 | April 23, 2010 |
Kill the Competition: Disaster grows ... Virgin accused ... DFS sold offFriday, April 23, 0730 GMTTop stories The Times: A team of engineers using an underwater robot struggled to control a major oil spill from a rig leased by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. http://tinyurl.com/3ycu2sk Daily Telegraph: Virgin Atlantic accused of fixing Hong Kong flight prices after rival airline Cathay Pacific turned whistleblower. http://tinyurl.com/2at8kfc The Times: DFS, the furniture chain owned by Lord Kirkham, taken over by Advent International in a £500 million ($770 million) private equity deal. http://tinyurl.com/2ufataw Comment David Wighton in The Times: Deutsche Bahn, the wholly owned arm of the German state, has quietly built a formidable position in Britain’s train network. http://tinyurl.com/26q67gy Edmund Conway in Daily Telegraph: A war-sized deficit is no victory. http://tinyurl.com/26grh4o David Prosser in The Independent: Let Arriva and Cadbury go, or risk real damage to our national interest. http://tinyurl.com/2e24ftu Upside The Times: Confidence among British manufacturers surged at its fastest rate since the end of the last recession. http://tinyurl.com/3yrsgab Wall Street Journal: Microsoft's profit rose 35 per cent, largely due to sales of the latest version of its Windows operating system. http://tinyurl.com/zcoyfp The Times: Credit Suisse Group kicked off the European bank reporting season with a 2 per cent climb in first quarter profits, its fifth consecutive quarterly rise in profits. http://tinyurl.com/3xdp9ug Downside The Times: Greece’s credit rating took another cut as the euro skidded to its lowest level against the dollar in almost a year. http://tinyurl.com/3x8jmby The Times: Government borrowing soared to a record high of £23.5 billion ($36 billion) to the end of March, but £3 billion ($4.6 billion) short of the Chancellor’s forecast. http://tinyurl.com/2fyeuw2 The Times: Punch Taverns, the UK’s second-biggest pub operator, was spending £2 million ($3 million) a month rescuing struggling tenants. http://tinyurl.com/2flqcg4 Mergers and shakers The Times: US President Barrack Obama used a high-stakes speech to scold banks and Republicans opposing his reforms for financial regulation. http://tinyurl.com/249uoj8 The Times: Deutsche Bahn said its takeover of Arriva was the first step to be the dominant European passenger transport operator. http://tinyurl.com/24w5pxs The Times: The Faith show chain collapsed into administration, putting almost 1,800 jobs at risk. http://tinyurl.com/2c4e8g8 Around Asia Wall Street Journal: China began the trial of retail tycoon Huang Guangyu, accused of bribery, insider trading and illegal trading of foreign currency. http://tinyurl.com/2w25d55 Daily Telegraph: Fitch Ratings warned that Japan's sovereign debt was rising to ominously high levels. http://tinyurl.com/2arf3of Wall Street Journal: China launched anti-dumping investigations into imports of a chemical product and optical fibre from the EU and the US. http://tinyurl.com/28os3jc Look ahead The Times: Fabrice Tourre, the Goldman Sachs banker accused of a $1 billion fraud, to appear at a Senate sub-committee hearing on Tuesday to defend his complex mortgage investments. http://tinyurl.com/26x48sg The Independent: The "super casino" may have gone but legislation to create 16 new casinos in Britain was on the statute. http://tinyurl.com/2uzq7qj The Times: A dispute between Sainsbury’s and Northern Foods could result in the closure of a Swansea ready meals factory. http://tinyurl.com/2vl8hc5 MARKETS FTSE 100 5,665.33 down 1% (Thursday close) Dow 11,134.29 up 0.1% (close) S&P 500 1,208.67 up 0.2% (close) Nasdaq 2,519.07 up 0.6% (close) Nikkei 10,914.83 down 0.3% (latest) Hang Seng 21,324.22 down 0.6% (latest) Currencies Sterling $1.5342/1.1603 euros (latest) Euro $1.3222 (latest) Commodities Brent crude $85.54 down 13 cents (latest) West Texas crude $83.68 down 2 cents (latest) Gold $1139.40 down $3.50 (latest) New York Reuters: Stocks staged a late-day comeback on Thursday as strong quarterly profits from consumer bellwethers such as Starbucks outweighed worries about Greece's shaky finances. First-quarter earnings are on track to set a record for the percentage of companies beating estimates. Illustrating the revival of consumer spending, coffee chain Starbucks and SanDisk Corp, which makes flash memory for mobile phones, digital cameras and other gadgets, both posted results that beat estimates. Starbucks shot up 7.3 per cent and SanDisk surged 12.3 per cent. Hershey's profit nearly doubled and its shares rose 7.2 per cent. Data pointing to further stabilisation in the labor market added to the positive tone and helped reinforce optimism about the US economic recovery. Big manufacturers also fared strongly, with Boeing up 2 per cent. Besides SanDisk, iPhone maker Apple also contributed to the strength in technology shares, rising 2.8 per cent. http://tinyurl.com/2do6aer Asia Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell in morning trade, led by health care and finance shares, as blood products maker Baxter International cut its profit forecast and Greece’s deficit raised concerns the global economic recovery may falter. CSL, the world’s No. 2 maker of blood plasma products, slumped 6.9 per cent in Sydney after rival Baxter lowered its 2010 earnings forecast. Mitsubishi UFJ, Japan’s largest bank by market value, slid 0.8 per cent. LG Display climbed 3.1 per cent in Seoul after the company reported a fourth straight quarterly profit. Honda gained 1.1 per cent after Nikkei English News said the company’s operating profit probably jumped 90 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 0.4 per cent to 125.80 in morning trade. http://tinyurl.com/358zogm Myles McIvor mjclub@bigpond.com.au London The FTSE 100 dropped more than 1 per cent, down 58.1 points to 5,665.33, as soured risk appetite following news on Greece's wider-than-expected deficit. Financials were under pressure with Lloyds Banking Group down 1 per cent and Aviva dropping 3 per cent. Miners also lost ground, with Kazakhmys down 2 per cent and Xstrata down 1.5 per cent. Arm Holdings was the top blue chip riser, up 3.4 per cent, after upbeat results from Apple, a big customer. Intertek was also a top performer, rising 1.9 per cent, after JPMorgan upgraded the testing and inspections group to overweight saying it offered the best growth potential in the sector. Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk |
