Tesco set to unveil bleak Christmas January 8, 2012 TESCO is set to deliver its worst Christmas trading performance for decades this week after the supermarket’s £500m price cutting campaign failed to gather pace in the fierce battle for supermarket sales. Deutsche Bank, a house broker to Tesco, is forecasting a two per cent decline in like-for-like sales from UK stores in the six [...]
Morrisons in royal boost May 5, 2011 PROMOTIONS and a surge in spending on bunting and picnics for the royal wedding helped Morrisons beat quarterly sales forecasts yesterday. But Britain’s fourth biggest supermarket chain said it was wary of the tough road ahead as customer spending come under more pressure. Sales at stores open over a year rose 2.5 per cent, excluding [...]
Morrisons in royal boost May 5, 2011 PROMOTIONS and a surge in spending on bunting and picnics for the royal wedding helped Morrisons beat quarterly sales forecasts yesterday. But Britain’s fourth biggest supermarket chain said it was wary of the tough road ahead as customer spending come under more pressure. Sales at stores open over a year rose 2.5 per cent, excluding [...]
China’s fate tangled with Eurozone February 6, 2012 AS CHINA’S economic power grows, its authorities are increasingly willing to punch their weight on the international stage. The decision to direct Chinese airlines to ignore the European Union’s carbon-emissions system is a slap in the face. But can China really afford to be sanguine? The latest report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggests [...]
Morrisons in Royal Wedding boost May 5, 2011 Supermarket chain said its sales have been boosted by the royal wedding. Total sales excluding fuel during the 13 weeks to 1 May were up by 4.2 per cent from the same period a year ago, or by 2.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis. The company said campaigns such as its “Fuel Britannia” and [...]
FTSE dented by GSK January 9, 2012 The FTSE 100 was dented by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline today after concerns over one of its new treatments. GSK shed 2.6 per cent after reported problems with tests on its lung medication Relovair. Traders and investors were eyeing events in Berlin where German leader Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are meeting today. The [...]
Delivery pioneer lacks capacity to grow December 19, 2011 EIGHTEEN months post float, and those distinctive delivery vans just aren’t looking so special anymore. Yesterday’s profit warning from chief executive Tim Steiner may have been expected at some point, but analysts clearly thought the company had some breathing room – now it’s going to be more under scrutiny than ever. And it’s not as [...]
There’s no let up in City’s race to consolidate January 9, 2012 IT seems there is going to be no slackening of the consolidation process taking place in the financial advisory sector. Evolution has already been swallowed up by Investec, with fairly unpleasant consequences for many of its employees; Collins Stewart Hawkpoint is busy sorting out the finer details of its deal with the Canadian group Canaccord, [...]
FTSE steady as investors eye US jobs data January 6, 2012 The FTSE 100 was steady in early trading with media and telecoms gains offsetting weak financial services and retail sectors. Investors were focusing on US jobs data out later while the Eurozone debt crisis continued to dampen sentiment. Analysts’ fears that Eurozone countries and banks could struggle to tap markets for capital this year continue [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS October 31, 2011 INVESTEC Goldman Sachs rates Investec “buy” with a 533p target price as it believes the wealth management group has been unjustifiably hurt by risk aversion, despite shifting its business model towards asset and wealth management, which give it more stable income streams and now constitute about half its revenues. About 70 per cent of its [...]