 | March 24, 2010 |
Kill the Competition: Insider raids ... Tax scrapped ... Budget powerTop storiesThe Times: The Financial Services Authority questioned six men from some of the City's top banks over insider dealing after dawn raids. http://tinyurl.com/ycux2dy The Daily Telegraph: Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, scrapped the country's proposed carbon tax in the face of mass protests. http://tinyurl.com/y8f3s7t The Times: Nuclear and wind power will be at heart of the Budget to be delivered by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor. Lhttp://tinyurl.com/y9usoq5 Comment Norman Lamont in The Times: In his Budget, the Chancellor must balance the needs of prudence with political demands for sweeteners. It's an impossible task. http://tinyurl.com/y88zo6q Richard Fletcher in The Daily Telegraph: Four simple tables within the Red Book will tell you almost everything you need to know about the Budget. http://tinyurl.com/ycbfmjb David Prosser in The Independent: It's not wrong to get as many people without a bank account on to the books of banks - but to pretend this is a new strategy would be. http://tinyurl.com/yaqxtxp Upside The Times: UK inflation fell to 3 per cent last month, pushed lower by lower utility bills and falls in the prices of games and toys. http://tinyurl.com/yj7eg3v The Times: The Financial Services Authority faces fierce objections from some of the UK's biggest lenders over proposals to ban self-certified mortgages. http://tinyurl.com/yac5ag5 The Times: Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, ruled that BT, the telecoms group, must open its fibre optic network to rivals. http://tinyurl.com/yedk9cm Downside The Times: Daimler will pay $185 million (£123 million) to settle US allegations that the Mercedes-Benz maker paid bribes to win government contracts. http://tinyurl.com/y8edr7l Wall Street Journal: The World Trade Organisation decried the $20 billion (£13 billion) in European loans to Airbus for its A380 passenger jet as an illegal subsidy. http://tinyurl.com/ya7maw9 New York Times: Google's ties to some of its Chinese partners began to come apart as China reacted angrily to the search engine's attempt to bypass censors. http://tinyurl.com/ylpp8xb Mergers and shakers The Times: Carolyn McCall, the head of the Guardian Media Group, will join EasyJet, the discount airline, as its new chief executive. http://tinyurl.com/yl6cv9b Wall Street Journal: Jon Corzine, the former Goldman Sachs chairman, will head MF Global Holdings, the world's largest independent futures brokerage. http://tinyurl.com/yessb45 The Times: Ian Norris, former chief executive of Morgan Crucible, the industrial group, will be extradited to the US to face charges of obstruction of justice. Around Asia The Times: BG Group, the oil and gas producer, is poised to sign a contract worth $40 billion (£27 billion) to supply natural gas to China. http://tinyurl.com/ydyq9x9 The Daily Telegraph: Dai-Ichi Mutual Life, the Japanese life insurer, is to launch the world's biggest public offering since the Great Recession. http://tinyurl.com/yc4x5fm Wall Street Journal: Lee Kun-hee will return as chairman of Samsung Group, South Korea's largest business, after resigning in 2008 amid an ethics scandal. http://tinyurl.com/yaxjk27 Look ahead The Times: Nintendo will launch this year a new version of its DS handheld games machine that will play games in 3D but without the need for special glasses. http://tinyurl.com/ye93tjg Wall Street Journal: Diageo, the UK drinks giant, will release a Swedish vodka in the US this summer in an attempt to regain market share. http://tinyurl.com/y98zoyu New York Times: Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, the drug makers, will supply cheap pneumonia vaccines to a program aiming to save 900,000 lives by 2015. http://tinyurl.com/yd2xrlr MARKETS FTSE 100 5,673.63 up 0.5% (Tuesday close) Dow 10,888.83 up 1% (close) S&P 500 1,174.17 up 0.7% (close) Nasdaq 2,415.24 up 0.8% (close) Nikkei 10,826.38 up 0.5% (latest) Hang Seng 21,161.16 up 0.8% (latest) Currencies Sterling $1.5013/1.1152 euros (latest) Euro $1.3462 (latest) Commodities Brent crude $80.17 down 53 cents (latest) West Texas crude $81.27 down 64 cents (latest) Gold $1102.60 down $1.10 (latest) New York Reuters: US stocks rallied, led by the tech, industrial and materials sectors, driving the Dow and the S&P 500 to 18-month highs. Machinery maker Caterpillar rose 4.1 per cent on an analyst's upgrade and led the Dow industrials higher. Semiconductor stocks were strong performers, lifting the Nasdaq. Intel rose 1.9 per cent. Integrated Silicon Solution rose 14.6 per cent a day after it raised its earnings outlook. After the bell, design software maker Adobe Systems rose 5.1 per cent on better-than-expected profit. Circuit board maker Jabil Circuit fell 5.5 per cent on poor results. During the regular session, the US-listed shares of Brazilian mining giant Vale rose 5.1 per cent on higher iron ore prices. Steel producer US Steel rose 4.9 per cent. Builder KB Home fell 1.7 per cent on disappointing results. US-listed shares of Baidu, the Chinese search engine, rose 2.6 per cent after rival Google shut down its mainland China portal. Google fell 1.5 per cent. http://tinyurl.com/ye6g6b5 Asia Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade as signs of growing demand for semiconductors and iron ore boosted confidence in the global economic recovery. Advantest, the world's largest maker of memory-chip testers, rose 1.5 per cent in Tokyo, matching gains among US technology firms. Rio Tinto, the world's third-biggest miner, rose 2 per cent in Sydney on reports that Brazil's Vale raised iron ore rates. Canon, the world's largest camera maker, rose 2.6 per cent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.5 per cent to 125.05 in morning trade. http://tinyurl.com/ybjsfuj Michael Beh: michaelwbeh@gmail.com London The FTSE 100 advanced 29.09 points to 5,673.63, its highest since June 2008. Miners and oil producers gained ground as worries eased about the effects of monetary tightening in China and India on the demand for raw materials. Cairn Energy jumped 30.1p to 408.9p after lifting estimates for oil reserves in India. That was comfortably the strongest performance by any blue chip. Sentiment towards oil companies was further boosted by a rise in the price of crude. Among the mid-caps, Ferrexpo made similar gains after reassuring investors that demand for iron ore, an ingredient in steel making, remains strong. The shares jumped 30.2p to 340.6p, their highest for 20 months, even after the miner revealed that profits tumbled 77 per cent last year. Petropavlovsk, a Russian gold miner with iron ore assets, rose 18p to 121p ahead of results this week after securing about £225 million funding from China. The company is rumoured to be mulling whether to spin off its iron assets as a separate listing on the the Hong Kong stock exchange. A profits warning from Carpetright, down 101p at 825p, unsettled other home improvement retailers. Kingfisher, owner of B&Q DIY, lost 6p to 227p. Home Retail Group, owner of Homebase, fell 6.9p to 275p. Other stocks to be marked lower were largely those that find favour when the economy performs least well. Drug companies, cigarette makers, utilities, and brewers all fell yesterday. Gary Parkinson: Gary.Parkinson@thetimes.co.uk |
