 | March 29, 2010 |
Kill the Competition: Tax halved ... Pay rise ... Volvo soldMonday, March 29, 0730 GMTTop stories The Times: The Conservatives plan to reduce part of Labour’s national insurance rise due to come into effect next year by half. http://tinyurl.com/y8o654b The Daily Telegraph: Royal Bank of Scotland, the state-backed bank, gave staff a 5 per cent pay rise by backdating an increase in "benefits" to January 2009. http://tinyurl.com/yjqnqm6 The Times: Ford, the carmaker, agreed to sell Volvo Cars to Zhejiang Geely Holding, China’s largest private carmaker. http://tinyurl.com/yjk4q8d Comment Josef Joffe in The Times: Germany’s Chancellor saved the euro by putting her foot down over bailing out Greece. http://tinyurl.com/yzfdjk5 Roger Bootle in The Daily Telegraph: The German response to international criticism of its economic policy is similar to the Chinese defence. http://tinyurl.com/yjjaslp Stephen King in The Independent: None of the political parties is prepared to admit the full truth about the spending cuts to come. http://tinyurl.com/ye4nq8f Upside The Times: British Gas will put smart meters in a million UK homes this year, creating 2,500 jobs and potentially cutting domestic energy bills by £1 billion ($1.5 billion). http://tinyurl.com/yzx6ha7 Wall Street Journal: The US and European governments are moving toward a consensus on taxing large banks to cover the cost of any future bailouts. http://tinyurl.com/yho7j7g The Times: Siemens, the German engineering giant, plans to spend up to £100 million ($149 million) to build a wind turbine factory in the UK. http://tinyurl.com/yjfn79h Downside The Times: About 17,000 people working in the financial services industry will have lost their jobs in the first half of this year, a survey found. http://tinyurl.com/yf5klzb The Daily Telegraph: Barclays, the UK bank, used the pension benefits of frontline staff to offset the bonus tax for its high-earning investment bankers. http://tinyurl.com/ykedwjo Wall Street Journal: Government pay restrictions played a role in the surprise departure of an important executive at American International Group, the US insurer. http://tinyurl.com/yf7sgrt Mergers and shakers The Times: TalkTalk, the broadband business, completed its demerger from Carphone Warehouse, the electronics retailer. http://tinyurl.com/yg6j5cw Financial Times: The French arm of LCH.Clearnet, Europe’s largest independent clearing house, will launch clearing of credit default swaps. http://tinyurl.com/yl4oeqy Wall Street Journal: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the chip maker, plans to buy a 10 per cent stake in China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International. http://tinyurl.com/ygcsrcr Around Asia Wall Street Journal: South Korea returned to a current account surplus in February, reversing from a deficit in January. http://tinyurl.com/ygsgf96 Bloomberg: Japan’s retail sales gained at the fastest pace in more than a decade last month. http://tinyurl.com/ykr863q Wall Street Journal: China's banking regulator banned new property loans to 78 companies owned by the central government. http://tinyurl.com/yjojvxt Look ahead The Times: Television channels may be allowed to limit the advertising minutes they sell between programmes this year, which could net them millions of pounds. http://tinyurl.com/yg92mho Wall Street Journal: The US housing market may sustain less damage than expected this year as the number of adjustable-rate mortgages to increase repayments falls. http://tinyurl.com/yjuy9bk The Times: Euro Car Parts, the biggest distributor of replacement car and van parts in the UK, will create 200 jobs this year after profits almost trebled. http://tinyurl.com/ylxu5ao Unfinished business - last week wrapped up Last Monday Google effectively closed its flagship search site in China, redirecting web users of its Google.cn service to its Hong Kong-based site. http://tinyurl.com/yh5fesr A £4 billion ($6 billion) tank-building contract was awarded to General Dynamics, the US-based group, putting BAE System's Tyneside tank factory at risk of closure. http://tinyurl.com/y9te4rn Tuesday 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 Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, scrapped the country's proposed carbon tax in the face of mass protests. http://tinyurl.com/y8f3s7t Wednesday Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, raided the rich and stole Conservative ideas in a highly political Budget that delayed spending cuts until after polling day. http://tinyurl.com/y9g5kqe The euro tumbled after Portugal’s rating was downgraded to AA- and markets considered the likelihood of an IMF rescue for Greece. http://tinyurl.com/y8kkr87 Thursday Eurozone leaders agreed that they and the International Monetary Fund would jointly bail out Greece should its debt troubles intensify. http://tinyurl.com/yb2vbnc The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, a Canadian pension fund, bought the UK’s National Lottery for £389 million ($578 million). http://tinyurl.com/y9ptv2q Friday Cable & Wireless, the telecoms group, completed its long-awaited demerger, creating separate companies for its blue-chip and regional telecoms operations. http://tinyurl.com/ybmzw25 A 40-year low in business investment to £27 billion ($40 billion) will permanently damage Britain's economic performance, economists said. http://tinyurl.com/yd22pqm MARKETS FTSE 100 5,703.02 down 0.4% (Friday close) Dow 10,850.36 up 0.1% (close) S&P 500 1,166.59 up 0.1% (close) Nasdaq 2,395.13 down 0.1% (close) Nikkei 10,939.13 down 0.5% (latest) Hang Seng 21,236.93 up 0.9% (latest) Currencies Sterling $1.4914/1.1107 euros (latest) Euro $1.3427 (latest) Commodities Brent crude $79.70 up 41 cents (latest) West Texas crude $80.43 up 43 cents (latest) Gold $1105.70 up 30 cents (latest) New York Reuters: The Dow and S&P ended flat, giving back earlier gains after the sinking of a South Korean naval ship, while weakness in tech shares kept the Nasdaq in slightly negative territory. Oil giant Chevron rose 0.9 per cent, supporting the Dow industrials. On the Nasdaq, Oracle, the business software maker, fell 1.3 per cent from a nine-year high a day after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results. Software bellwether Microsoft fell 1.2 per cent. Apple rose 1.9 per cent on an analyst’s upgrade. Electronics retailer RadioShack rose 8.5 per cent on reports it is considering a share buyback or a possible sale. http://tinyurl.com/yjm3ebl Asia Bloomberg: Most Asian stocks rose in morning trade as gains among mining companies offset declines by Japanese shares after rights to dividends expired. BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest miner, rose 0.5 per cent on higher metals prices. Takeda, Asia’s biggest drugmaker, fell 1 per cent as it is among about 2,500 Japanese companies that are ex-dividend today. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the Australian lender, fell 1 per cent as the governor of the country’s central bank signaled more interest-rate increases. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.1 per cent to 124.35 in morning trade. http://tinyurl.com/yl8djys Michael Beh michaelwbeh@gmail.com |
