DEBATE: Is Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley the best person to turn House of Fraser around? August 23, 2018 Is Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley the best person to turn House of Fraser around? YES, says David Blair, global chief executive of FITCH. The British high street is crying out for a saviour, and why shouldn’t it be Mike Ashley? He’s a shrewd retailer driving Sports Direct to win against new-age competitors like Amazon. Ashley [...]
Bears take bite out of Snap stock September 12, 2018 Tech giant Snap saw its shares dive to another record low tonight after a damning note from an influential analyst described the company’s performance as “embarrassing”. The owner of the Snapchat messaging app was blasted by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield, who urged investors to sell their shares in the firm. Snap’s shares closed at $9.89 [...]
Bears take bite out of Snap stock September 12, 2018 Tech giant Snap saw its shares dive to another record low tonight after a damning note from an influential analyst described the company’s performance as “embarrassing”. The owner of the Snapchat messaging app was blasted by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield, who urged investors to sell their shares in the firm. Snap’s shares closed at $9.89 [...]
Retail’s Super Thursday: The good, the bad and the ugly January 10, 2019 Today's so-called Super Thursday delivered a very mixed shopping basket of retail results, from some fresh bargains ready to be snapped up to others in danger of being labelled as out of date. Tesco, John Lewis, DFS, Debenhams and more released their results on a day dubbed Super Thursday, but which coincided with a dire [...]
From smart nappies to dog toilets, here’s the latest (and weirdest) tech from CES 2019 January 10, 2019 January is a month for reflecting on the past, typically while nursing a war torn liver and a perilously diminished bank balance. But it’s also the time of year for looking forwards, and at the annual CES trade show in Las Vegas, the world’s biggest tech companies convene to reveal their upcoming gadgets and bizarre [...]
It’s about time the regulators came for the tech behemoths April 11, 2018 How much changes in six months. Last year, the idea that the FANGs (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) would look increasingly vulnerable to regulatory oversight and to the tweets of Donald Trump would be considered fantasy – or a nightmare. Now, regulation for three of the four is a definite possibility, and for Facebook and [...]
Brains, Chains and Autobots August 28, 2018 They’re usually talked of as completely disparate fields; but ‘Brains and Chains’, or Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technologies, have already started to converge – despite claims they’re philosophically incompatible. So where’s the join? Google, Amazon, Microsoft and the like have invested billions in AI over the years. Billions more are being poured into Blockchain ventures [...]
Philip Hammond chooses to splash the cash in his Budget rather than pay down the deficit October 29, 2018 Chancellor Philip Hammond declared “austerity is coming to an end” as he unveiled a raft of spending increases and tax cuts on Monday. Hammond used better-than-expected tax revenues of £12bn to pour extra cash into the NHS and bring forward by a year an increase in the 40p tax threshold to £50,000. The new level will [...]
Banks should watch out – the fintech era has barely begun November 20, 2018 The fintech sector makes a lot of noise in London. There’s an endless stream of news about open banking and challenger banks, while the traditional finance sector watches on with a mixture of admiration and suspicion. Banks have come under attack, not only from the hype-machine, but more meaningfully from startups. Traditional finance providers that assumed [...]
Amazon is now worth half a trillion dollars as market cap surges past $500bn ahead of earnings July 26, 2017 Amazon is now worth half a trillion dollars… yep, that’s trillion with a T and an R. The retail and technology giant’s market cap shot above the mark ahead of earnings due on Thursday and as stocks across the board on Wall Street were swept higher. Read more: Jeff Bezos is tantalisingly close to becoming [...]