Wall Street closes up on light trading September 8, 2010 US stocks rose yesterday as investors latched onto positive news out of Europe in the latest in a string of low-volume sessions suggesting little confidence in market direction. Bank stocks recovered from Tuesday’s losses, with JPMorgan up 2.2 per cent and the BKW bank index up 1.7 per cent. A successful Portuguese debt offering as [...]
British MBAs look to broaden their horizons overseas September 8, 2010 MANY British people choosing to take an MBA stay in this country, or head to one of the big American schools. There is no doubt that they are prestigious, but in a world that is increasingly tilting to the East, might there be better ways to spend your money? At most British business schools around [...]
GMAT matters, but it’s not the only way to show a business school your talents September 8, 2010 FOR those wanting to take an MBA, sitting the GMAT is something of a rite of passage. The test – whose full name is the Graduate Management Admission Test – has been the gold standard for MBA students since it was launched in 1953. Now it is to undergo its biggest change yet when it [...]
INTEGRATED REASONING September 8, 2010 Q.WHAT IS THE CHANGE? A.From June 2012 the GMAT will include a 30-minute “integrated reasoning” section. The GMAT will still be three-and-a-half hours long, and the new section replaces one of the two essays in the Analytical Writing Assessment – there will now be just one essay. The Verbal and Quantitative sections remain unchanged Q.WHAT [...]
The MBA takes you from the battlefield to the boardroom September 8, 2010 NEXT month the government will announce a comprehensive spending review in which thousands of military personnel are expected to lose their jobs. Some estimates say that 16,000 will find themselves on civvie street. Many high-fliers will no doubt be attracted by the City, and the City is sure to be interested in disciplined, talented people [...]
FTSE’s winning streak comes to an end after Barclays and mining shares sink September 7, 2010 BRITAIN’S top share index fell from a four-month closing high and ended a seven-session winning run yesterday, led lower by Barclays after management changes and miners on concerns over Australia’s tax plan. In positive news, Invensys climbed 7.4 per cent, with traders citing a newspaper report that the engineering group is a takeover target. An [...]
US market falls as fears on European banks weigh September 7, 2010 US stocks fell in very light volume yesterday as investors seized on renewed concerns about European banks as a reason to sell shares after strong gains last week. Banks, energy companies and chipmakers were the biggest decliners. Trading was among the lightest of the year, with 6.07bn shares traded on the NYSE, Nasdaq and Amex [...]
Size does matter: the rise of the mega pension fund September 7, 2010 FOR pension funds, size really does matter. While the need to match assets and liabilities concerns all funds, big or small, the largest face unique advantages and challenges. And the number of large funds is growing. Last week, the IPE Global Top 1,000 survey of institutional investors highlighted the rise of the mega-fund, showing that [...]
Make sure your active fund manager earns her fee September 7, 2010 FOR years, the debate has raged over whether hedge funds and actively managed funds – in which managers pick assets individually as opposed to simply tracking an index – are worth their high fees. Now, research by Saltus Partners suggests that the current economic climate makes it particularly difficult for active funds to differentiate themselves. [...]
FUND MANAGEMENT NEWS September 7, 2010 NEW ABSOLUTE RETURN FUND TO LAUNCH Threadneedle has this week announced plans to launch its UK Absolute Alpha Fund in the fourth quarter of this year, bolstering the asset management house’s range of absolute return funds and responding to growing client appetite for such products. Mark Westwood and Chris Kinder, who both have long/short experience, [...]