Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're
saying, what they're saying, what you should be thinking
Top stories
Financial Times: The US and Europe now have a united desire to see
the dollar strengthen against the euro, senior officials said.
The Daily Telegraph: Charles Dunstone, the founder of Carphone
Warehouse, will on Thursday unveil a
£1 billion investment from Best Buy, the US company.
The Times: Millions of current account customers face an increase
of up to 20 per cent in monthly fees as banks seek to boost revenues
before a ruling that could cap overdraft charges.
Comment
Patrick Hosking in The Times: EasyJet
gives the lie to the notion that consumer confidence has been hammered
and that the slowdown is universal.
Lex in Financial Times: The cost to produce a tonne of steel has risen
by about $200, or almost half, and the prospects for this year and the next remain
remarkably bright.
Damian Reece in The Daily Telegraph: The Treasury
is suffering myopia if it thinks it can fill its empty coffers by
inventing new UK taxes to profit from successes overseas.
Upside
The Wall Street Journal: Edward Lazear, the White House's top
economist, said he was confident that the US
economy had not dipped into recession.
Reuters: US rice futures soared by the daily
maximum limit of 75 cents in early Asian trade on Thursday as news about
cyclone damage in Burma continued to worsen.
Financial Times: The Grand Theft Auto IV video game has stolen
all entertainment records for an opening week, with global retail sales
of about 6 million copies, or $500 million (£256 million).
Downside
The Times: Hundreds of millions of pounds have been wiped
off the value of Britain's largest shopping centres over the past year,
Liberty International, the big retail property owner, said.
The Daily Telegraph: GlaxoSmithKline and British American Tobacco
issued warnings to the Government over fears
of increased tax on companies' foreign earnings.
The Times: Willie Walsh admitted that he was aware
of problems with Heathrow's Terminal 5 before it opened - and had
discussed delaying its first day.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Iberdrola, the Spanish energy group, was understood to be putting
the final touches to a bid for British Energy, the nuclear generator.
The Wall Street Journal: Microsoft, under
pressure to quickly craft a strategy for competing online, made an
informal approach to the social networking website Facebook.
The Times: News Corporation said that it was no
longer in active negotiations about a possible divestment of MySpace,
its social networking site.
Around Asia
The Nikkei: The Nikkei Stock Average has climbed 12.6 per cent since
April, the biggest gain among the eight leading markets in Asia.
South China Morning Post: HSBC confirmed that a computer server
containing data
on 159,000 accounts had disappeared from one of its branches last month.
Bloomberg: New Zealand's employment fell the
most in 19 years in the first quarter as plunging business confidence
adds to signs that economic growth has stalled.
Look ahead
The Times: GLG Partners, the hedge fund, is expecting to lose more than
$4 billion (£2.05 billion) in investment assets as investors follow Greg
Coffey, its star
Australian fund manager, out the door.
The Daily Telegraph: The Government is close to placing a long-delayed
£3.9 billion order for two aircraft carriers from a consortium
including BAE Systems and VT Group.
The Independent: Savills, the upmarket estate agent, does not expect the
top end of the property market, especially in London, to escape the
worst of the credit crunch.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 6,261.00 up 0.7% (Wednesday close)
Dow 12,814.35 down 1.6% (close)
S&P 500 1,392.57 down 1.8% (close)
Nasdaq 2,438.49 down 1.8% (close)
Nikkei 13,978.94 down 0.9% (latest)
Hang Seng 25,570.04 down 0.2% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.9516/1.2739 euros (latest)
Euro $1.532 (latest)
Commodities
West Texas crude $123.46 down 7 cents (latest)
Gold $868.70 down $2.50 (latest)
New York
Reuters: US
stocks tumbled on Wednesday, on concerns about inflation and higher
interest rates as oil jumped to a record above $123 a barrel. Investors sold
shares of banks, housebuilders and companies dependent on consumer spending.
Shares of Citigroup slid 5.4 per cent and those of its rival Bank of America
lost 3.2 per cent. American Express, the credit card company, dropped 4.4
per cent.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian
stocks fell on concern that new disclosure requirements for US
investment banks will expose further losses on credit securities. Mizuho
Financial Group, Japan's third-largest publicly traded bank, and Kookmin
Bank, South Korea's largest, led declines among financial companies. The
MSCI Asia Pacific Index was down 0.8 per cent in intraday trading.
Paul Larter
paul.larter@thetimes.co.uk
London
Carphone Warehouse surged 18.75p to 299.25p on strong volume amid talk
of a statement on Friday that would unveil demerger details, or at least a
deal to acquire Tiscali’s UK broadband business.
The purchase would add pressure on founder Charles Dunstone to demerge
TalkTalk from the mobile phone shops, and allow Best Buy of the US to take
control of the latter. There is also talk that Best Buy may be upping its
stake.
The FTSE 100 closed up 45.8 at 6261.
Enterprise Inns led the way up 115p to 510p as it confirmed a rumour
that it had gained HMRC approval for forming a tax efficient REIT vehicle.
The news lifted the entire pub sector. Marston’s was the
biggest beneficiary, up 34.5p to 234p.
A profit warning from South Africa's Nedbank hit its majority owner Old
Mutual, dragging it down 4.8p to 126.2p. Old Mutual was also depressed
by going ex-dividend.
A combination of falling copper prices, helped by the end of a strike at
Chilean miner Codelco, and going ex-dividend made Antofagasta,
Codelco’s domestic rival, the worst performer, down 34.5p to 767.5p. Rexam
was also down 15.75p to 464p as from yesterday investors were no longer
entitled to the dividend.
Goldman Sachs kept its buy rating on HBOS despite its £4 billion rights
issue and it duly rose 19.5p to 519.5p.
Heavily shorted stocks were on the rise - Wolseley, the builder’s
merchant, rose 33.5p to 572p and Persimmon, the housebuilder, was up
32p at 620.5p, along with the housebuilding sector. Redrow was up 18p
at 289.75p.
Cable & Wireless, up 0.8p to 151.8p, faces a double or quits call
as the Panamanian government said it was examining options for its 49 per
cent stake in C&W’s telecom business there, the company’s biggest profit
generator. C&W will have to decide whether to sell its own stake ahead of
the arrival of a new competitor arriving at the end of this year, buy
Panama’s stake or exercise its option to buy another 5 per cent to retain
control.
Robert Lindsay
robert.lindsay@thetimes.co.uk
AGENDA
Interims
Endeavour International Corporation (Q1)
Inmarsat (Q1)
Lonmin
Mapeley (Q1)
Sage Group
Unilever (Q1)
Virgin Media (Q1)
Finals
Alexandra
AGMs
British Polythene Industries
Costain
Kingdom Hotel Investments
Lloyds TSB Group
Old Mutual
Provident Financial
Robert Walters
Roc Oil
Spirent Communications
Spring Group
Trinity Mirror
Zotefoams
EGMs
Weatherly International
Trading statements
Close Brothers
International Power
Next
Old Mutual
Provident Financial
Renishaw
Royal & Sun Alliance (Q1)
Signet (Q1)
Traffic figures
easyJet (April)
Economics
NIESR UK monthly GDP estimate (0001 BST)
BoE interest rate decision (1200 BST)
