Evil discusses defence cuts, Myanmar and rugby union… I start with a letter from today’s Times. It could hardly be clearer: “A failure to commit to a minimum of 2 per cent of GDP for defence could cost the Conservatives dear at the general election Sir, The £38 billion black hole in the defence budget,…
By Robert Sutherland Smith Legal & General (LGEN) is one of those insurance company names which tells you much about the role imagination plays in insurance and assurance; that is to say precious little. The thing that may be said on its behalf as a memorable name is that it provokes more imagery than the…
I have just had a Singapore-based contact telephone me on Noble Group. This appears to be a massive accounting fraud which, for some reason, Ernst and Young, seem prepared to accept. I decline to claim that E and Y are negligent but they seem to have been extraordinarily tolerant. The accounting misrepresentation revolves around what…
The Markets The UK government has continued to sell down its holding in Lloyds Banking Group, off loading another 500 million pounds worth of shares, to take its stake to 22.98%. While the price received was not revealed the government said that all shares sold so far, under the guidance of Morgan Stanley, have been…
Economic analysis by Filipe R. Costa No one in 2012 could have estimated with precision the extension of Mario Draghi’s pledge to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. At that time, the comment was welcomed by the markets and helped to put a cap on peripheral bond yields. But more than anything, it…
It would appear that star fund manager Neil Woodford is rarely out of the financial headlines these days, something which is not surprising given his leading position in the market, and everyone else’s attempt to get a dose of his winning investment pixie dust. Going alongside the guru status of course comes the views of…
The problem with attempting to describe the recent history of Morrisons (MRW) is that while it is easy to be wise from afar, it is also disappointing that the Bradford-based grocer has not been able to hire an armchair supermarket guru thus far. The most precise summary of what has been going on probably derives…
The Markets There was further good news from the US economy, with the country adding 295,000 jobs in February, the 12th consecutive month that has seen over 200,000 positions created. The figures were higher than analyst expectations and also helped the unemployment rate fall from 5.7% to 5.5%. While the number of US mining jobs…
By Dave Evans of Binary.com This week has been dominated by two key events. First up was the latest ECB meeting on Thursday where Mario Draghi was expected to detail the launch of Europe’s first Quantitative Easing programme. The Italian delivered again as expected with some of the details leading to further pressure on the euro,…
Economic analysis by Filipe R. Costa Mark Mobius, the “father” of emerging markets investments (featured in this month’s upcoming SBM magazine edition), is delighted with the large number of countries in which his funds can invest today. In 1987, when the name emerging markets was introduced, Mobius created the first emerging markets fund, picking equities…
