IBM fell 0.9 per cent and Hewlett Packard lost 0.8 per cent, while JPMorgan Chase fell 0.5 per cent and Bank of America lost 1.5 per cent. Tuesday's figures on February sales from major US automakers added to recent lacklustre data with Ford down 1.5 per cent. CF Industries Holdings raised its offer to $47.40 a share in cash and stock, sending Terra up 10.9 per cent. CF shed 1 per cent. On the Nasdaq, technology bellwether Qualcomm rose more than 6 per cent after the company announced a $3 billion share buyback plan and raised its quarterly dividend by 12 per cent. http://tinyurl.com/yjq6lyj Asia Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade, erasing the MSCI Asia Pacific Index’s 2010 decline, as metal and oil prices advanced and concerns about Greece’s budget problems eased. BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, the world’s largest and third-largest mining companies, rose more than 1.5 per cent in Sydney. National Australia, Australia’s fourth-largest bank, climbed 1.9 per cent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.4 per cent to 120.43 in morning trade. http://tinyurl.com/yju6fd9 Myles McIvor mjclub@bigpond.com.au London British Airways was the top riser, up 6.2 per cent, after upbeat IATA data and encouraging updates from two of its rivals. Overall, the FTSE 100 rallied 78.12 points to 5,484.06, despite another bad day for Prudential, which fell a further 8 per cent as investors continued to digest its plans to buy AIG’s Asian business. Admiral also fell 3.3 per cent after investors took profits on the insurer after it reported full year results in line with expectations. In the FTSE 250, Sports Direct rose 6.5 per cent after it said it was considering making an offer for Blacks Leisure, its smaller peer, which gained more than 13 per cent. Peter Stiff Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk |
