 | April 21, 2010 |
Kill the Competition: IMF taxes ... Trader barred ... Apple surgesTop storiesThe Times: The International Monetary Fund proposed a double-tax regime for banks that would fund future bailouts and penalise the profits and pay of lenders. http://tinyurl.com/y7euoe5 The Daily Telegraph: Fabrice Tourre, the trader central to Goldman Sachs' fraud case, was barred from working in the City, overshadowing the bank’s bumper quarterly profits. http://tinyurl.com/y34lqpf Wall Street Journal: Apple's quarterly profit surged 90 per cent, the iPhone maker’s best non-holiday quarter revenue. http://tinyurl.com/yyhahb6 Comment David Wighton in The Times: Tesco is still going like a train with major expansion plans and its bullishness is encouraging for shareholders. http://tinyurl.com/y42b3hp Edmund Conway in The Daily Telegraph: The minute the Bank of England even thinks about lifting interest rates, it will set off a chain reaction to make a fiscal crisis more likely. http://tinyurl.com/yymnx4c David Prosser in The Independent: Aviva must know that there many options other than outright closure of its final pension scheme that it could have chosen. http://tinyurl.com/y7ftgde Upside The Times: Tesco, the retailer, plans to open the equivalent of 80 superstores in the UK this year, which is more new shop space than its three biggest rivals combined. http://tinyurl.com/y7fyrrh Wall Street Journal: Google disclosed for the first time the number of requests the internet giant has received from governments for data about its users. http://tinyurl.com/y6r5oam Financial Times: Britain finally re-opened its airports after authorities reassessed the risks of the cloud of Icelandic volcanic ash. http://tinyurl.com/y4zfdyb Downside The Times: Aviva, the insurance company, announced plans to close its final-salary pension scheme, affecting thousands of long-serving staff. http://tinyurl.com/yyrf946 The Daily Telegraph: Spiralling sovereign debt in Europe, the US and Japan emerged as the top threat to the world economy, the International Monetary Fund warned. http://tinyurl.com/y6slc6l The Times: UK inflation rose higher than expected last month, raising concerns that the Bank of England may be forced to raise rates earlier than expected. http://tinyurl.com/y65d3le Mergers and shakers The Times: Christian Meissner, a senior Nomura banker who was instrumental in its takeover of former Lehman Brothers operations, quit in a management shake-up. http://tinyurl.com/y5kkfgz New York Times: EADS, the European maker of Airbus, will compete with Boeing for a US contract worth $35 billion (£23 billion) to build an aerial tanker. http://inyurl.com/y3gffpk The Times: Gerard Griffin, the US-born hedge fund manager, is winding down Tisbury Capital Management and joining GLG Partners, a larger rival. http://tinyurl.com/y4xztfs Around Asia The Independent: The Reserve Bank of India raised its key policy rates by 25 basis points to deal with inflation just short of 10 per cent. http://tinyurl.com/y6hv8kc Wall Street Journal: Kazuo Inamori, the chairman of Japan Airlines, refused to cut more jobs or routes at the carrier despite pressure from the government. http://tinyurl.com/y5yeskq Wall Street Journal: BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest miner, uncovered possible violations of anti-corruption laws by its employees. http://tinyurl.com/y4v3hof Look ahead The Times: UK students face a hefty increase in their student loan rates this year after an unexpected surge in the retail price index to 4.4 per cent last month. http://tinyurl.com/y2z8xao The Daily Telegraph: Desire Petroleum, the UK oil explorer, expects to resume drilling in the Falkland Islands in the third quarter of this year. http://tinyurl.com/y6z7duk Wall Street Journal: Wynn Resorts, the hotel operator, will build a major new casino in Macau's Cotai area to open by the end of 2013. http://tinyurl.com/y483er6 MARKETS FTSE 100 5,783.69 up 1% (Tuesday close) Dow 11,117.06 up 0.2% (close) S&P 500 1,207.17 up 0.8% (close) Nasdaq 2,500.31 up 0.8% (close) Nikkei 11,068.77 up 1.5% (latest) Hang Seng 21,625.80 steady (latest) Currencies Sterling $1.5365/1.1447 euros (latest) Euro $1.3422 (latest) Commodities Brent crude $85.28 up 48 cents (latest) West Texas crude $84.38 up 53 cents (latest) Gold $1142.30 up $3.10 (latest) New York Reuters: US stocks rose as oil prices lifted energy shares and investors were upbeat about the overall profits recovery. Goldman Sachs, the banking giant fell 2.1 per cent even as its earnings trounced forecasts. Some of the big names ended lower even after reporting solid results. IBM fell 1.9 per cent after posting better-than-expected profits but disappointing gross margins. Softdrink maker Coca-Cola fell 1.5 per cent on mixed results. Personal care firm Johnson & Johnson fell 0.1 per cent on a lower profit forecast. Health insurer UnitedHealth Group fell 0.8 per cent even after results soared past estimates. After the bell, iPad maker Apple rose more than 6 per cent, extending its record high, on good results. Internet firm Yahoo fell 1.9 per cent on lower-than-expected revenue. http://tinyurl.com/y4f55bm Asia Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in early trade, as better-than-expected results from Elpida Memory and Apple boosted confidence. Elpida, Japan’s biggest maker of computer memory, rose 4.7 per cent on its first annual profit in three years. LG Chem, South Korea’s biggest maker of chemicals, rose 2.9 per cent on good results. Advantest, the maker of memory-chip testers, rose 3.4 per cent and electronics maker Toshiba rose 3.5 per cent on an analyst’s upgrade of the sector. Woodside Petroleum, the Australian oil and gas producer, rose 1 per cent and Cnooc, China’s offshore oil producer, rose 0.6 per cent on higher oil prices. Honda, the Japanese car maker, rose 2.2 per cent in Tokyo after the yen weakened against the dollar. Sharp, the maker of liquid-crystal displays, rose 1.8 per cent. Panasonic, the world’s biggest maker of plasma televisions, rose 2 per cent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.8 per cent to 126.94 in early trade. http://tinyurl.com/y5p67mt Michael Beh; michaelwbeh@gmail.com London As airports around Europe slowly started to re-open and companies here and on Wall Street unveiled earnings that were better than expected, investors rediscovered their appetite for risk. The FTSE 100 shrugged off surprisingly strong inflation in March to rally 55.78 points to 5,783.69. Only nine bluechips gave ground. Sentiment towards shares was fanned by a growing conviction that the global economic recovery is on track. German business confidence was surprisingly healthy; so too were results from a rash of UK retailers. They reassured that Europe’s economies were doing better. Then profits from Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon - both north of what analysts had pencilled in - offered comfort that America too is on the mend. Banks, oil producers, miners, insurers, airlines - all were marked higher. Traders were even sufficiently chipper to re-heat a brace of favourite takeover tales. The oil sector gained most, rising 1.6 per cent as the dollar, traditionally a safehaven investment, eased. Oil is priced in dollars and the greenback’s weakness was crude’s strength. A barrel of Brent rose $1.43 to $85.15. That spurred Cairn Energy 12.9p to 419.5p. The tired rumour that Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, was circling Centrica was dusted down and given a fresh airing. The owner of British Gas ticked 9p higher to 307.3p. UBS turned more positive towards another long-time subject of takeover speculation. The Swiss bank told clients they should no longer sell Wellstream, the oil services group that has been linked to Italy’s Enel, among others. Wellstream advanced 31.5p to 660p as a result. The sale to Enel of Stratic Energy’s Italian assets for £30 million buoyed the North Sea oil produer 0.5p to 11.25p. The sale price was greater than the company’s market value on Monday. Stratic will use the cash to pay down part of its debt. Banks improved after Deutsche Bank became the latest broker to extol their merits to clients. Deutsche urged them to buy all four of the UK-centred lenders. Its top pick is Barclays, 2.3p higher at 32.75p, on the back of those strong profits from the Wall Street investment banks. Barclays is now a big player over there. Gary Parkinson: Gary.Parkinson@thetimes.co.uk |
