Tackling the budget deficit will be a hard pill to swallow post-election April 22, 2010 RESEARCH DIRECTOR, FOREX.COM JANE FOLEY ACCORDING to the minutes of the last Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting at the start of April, the Bank of England concluded that for many committee members, concerns about the outlook for the UK economy had eased. The market appears to agree – the consensus expectation is that first quarter [...]
Curry king who spiced up UK April 22, 2010 ESCAPING the poverty net inspired Sir Gulam Noon to go into business. He lived with his five siblings in one room when he was growing up in Mumbai, India, but is now the UK’s unofficial curry king, after amassing his fortune by selling the food of his native country in the UK. After first travelling [...]
Remember the lessons from this recession April 22, 2010 AS THE UK’s economy limps back to health the fate of small businesses is still hanging in the balance. A recent survey by the Federation for Small Businesses suggests that the economic recovery is still too fragile for small firms to take on more staff. The economic environment is full of uncertainty and small firms [...]
TRAVEL CHAOS April 22, 2010 Q. I am a small business owner and one of my employees is caught up in the flight chaos. What are my rights as an employer? A. The advice from the Forum of Private Business is to be flexible with stranded staff but to know where to draw the line on unpaid leave. “The key [...]
Know how to value your ETF April 21, 2010 WHEN placing a trade, investors understandably concentrate on making the decision that will yield the most profitable returns. But it is just as important for traders to understand how they are investing as well as what they are investing in. This is particularly relevant for investors using exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – knowing how an ETF [...]
Miners boost the South African stock market April 21, 2010 SOUTH Africa will be in the world’s spotlight like never before as the World Cup approaches. Television pictures of gazelles and wilderbeest roaming across the veldt will no doubt be great for the country’s tourist industry, but other parts of its economy also look sure to benefit. According to a report released last month by [...]
THE TIPSTER April 21, 2010 UK GDP figures for the first quarter of this year are released on Friday morning and analysts suggest that the economy could have stagnated after a weak showing in the fourth quarter of 2009. Uncertainity surrounding the impact of the volcanic ash cloud on some UK companies combined with weak growth figures could see the [...]
LISTED PRODUCT NEWS April 21, 2010 FIRST LISTING FOR RBS’S ETC PLATFORM Standard Commodities, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s exchange-traded commodities (ETC) platform, launched its first product on the Frankfurt Xetra stock exchange this week. Its physical gold ETC gives investors exposure to the performance of the London gold market fix price and the ETC is denominated in euros. The ETC [...]
Lower commodity prices and concerns over Greek debt weigh on FTSE stocks April 21, 2010 BRITAIN’S top share index ended down yesterday as lower commodity prices hit miners and oil stocks and concerns over Greece’s debt returned to haunt banks, though positive broker comment boosted food retailers. The FTSE 100 index closed down 60.26 points, or 1 per cent, at 5,723.43, giving back Tuesday’s one per cent gain. “Equity sentiment [...]
Poor forecasts from drug firms leave Wall St flat April 21, 2010 US stocks finished little changed yesterday as disappointing outlooks from healthcare companies offset strong earnings from Morgan Stanley and Apple. Healthcare stocks took a beating after both Abbott Laboratories and Gilead cut profit forecasts. Both Abbott and Gilead cited the impact of costs from US healthcare reform in their outlooks. The two represented a setback [...]