Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're saying, what they're saying

Top stories

The Times: The future of BP’s investment in Russia hangs in the balance after Robert Dudley, the chief executive of TNK-BP, decided to leave the country .

New York Times: The Ford Motor Company posted an $8.7 billion (£4.4 billion) loss for the quarter, its worst result ever , and its shares fell 10 per cent.

Telegraph: JP Morgan, the US banking giant, is trying to form a consortium to break up HBOS, Britain's biggest mortgage lender.

Comment

David Wighton in The Times: It is becoming clear that Russia no longer has a functioning system of government as BP, Britain’s biggest company, is chased out of the nation.

Jeff Randall in the Telegraph: When the final chapter of Labour's spectacular self-immolation is written, the unavoidable conclusion will be: it was the debt what dunnit.

John Thornhill in the Financial Times: The world must become more like Europe as the globe’s different forms of capitalism clash.

Upside

The Times: Rolls Royce’s marine division increased sales by 45 per cent to £1 billion ($2 billion) in the first half of the year as shippers bought up its efficient engines.

The Independent: B&Q, Britain's biggest retail DIY chain, reported its first underlying sales growth for 18 months, and shares in parent Kingfisher rose 6.5 per cent.

The Times: Credit Suisse's investment bank swung back into profit in the second quarter; it made SwFr281 million (£137 million, $271 million) and its shares rose 5 per cent.

Downside

The Times: Retail sales suffered a record slump of 3.9 per cent last month, adding to recession fears.

New York Times: US regulators have accused Optiver, a Dutch trading company, of “bullying” oil markets to generate an illegal $1 million profit.

Telegraph: Shares in Cadogan Petroleum fell by a third after it revealed a number of its oil licences had been declared invalid by a Ukrainian court.

Mergers and shakers

Financial Times: South Korea’s National Pension Service, with $200 billion (£101 billion) in assets, is examining buying stakes in a number of foreign financial institutions.

The Times: Malcolm Calvert, a former partner at Cazenove, the Queen's stockbroker, has been charged with insider dealing.

Reuters: Morgan Stanley is aggressively recruiting brokers from Merrill Lynch and other rivals to expand its global wealth management business.

Around Asia

Reuters: South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips and LCD screens, posted disappointing second quarter results and predicted a tough third quarter.

Financial Times: Japanese exports shrank for the first time in nearly five years in June.

Bloomberg: Hyundai Engineering & Construction, South Korea's largest builder, increased profit by 60 per cent in the second quarter to 117.1 billion won (£58 million, $116 million).

Look ahead

The Times: Wrapit, the upmarket wedding list service, must find a rescuer in the coming week or the online retailer will have to call in the administrators.

Bloomberg: Microsoft says it will spend at least $1.2 billion (£600 million) a year for the foreseeable future to compete with Google for online advertising.

Reuters: Clear Channel Communications, the US radio and billboard operator, will on Wednesday be taken over by two private equity funds in a deal worth $17.9 billion (£9 billion).

MARKETS

FTSE 100 5,362.30 down 1.6% (Thursday close)

Dow 11,349.28 down 2.4% (close)

S&P 500 1,252.54 down 2.3% (close)

Nasdaq 2,280.11 down 2% (close)

Nikkei 13,393.81 down 1.5% (latest)

Hang Seng 22,728.71 down 1.6% (latest)

Currencies

Sterling $1.9852/1.2663 euros (latest)

Euro $1.5678 (latest)

Commodities

West Texas crude $125.53 up 4 cents (latest)

Gold $927.80 up $5.50 (latest)

New York

Reuters: US stocks tumbled more than 2 per cent as investors took profit from financial shares, which had rallied over the past week. Fannie Mae lost nearly 20 per cent and Freddie Mac lost 18.4 per cent just a day after the House approved a government lifeline for the mortgage giants. Among the financials, Citigroup fell 9.8 per cent and Goldman Sachs fell 4.1 per cent. Home builder Ryland Group's shares fell 19.1 per cent. Ford shares fell 15.3 per cent on a reporting a surprisingly large loss. Defense contractor Boeing's shares fell 6.3 per cent.

Asia

Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell for the first time this week, led by financial companies and consumer electronics makers. National Australia Bank, the country's largest, tumbled 11 per cent as it set aside more for credit losses.

ANZ bank fell 5.2 per cent and Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ fell 2.6 per cent. Samsung, Asia's largest maker of flat screens, chips and mobile phones, fell 4.1 per cent on a disappointing profit report and camera-maker Canon fell 2.6 per cent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 1.6 per cent in morning trade.

Michael Beh

michaelwbeh@gmail.com

London

Trinity Mirror, publisher of the Daily Mirror, dazzled in a retreating market on talk that India’s biggest media group, Bennett Coleman, was considering a bid.

The publisher of the subcontinent’s The Times of India, controlled by the Sahu Jain family, is known to be on the hunt for foreign acquisitions and could afford the £800 million debt, pension liability and equity cost of Trinity.

The rumours helped Trinity’s shares recover from a 5.25p fall to close up 4 per cent.

The FTSE 100 lost 87.6 to 5362.3 dragged down by mining and oil stocks as fears grew about falling global demand for steel and cars. These were stoked by shock production cuts from France’s Renault and Germany’s Daimler, grim results from Ford and a warning from Finland’s stainless steel producing giant Outokumpu.

Talvivaara, which mines nickel for stainless steel, lost 9 per cet and iron ore miners - Eurasian Natural Resources, 6.5 per cent and Ferrexpo 4 per cent. Lonmin, which produces platinum for autocatalysts, was down per cent.

In the FTSE 250, Aricom, the iron ore miner in Russia lost 15 per cent. It has enough cash to last it until next May and has hired Morgan Stanley to raise a $1 billion loan.

Robert Lindsay

robert.lindsay@thetimes.co.uk

AGENDA

INTERIMS

Beazley

FINALS

None scheduled

AGMs

e2v technologies

Enfis

Hidefield Gold

Hilton Ventures

KazakhGold Group

KCom Group

Legal & General UK Growth

New Britain Palm Oil

Pan Pacific Aggregates

Tandem Group

United Utilities

Yell Group

EGMs

None scheduled

TRADING STATEMENTS

Britvic (Q3)

Mitchells & Butlers

United Utilities

ECONOMICS

UK Q2 preliminary GDP (0930 BST)

UK May services output (0930 BST)

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