Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're
saying, what they're saying
Top stories
The Times: Barack Obama said only unprecedented
and urgent government spending can prevent the deepening recession
stretching for years.
The Times: Experts warned the lowest interest rate in the Bank of
England's history will deter savers
from depositing money.
The Times: Gordon Brown tried to soothe
fears for the UK motor industry as 1200 jobs at Nissan's Sunderland
factory are cut.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: While the Bank of England cut interest
rates once again, the problem of getting banks to lend
more is no nearer to being solved.
Floyd Norris in the New York Times: Bull market dividend payments were
yet another sign of lax lending .
Jeremy Warner in The Independent: Interest rates are already so low
that it may no longer make much
difference to the real world if they go lower still.
Upside
The Times: Sainsbury's, Britain's third-biggest supermarket, has
reported a surge in sales of its
cheaper lines.
The Independent: Hopes are raised for Waterford Wedgwood after a US
private equity company said it was in advanced
talks to buy the company.
Financial Times: A deal between Russia and Ukraine raises
hope for an end to a crisis affecting gas supplies to parts of the
European Union.
Downside
The Times: Thousands of British manufacturing jobs are at
risk as the aerospace industry braces for a severe slowdown.
Daily Telegraph: Europe's economy contracts at rates
not seen since 1930s as Spain's jobless blasts through three million
and German industry goes into "free-fall".
The Times: Dell, the American computer group, is cutting
1,900 jobs in Ireland and shifting its European manufacturing
operations to Poland.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Foxtons, the London estate agency, has breached
its banking covenants ; its UK private equity backer has ruled out a
bailout.
New York Times: Investigators found 100
signed cheques worth $173 million (£114 million) in Bernard Madoff's
desk on the day of his arrest.
The Times: Clifford Chance, the world's largest law firm, is seeking
£40 million ($60 million) from its 400 equity partners.
Around Asia
The Times: Indian investors demand
to know how PricewaterhouseCoopers, the auditor, missed a systematic £1
billion ($1.5 billion) fraud at Satyam.
Financial Times: South Korea has arrested
a blogger accused of undermining the country's financial markets with
his doom-mongering.
Financial Times: Japan launched an emergency
programme to encourage banks to lend more to business.
Look ahead
Financial Times: French and German leaders warned the US and the
banking industry not to thwart
tighter financial regulations proposed for the G20 summit in April.
New York Times: Palm, the former telecommunications pacesetter, says
its new smartphone, the Pre, will break
new ground .
Bloomberg: China Datang, the country's second-biggest power producer,
plans to explore the African market .
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,505.37 down 0.1% (Thursday close)
Dow 8,742.46 down 0.3% (close)
S&P 500 909.73 up 0.3% (close)
Nasdaq 1,617.01 up 1.1% (close)
Nikkei 8,792.72 down 0.9% (latest)
Hang Seng 14,494.98 up 0.6% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.519/1.1113 euros (latest)
Euro $1.3668 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $45.56 up 8 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $42.50 up 80 cents (latest)
Gold $853.90 down 60 cents (latest)
New York
Reuters: Most US stocks rose
on Thursday after Citigroup agreed to support legislation aimed at stemming
home loan foreclosures, offsetting Wal-Mart's disappointing sales and
outlook. The Dow fell, however, led down by a 7.5 per cent decline in Wal-Mart
as the discounter's sluggish December sales signalled another downturn
in consumer spending. Wal-Mart was the top drag on the Dow as $16.3 billion
of market value was wiped from the world's biggest retailer. Investors also
snapped up some of Wednesday's worst losers, including Microsoft and Apple,
driving the Nasdaq up more than 1 per cent. Microsoft rose 4.3 per cent
while Apple climbed 1.9 per cent. The Nasdaq rose, helped by a 23 per cent
jump in Sears after it forecast quarterly profit above Wall Street
estimates.
Asia
Bloomberg: Manufacturing stocks
retreated in morning trade after profit reports and job cuts deepened
concern that the recession is curtailing demand. Seven & I led
gains by consumer-staple retailers with resilient earnings. The operator of
Japan's largest convenience store chain, added 0.9 per cent after profit
rose.Toyoda Gosei, an affiliate of Toyota Motor, dropped 2.9 per cent
after cutting its net-income forecast because of the stronger yen. Nissan
Motor retreated 2.5 per cent as it laid off workers in the UK.
Newcrest, Australia's largest gold producer, jumped 6.5 per cent as the
metal gained the most in a week. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.2 per
cent to 89.70 in morning trade.
Myles McIvor
mjclub@bigpond.com.au
London
Prudential was the wost performing blue chip stock, losing 7.5 per cent, as
it and fellow life insurers were hit by renewed worries they would have to
cut dividends and write down investments in corporate bonds.
Merrill Lynch, in a downgrade of the whole European insurance sector, also
made a new entry on its insurance “worry list” - low interest rates, which
discourage savers from investing and cut returns on insurers’ new bond
investments.
Legal & General lost 4 per cent. But Aviva bucked the trend
gaining 4 per cent after the Dutch government decided against scrapping
Fortis’s joint venture with the UK insurer. Profit taking in mining stocks
outweighed a rally in banks after the half point interest rate cut and kept
the FTSE 100 just down for a second day, off 2.14 at 4505.37.
Cazenove added to the mining gloom saying that a recent mini-rally in metals
prices and mining stocks had gone far enough. It reiterated its recent
downgrade on Anglo American which fell 6 per cent.
Pearson lost 4 per cent after rival McGraw-Hill said at an investor
conference that the US school publishing market could fall as much as 10 to
15 per cent this year, reflecting growing pressures on state budget funding.
Robert Lindsay
robert.lindsay@thetimes.co.uk
AGENDA
TRADING STATEMENTS
JD Sports
Misys
Bovis Homes
Index Of Production. Figures for November last year
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