 | May 7, 2010 |
Kill the Competition Wall Street slides ... pound falls ... Pru shuddersTop storiesThe Times: Wall Street suffered one of its worst falls in a single trading session, amid mounting concerns that the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone would spread beyond Greece. http://tinyurl.com/39hrnna The Times: The pound fell sharply against the dollar, hitting its lowest level in more than a year, amid fears of a hung parliament. http://tinyurl.com/248yxo9 The Times: Prudential’s $35.5 billion (£24 billion) acquisition of AIA in Asia appeared in grave danger as its prospects of finding fresh capital faded quickly. http://tinyurl.com/2axj4rz Comment David Wighton in The Times: It was unclear quite what caused the sickening lurch down in US stocks during afternoon trading in New York. http://tinyurl.com/365lcv2 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Daily Telegraph: Are we nearing capital controls in Europe? http://tinyurl.com/2uopfe2 David Prosser in The Independent: Britain's banks must tell us how much Greece owes them. http://tinyurl.com/328ld5s Upside The Times: Time Warner became the latest large media group to beat analysts’ expectations after reporting a 10 per cent profit rise. LINK TEXT http://tinyurl.com/2wzp9xq Daily Telegraph: Rockhopper, the British oil and gas explorer, claimed to have diiscovered oil off the Falkland Islands. http://tinyurl.com/2dhnda2 Wall Street Journal: Kraft earnings soared in the first quarter, helped by strong sales of brands acquired through its purchase of Cadbury. http://tinyurl.com/2uoewcu Downside The Times: Johnny Cameron, a key lieutenant of Sir Fred Goodwin at RBS, facing a City ban after a long-running investigation into his conduct. http://tinyurl.com/392obla The Times: Volcanic ash and election uncertainty curbed activity in the service sector last month, denting hopes of a surge in economic growth. http://tinyurl.com/32vutd4 The Times: Icelandic authorities arrested Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, the former Kaupthing chief, making him the first high-profile banker detained. http://tinyurl.com/3xbxa9f Mergers and shakers The Times: London Mayor Boris Johnson brings whole of the Underground operation back into the public sector. http://tinyurl.com/345br9l The Times: Andy Clarke in pole position to run Asda after leading contender Darren Blackhurst left the supermarket business. http://tinyurl.com/2ujv7vo The Times: Three more British blue chips suffered shareholder backlash against excessive executive pay at their annual general meetings. http://tinyurl.com/37c8jn8 Around Asia Wall Street Journal: Asian shares slumped again with Australia's market falling to an eight-month low and recent gains in the yen hurting exporter shares in Tokyo. http://tinyurl.com/247dkfj Daily Telegraph: Li Li, a former meat factory worker, became China's richest man after successfully floating his company Hepalink on the Shenzhen exchange. http://tinyurl.com/2wwanol Wall Street Journal: DBS, Singapore's largest bank by assets, reported a 23 per cent rise in first-quarter net profit. http://tinyurl.com/3a4p6fh Look ahead The Times: Up to 200 American lawyers planning a class action of $20 billion-plus (£13.5 billion) against BP over the Gulf of Mexico spill. http://tinyurl.com/2exg5et Daily Telegraph: British Airways' fractious relations with its cabin crew inflamed by sacking of a senior union official on the eve of a possible decision on further strikes. http://tinyurl.com/374ovet The Times: Blackstone Group teaming with US buyout specialist THL Partners to acquire Fidelity National Information Service. http://tinyurl.com/35ms9gt MARKETS FTSE 100 5,260.99 down 1.5% (Thursday close) Dow 10,520.32 down 3.2% (close) S&P 500 1,128.15 down 3.2% (close) Nasdaq 2,319.64 down 3.4% (close) Nikkei 10,380.12 down 3% (latest) Hang Seng 19,978.03 down 0.8% (latest) Currencies Sterling $1.4858/1.1709 euros (latest) Euro $1.2689 (latest) Commodities Brent crude $80.20 up 37 cents (latest) West Texas crude $77.43 up 32 cents (latest) Gold $1,199.60 up $2.30 (latest) New York Reuters: US stocks plunged 9 per cent in the last two hours of trading on Thursday before clawing back some of the losses as a suspected trading glitch and fears of a new credit crunch in Europe threw markets into disarray. The Dow suffered its biggest ever intraday point drop -- 998.5 points. The market's fall may have been exacerbated by erroneous trades that showed some shares briefly fall to almost zero. The situation remained unclear long after the closing bell as the Nasdaq Stock Market and others said they would cancel multiple erroneous trades. The sell-off comes at a tense time for investors and Wall Street, with fraud charges against Goldman Sachs, fears of a wave of debt defaults in Europe and increasing clamour for financial regulation. Volume soared to twice its daily average for this year and was at its highest since October 2008 when financial markets seized up after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Selling hit major stocks including Bank of America, the biggest percentage loser on the Dow with a 7.1 per cent drop. http://tinyurl.com/2we9peg Asia Bloomberg: Asian stocks slumped in morning trade, dragging the MSCI Asia Pacific Index to a 10-week low, following a rout in US equities on concern the European debt crisis will spread and hurt the global recovery. HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, plunged 4.2 per cent as financial companies led declines. Mitsubishi UFJ, Japan’s biggest bank by market value, fell 2.5 per cent in Tokyo. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the country’s biggest lender by market capitalisation, dropped 2.9 per cent in Sydney. Nintendo, the world’s biggest maker of game consoles, plunged 10 per cent in Osaka after the company forecast profit would fall more than analysts estimated. LG, which receives 18 per cent of sales from Europe, declined 1.6 per cent in Seoul. Woodside Petroleum, Australia’s second-largest oil and gas producer, slid 1 per cent in Sydney as commodity prices tumbled. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid 1.8 per cent to 117.68 in early trade. http://tinyurl.com/3axgaoh Myles McIvor mjclub@bigpond.com.au London The FTSE fell 80.94 points to 5,260.99 as investors worried that the Greek debt crisis would spread to other European economies. Banks were hardest hit with Barclays falling 6.5 per cent. Miners also lost ground, with Rio Tinto down 2.6 per cent. Elsewhere, Cobham, down 5.6 per cent, was caught up in the bloodbath after the aerospace and defence group said it had experienced a weaker than expected start to the year due to delays in US military contracts. |
