 | May 20, 2010 |
Panic triggered ... Reforms stalled ... BP reassuresTop storiesThe Times: Markets fell and fears of a fresh financial meltdown rose in reaction to Germany’s surprise ban on risky trading practices by speculators. http://tinyurl.com/35vxm56 Wall Street Journal: Democratic Senators stalled sweeping US legislation overhauling regulation of financial markets. http://tinyurl.com/35cmh58 The Times: BP, the oil giant, moved to reassure staff that their jobs were still safe in the face of calls to shut down another field in the Gulf of Mexico. http://tinyurl.com/27x947b Comment David Wighton in The Times: The new Chancellor’s corporate tax changes will be a great deal harder to deliver than a good speech. http://tinyurl.com/38fmac2 Edmund Conway in The Daily Telegraph: The crisis bubbling on the other side of the Channel represents a make-or-break moment for globalisation. http://tinyurl.com/33ee93q Martin Vander Weyer in the Wall Street Journal: Speculators are not to blame, they merely read the tea leaves, placed their bets, and added to the mayhem. http://tinyurl.com/38sdvky Upside The Times: George Osborne, the Chancellor, announced he would cut corporation tax to the lowest rate across the G20 within five years. http://tinyurl.com/2dxby94 The Independent: Land Securities, the largest commercial property company in the UK, announced that it will massively increase development in the City. http://tinyurl.com/23xx34s Wall Street Journal: US inflation slid last month to its lowest level in 44 years, hovering under 1 per cent. http://tinyurl.com/34ctlcn Downside The Times: The UK Government pledged to scrap a planning agency designed to accelerate construction of new nuclear reactors and other big energy projects. http://tinyurl.com/23j3akf The Independent: UK financial regulators discovered a "hit list" of 38,000 Britons being circulated by foreign fraudsters. http://tinyurl.com/3957wrl Wall Street Journal: Germany, Spain and Italy are investigating Google’s Street View service for collecting personal data through wireless networks. http://tinyurl.com/3xbky8t Mergers and shakers The Times: The £4 billion ($5.6 billion) sale of EDF’s British electricity distribution business is being hampered by concerns about the network’s poor reliability. http://tinyurl.com/29j57m8 The Times: Gartmore suffered a shareholder protest over a potential "golden parachute" payment for Jeff Meyer, the troubled fund manager’s chief executive. http://tinyurl.com/2f529lz The Times: Three of the top fund managers for Prudential, the UK insurer, shared £17 million ($24 million) in pay and bonuses last year. http://tinyurl.com/239nhzx Around Asia Wall Street Journal: Japan's economy is getting a new lift from exports to Asian neighbours and rising consumer spending, suggesting a strengthening recovery. http://tinyurl.com/2vyxfqt The Times: China National Petroleum Corporation, the nation’s biggest energy company, took a stake in Royal Dutch Shell’s oil and gas unit in Syria. http://tinyurl.com/36m32jh Wall Street Journal: The long-running auction for India's third-generation mobile telephony bandwidth raised $14.6 billion (£10 billion). http://tinyurl.com/24kq5rk Look ahead The Times: More than 3,200 workers at Vauxhall, the UK car maker, are bracing themselves for a two-year wage freeze in order to guarantee job security. http://tinyurl.com/2deftbk The Independent: The UK’s offshore renewable energy industry could generate the same amount of electricity a year by 2050 as one billion barrels of oil. http://tinyurl.com/2ve6w6d Bloomberg: Singapore Telecommunications and StarHub, Singapore’s cable-TV providers, face a protest from soccer fans after raising fees to watch next month’s World Cup. http://tinyurl.com/25pdgjo MARKETS FTSE 100 5,158.08 down 2.8% (Wednesday close) Dow 10,444.37 down 0.6% (close) S&P 500 1,115.05 down 0.5% (close) Nasdaq 2,298.37 down 0.8% (close) Nikkei 10,113.50 down 0.7% (latest) Hang Seng 19,714.55 up 0.7% (latest) Currencies Sterling $1.4408/1.1664 euros (latest) Euro $1.2352 (latest) Commodities Brent crude $73.91 up 22 cents (latest) West Texas crude $70.20 up 33 cents (latest) Gold $1197.30 up $4.20 (latest) New York Reuters: US stocks fell as Germany's unilateral action to ban specific trades on some stocks and bonds sparked a fresh wave of uncertainty and risk aversion among anxious investors. Industrial shares fell as they have a heavy exposure to Europe. Heavy machinery maker Caterpillar fell 2.8 per cent and plane maker Boeing fell 2.2 per cent. Timber company Weyerhaeuser fell 1.2 per cent and home builder Hovnanian Enterprises fell 4.3 per cent after demand for loans to buy homes sank to a 13-year low. Agricultural machinery maker Deere & Co rose 3 per cent on stronger-than-expected quarterly profit. http://tinyurl.com/24mbxxy Asia Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell in morning trade after Japan’s finance minister warned about continuing deflation and concern grew about Europe’s debt crisis. Companies with strong European exports suffered. Canon, the Japanese camera maker, fell 2.3 per cent. Nintendo, the game console maker, fell 1.8 per cent. Billabong International, an Australian surfwear maker, fell 5.4 per cent. Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker, fell 2.1 per cent as it offered repairs for an engine fault affecting its Passo subcompact vehicles in Japan. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.4 per cent to 114.30 in morning trade. http://tinyurl.com/39nt49r Michael Beh michaelwbeh@gmail.com London The FTSE 100 dropped almost 3 per cent yesterday, along with markets around the world, after a move by Germany to reduce volatility backfired. The eurozone’s largest economy banned traders taking bets against European government debt and shares of major financial companies after markets closed on Tuesday but the well intentioned move only served to rattle investors’ nerves and add to worries that tougher financial regulations could be introduced and in turn hit the fragile economic recovery. Investors were also spooked by downbeat comments about the euro by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, continued worries in general about sovereign debt and there were even rumours that Greece may leave the European single currency. Markets hate uncertainty and as such the FTSE 100 closed 149.26 points lower at 5,158.08 after opening sharply down tracking Asia overnight, recovering slightly in the middle of the session, before falling back again as US markets had a weak start to trading. Miners were hit hard amid commodity price falls, with Xstrata losing 7.5 per cent. Banks were also weaker, with Barclays losing 5.1 per cent. GlaxoSmithKline was the only blue chip riser, edging up 0.4 per cent, as investors favoured more defensive stocks. Peter Stiff Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk |
