By Our Man in Oz Minews. Good morning Australia, you seem to have had quite a week with gold stocks leading the way once again. Oz. It was a good week for gold, but not for much else. Iron ore stocks lost much of their hard-won gains and copper stocks were hit hard by the…
2015 came in like a lion and has stayed that way. Oil prices, bond yields and stock crashes in China are just some of the factors we’ve struggled to get our heads around. Already it’s proved pretty brutal for many market players, wrong footed by volatile markets in the first week of the year and…
FTSE 100 Centrica (CNA) – British Gas is to reduce household gas prices by 5%, cutting annual energy bills on average by £37. FTSE 250 Balfour Beatty (BBY) – has been appointed as the sole contractor to a new UK-wide civil engineering and infrastructure framework for public works. The framework is valued at up to…
By Stewart Dalby Pura Vida Energy is not one of those start-ups which adopts a model of finding some production to generate enough cash flow to keep the lights on, as they say. Nor has it decided, for the moment to acquire development opportunities to spread risk before it goes for the big one with…
By Amy McLellan E&P companies may be reeling from the rout in the oil price but biofuel producers are also feeling the pain as greener fuels struggle to compete with US$50 oil. Even before the price slump, however, some biofuel producers were on the ropes. AIM-quoted Maple Energy, for example, was last year hit hard…
The Markets The European Commission issued a preliminary finding that Amazon’s tax arrangements in Luxembourg most likely constitute state aid, saying that there was “no indication” that the arrangements were compatible with the common market. The firm uses a system of transfer pricing and royalties to shift profits between its companies. Luxembourg’s deal with Fiat,…
By Eithne Treanor It was another week of doom and gloom on the oil market, but the International Energy Agency hinted that the market was in a rebalancing phase and OPEC called for stronger cooperation. The oil price got a slight and temporary reprieve late this week when prices climbed more than half a dollar.…
by Dave Evans of binary.com Markets stabilised on Friday after the Swiss National Bank dropped a large boulder in the calm waters of the EUR/CHF, with ripple effects across the FX world. The move was completely unexpected and with other fears dominating trader’s radars, the SNB action is an archetypal “Black Swan” as made famous by…
It may be said that from King Canute onwards we have seen history littered with examples of hubris losing out to forces beyond its control. For the financial markets the best example in recent history was of course the pound been kicked out of the ERM in 1992. This came as a result of an…
By Amy McLellan, The oil price is continuing to inflict pain across the sector, with even the biggest companies pulling projects, shedding jobs and cutting back on expenditure. FTSE100 company Tullow Oil on Thursday announced US$2.7 billion of pre-tax write-offs and impairments and slashed 2015 spending plans from US$1 billion at the start of 2014…
