 | April 26, 2010 |
Kill the Competition: Greek warning ... Tesco expands ... tensions highMonday, April 26, 0730 GMTTop stories The Times: Germany and France warn Greece that they expected big sacrifices in return for economic rescue. http://tinyurl.com/2ffl8le The Times: Tesco, the supermarket chain, to build four mini-villages in the South East in a new assault on the property market. http://tinyurl.com/2aemt5e Daily Telegraph: Tensions between Goldman Sachs and the US Senate reach breaking point over sub-prime mortgage market claims. http://tinyurl.com/26usrap Comment Bronwen Maddox in The Times: Even assuming that Greece’s rescue plan is approved by Germany and the IMF, it looks like buying only a year’s relief. http://tinyurl.com/27unlyc Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Daily Telegraph: If the chief purpose behind the EU-IMF bail-out for Greece is to prevent a "full-blown sovereign debt crisis", the market verdict must be a sobering surprise. http://tinyurl.com/3y87r6c Stephen King in The Independent: The unfolding Greek drama will severely test the eurozone's unity of purpose. http://tinyurl.com/27cnflg Upside The Times: Dyson, the company of vacuum cleaner fame, to hire 350 engineers and scientists for its UK-based R&D department. http://tinyurl.com/27b9s9u New York Times: While few dispute signs of US economic recovery, significant debate remains on how robust and sustained it will be. http://tinyurl.com/28o72ba Daily Telegraph: Car sales in China surged by 45 per cent last year, but the boom in super-luxury brands such as Rolls-Royce was even more spectacular. http://tinyurl.com/2aqfjtr Downside The Times: British companies brought forward more than £840 million ($1.3 billion) in dividends so wealthy shareholders could avoid the new higher tax rate. http://tinyurl.com/25ttdd5 Daily Telegraph: Mining shares keep moving higher but is the relentless charge sustainable or are future earnings now fully priced in? http://tinyurl.com/2dvy368 The Times: British American Tobacco faces a protest vote this week over chairman-in-waiting Richard Burrows for his role in the demise of Bank of Ireland. http://tinyurl.com/25x8xrm Mergers and shakers The Times: Hugh Osmond, the man behind Punch Taverns, set to offer £350 million ($540 million) for troubled housebuilder Crest Nicholson. http://tinyurl.com/2cbk8nk Wall Street Journal: United and Continental continue their airline merger talks, but disagreements on which share price to use for the stock-swap deal. http://tinyurl.com/27978xv The Times: Luke Johnson acquired a 27 per cent stake in Beer & Partners, which claims to be the most successful angel investor network. http://tinyurl.com/2ep7egz Around Asia The Times: Flow of ‘hot money’ to emerging Asian economies threatened to create a bubble similar to that which caused the credit crunch. http://tinyurl.com/22ljqvr Wall Street Journal: Charles River Laboratories to acquire one of China's largest drug research contractors, WuXi AppTec, for $1.6 billion (£1 billion). http://tinyurl.com/2g3a82n The Times: A Dubai sovereign wealth fund could be forced to plough more than £100 million ($155 million) of fresh capital into Alliance Medical, one of its UK investments. http://tinyurl.com/232dnvm Look ahead The Times: RBS to announce this week a tightening of the performance targets on a multimillion-pound bonus scheme for its chief executive. http://tinyurl.com/285wye2 Wall Street Journal: Las Vegas Sands to open its $5.7 billion (£3.7 billion) Marina Bay Sands casino in Singapore tomorrow in a big bet on the future of Asian gambling. http://tinyurl.com/28fveec The Times: Bob Diamond, the president of Barclays, among senior bankers to appear at a bankruptcy court in New York to relive the collapse of Lehman Brothers. http://tinyurl.com/2cbuh7h Unfinished business - last week wrapped up Last Monday US lawyers predicted a wave of legal action in the wake of the $1 billion (£650 million) fraud charge brought against Goldman Sachs, the investment bank. http://tinyurl.com/y3pghp8 Tesco, the supermarket group, is set to reveal yet another year of record turnover and profits in its annual results tomorrow. http://tinyurl.com/y6kyycm Tuesday The European airline industry is losing £165 million ($253 million) a day due to the impact of the volcanic ash cloud. http://tinyurl.com/y52pjxb Deloitte is preparing to replace John Connolly, its chief executive, after a decade in charge of the Big Four accountant. http://tinyurl.com/y63p7f6 Wednesday 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 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 Thursday BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest miner, is in talks with the Serious Fraud Office and the US Securities and Exchange Commission over alleged corruption. http://tinyurl.com/2bbudaj Rescuers searched for up to 12 oil workers after an explosion ripped through a rig leased by BP, the UK oil producer, in the Gulf of Mexico. http://tinyurl.com/2f5xcbj Friday 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 Virgin Atlantic accused of fixing Hong Kong flight prices after rival airline Cathay Pacific turned whistleblower. http://tinyurl.com/2at8kfc MARKETS FTSE 100 5,723.65 up 1% (Friday close) Dow 11,204.28 up 0.6% (close) S&P 500 1,217.28 up 0.7% (close) Nasdaq 2,530.15 up 0.4% (close) Nikkei 11,141.31 up 2.1% (latest) Hang Seng 21,585.35 up 1.6% (latest) Currencies Sterling $1.5434/1.3375euros (latest) Euro $1.3375 (latest) Commodities Brent crude $87.65 up 40 cents (latest) West Texas crude $85.52 up 40 cents (latest) Gold $1159.40 up $5.70 (latest) New York Reuters: US stocks rose to a 19-month high on Friday as Merck eased concerns about the impact of healthcare reform, saying its costs will be relatively low. Energy shares lifted the broad market after oil rose 1.7 per cent on positive economic data. Chevron was up 1.8 per cent. Merck jumped 5 per cent, making it the top gainer on the Dow. The drug maker said its costs related to US healthcare reform would be a far smaller percentage of total company sales compared with rival drug makers. The news helped the sector rebound after a two-day sell-off on fears over the impact from the new healthcare overhaul law. The Nasdaq's gains were limited by Qualcomm and Amazon.com, which both gave disappointing forecasts earlier in the week. Qualcomm fell 2.8 per cent and Amazon was down 4.3 per cent. Microsoft slipped 1.3 per cent after it reported its quarterly profit jumped, but the report failed to meet Wall Street's heightened expectations. http://tinyurl.com/33lsdee Asia Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade, driving up the MSCI Asia Pacific Index by the most in more than five weeks, as Toyota and Canon led gains on speculation earnings will increase as the global economy recovers. Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker, jumped 3.2 per cent in Tokyo after the Nikkei newspaper said the company had an annual operating profit instead of the loss Toyota forecast. Canon, a camera maker that gets 79 per cent of sales outside Japan, climbed 3.2 per cent as the dollar strengthened after US sales of new homes gained faster than estimated, boosting optimism in an economic recovery. Samsung Electronics, which gets about 20 per cent of sales from America, gained 1 per cent in Seoul. Honda, Japan’s second-biggest carmaker and which gets 44 per cent of its sales in North America, climbed 2.8 per cent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 1.1 per cent to 126.74 in morning trade. http://tinyurl.com/2dmz5zz Myles McIvor mjclub@bigpond.com.au |
