Don’t fear free: Candy Crush Saga is the future of the profitable product October 17, 2013 YOU CAN’T make money on the AppStore. Everything is free and you can’t get consumers to pay for anything.” That’s what I often hear from companies that have dipped their toes into the Apple ecosystem, failed to understand that it’s a new way of doing business, and drowned in the turbulent waters. It’s a common [...]
Don’t fear free: Candy Crush Saga is the future of the profitable product October 16, 2013 YOU CAN’T make money on the AppStore. Everything is free and you can’t get consumers to pay for anything.” That’s what I often hear from companies that have dipped their toes into the Apple ecosystem, failed to understand that it’s a new way of doing business, and drowned in the turbulent waters. It’s a common [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 6 August 2013 August 5, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES UK weighs legal action over Gibraltar Britain is looking at whether it can take Spain to the European courts over its treatment of British nationals at the border with Gibraltar. UK officials are taking advice on whether checks on cars as they try to cross from Spain into Gibraltar violate EU rules on [...]
Financial markets will face unbearable pressure when rates rise July 23, 2013 COULD the financial markets be about to have a heart attack? The reason I ask is a terrifying little document that has just landed on my desk. Entitled tellingly Capital Markets – the Arteries are Clogging and published by Redburn, the stockbroker, it highlights cogently a little-understood feature of the post-crisis economy. Liquidity, the lifeblood [...]
UBS reports big jump in profits and plans to buy back central bank fund July 30, 2013 Swiss bank UBS has reported a 32 per cent increase in second quarter profits after solid gains in its investment banking division, and has announced plans to buy back equity in a fund set up by the central banks as part of its bailout in 2008 (report). Switzerland’s largest bank reported an adjusted pre-tax profit [...]
Billionaire’s tweet adds $17bn to Apple August 16, 2013 APPLE’S shares rocketed last night after legendary investor Carl Icahn tweeted his support for the company, adding tens of billions to its market value. The activist shareholder sent markets wild with a pair of tweets during afternoon trading yesterday, telling over 40,000 followers that he owns a large amount of Apple stock – which he [...]
Billionaire’s tweet adds $17bn to Apple August 13, 2013 APPLE’S shares rocketed last night after legendary investor Carl Icahn tweeted his support for the company, adding tens of billions to its market value. The activist shareholder sent markets wild with a pair of tweets during afternoon trading yesterday, telling over 40,000 followers that he owns a large amount of Apple stock – which he [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 24 July 2013 July 23, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Ex-HSBC banker in frame for RBS job Mark McCombe, a veteran banker with 20 years experience at HSBC, has emerged as the leading external candidate to be the next chief executive of RBS according to people close to the process. Mr McCombe, a Briton who has spent the past year running the Asian [...]
Lord Browne to advise $20bn oil and gas fund June 18, 2013 LORD Browne, the former boss of oil giant BP, has joined forces with Russia’s Alfa Group to advise the company on a new $20bn (£12.7bn) global oil and gas fund. The fund, known as the L1 Energy Fund, will be seeded with the proceeds of Alfa’s sale of its stake of TNK-BP, which netted it [...]
We must urgently improve the quality of our economic growth July 24, 2013 BARRING an astonishing shock, today’s second quarter UK GDP figures will be good. But while economic activity is now clearly increasing again, I’m deeply worried about the quality of the growth and its sustainability when monetary policy is eventually tightened. Ever since the Keynesian revolution, the City and government have been far too obsessed with aggregate, [...]