Total turnaround: French oil giant sets sights on safe bets after frontier exploration failed to produce results January 29, 2019 Total is planning its largest exploration push for years as the oil major switches focus towards safer drilling targets after it announced the biggest discovery in the North Sea for a decade. The company plans to drill 23 new wells this year, head of exploration Kevin McLachlan said. Read more: BP and Shell get green light [...]
Diamonds aren’t forever: Sales drop off at De Beers as demand slows for small stones January 29, 2019 Diamond sales at De Beers dropped off in the first part of the year as the group faced slowing demand for its smaller products. Sales dropped by around 25 per cent in the initial so-called cycle of 2018, a reduction of $167m to $505m. Read more: Petra Diamonds' stock rally hit by falling prices at crown [...]
Gold rises to eight-month high as Huawei tensions weigh on dollar January 29, 2019 Gold prices reached their highest point in over eight months today after the dollar fell on worries over US-China relations. The metal rose to $1,309 per ounce in the early afternoon, a 0.69 per cent rise. Read more: Row over Bank of England's Venezuelan gold heats up as senior Tory MP writes to Carney The boost [...]
Hargreaves Lansdown assets falls six per cent on market volatility and weak investor confidence January 29, 2019 Hargreaves Lansdown suffered a 24 per cent drop in new business in the second half of last year, blaming market volatility and weak investor confidence for the downturn. The investment platform said net new business in the six months ending 31 December fell 24 per cent on the previous year to £2.53bn, sending shares down [...]
We’re all bored of Brexit, just as things start to get interesting January 29, 2019 This week will be crucial for Brexit as Theresa May sets out how she intends to take the departure process forward after her initial withdrawal agreement was defeated. But as Westminster gets to grips with the Brexit process, and the media pores over the ramifications of parliamentary votes on proposed amendments to the deal, most [...]
What are the UK’s most shorted stocks? January 29, 2019 Hedge funds made millions from short-selling Carillion shares after the construction firm collapsed a year ago. That’s hardly a surprise, but what’s telling is that many short-sellers were predicting its failure even before the company issued its first profit warning back in July 2017. Short-sellers borrow shares from other investors, typically large institutions like pension [...]
Will 2019 be the year gold regains its shine? January 28, 2019 | City Talk Gold had a mixed year in 2018, quickly peaking around $1,366 in January, but falling as low as $1,160 by August. For a while it seemed that the correlation between risk-off appetite and gold prices had broken, with the yellow metal overlooked even in times of heightened uncertainty. But after a 7% recovery since early [...]
FTSE 100 slides as US market slump sparks downward spiral January 28, 2019 The FTSE 100 followed US stocks on a downward spiral this afternoon closing 0.9 per cent down for the day. US construction giant Caterpillar set the tone with disappointing fourth quarter results as a slowdown in China and trade tensions were cited as reasons for the miss. The Dow Jones lost more than 300 points in [...]
Margarita Louis-Dreyfus completes share buyout after family dispute January 28, 2019 Margarita Louis-Dreyfus has completed the buy out of the Louis Dreyfus Company marking the conclusion of a long-running family shareholder dispute. Louis-Dreyfus, the widow of Robert Louis-Dreyfus whose family founded the agricultural commodity traders in 1851, had aimed to increase her stake since the death of her husband a decade ago. Read more: Family shareholder dispute [...]
Bad news baked into Apple’s revenue pie? January 28, 2019 | City Talk Apple is set to report earnings after the close on Tuesday. The big question facing investors is whether all the downside has already been priced in and whether Apple still has some skeletons from the last quarter. And as ever what will really matter to the market is the guidance for the March quarter as [...]