CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS October 20, 2009 St Modwen PropertiesThe property group has appointed Katherine Innes Ker, pictured, and Lesley James as non-executive directors. Innes Ker currently holds non-executive directorships at Taylor Wimpey and Tribal Group, while James, who also becomes chair of the remuneration committee, was formerly group human resources director at Tesco and a non-executive at retailers Liberty International and [...]
Earnings season is like X Factor for the City stars October 18, 2009 TWO important events have collided this autumn: X Factor and earnings season. So I’ve cast myself as CNBC’s Cheryl Cole. I’m not half as glam as Mrs Cole. I’m a foot taller and decidedly more pregnant, but I’m going to roll with it and leave my colleagues to argue over who wants to be Dannii, [...]
The 10,000 mark means it’s time to short the Dow October 18, 2009 EQUITY bulls must have felt rather smug last week when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) broke through 10,000 on the back of bumper profits from investment banks JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. Good results from Google, Intel and IBM also added to the market optimism that has been fuelling the index’s meteoric rise. The third [...]
Google and IBM surpass expectations October 15, 2009 US technology companies were upbeat last night, with Google declaring that the worst of the recession is over and IBM raising its full-year outlook. Google, the world’s number one search engine, said that its net income rose by 27 per cent in the third quarter to $1.64bn (£1bn), or $5.13 a share, compared with $1.29bn, [...]
Energy pushes the Dow to 2009 highs October 15, 2009 The Dow industrials and the S&P 500 climbed yesterday to 2009 closing highs, buoyed by energy stocks as oil prices jumped, but financials retreated as investors panned results from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. The Nasdaq eked out a slim gain, but shares of big-cap tech companies, including Apple and Google, dragged. Google lost 1 per [...]
Shazam secures LA backing October 14, 2009 Shazam, the London-based mobile music service, yesterday said that it has secured one of Silicon Valley’s most successful investors, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB) as a backer. Shazam is seeking to capitalise on the popularity in downloadable mobile phone applications. The group said that it now has 50m users, and hopes to double its [...]
Obama has made American brands more popular October 13, 2009 ACCORDING to the Nobel citation, President Obama deserved the Nobel Prize for Peace because of his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. Was it an absurd award, or a prescient one? Has Obama made America more popular? We have in the past used BrandIndex as a subliminal measure of America’s popularity [...]
10,000 ON THE DOW IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE October 12, 2009 MARTIN SLANEYHEAD OF DERIVATIVES, GFT DO not underestimate just how important this week is for the markets. The next few days are likely to prove decisive in determining the near-term direction of global stock markets. And it’s all down to earnings. In the first quarter, the overriding concern was whether we were facing meltdown, and [...]
Google lands a new blow on Microsoft with Rentokil Initial email agreement October 12, 2009 GOOGLE yesterday announced its biggest ever email deal with support services firm Rentokil Initial, estimated by analysts to be worth up to $3.5m (£2.2m). The internet giant will replace rival Microsoft, after it secured the contract to provide email to 35,000 of the rat catcher’s employees using its Google Apps product – which includes a [...]
S&P 500 puts in its sixth rise in a row October 12, 2009 THE S&P 500 index of the biggest US companies managed a sixth consecutive day of gains to end at its closing high for the year as energy shares rose alongside the price of oil. But the market lost some strength in the afternoon and the Dow and Nasdaq ended little changed as investors opted to [...]