M&A seems to have sprung to life, as Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital agreed to buy Heinz for $28bn, which is one of the food industry’s largest acquisitions SAC Capital Advisors, the hedge-fund is seeking to stem investor outflow, amid legal and regulatory scrutiny -WSJ Commerzbank loses $954 million in Q4 RBA’s Kent Says Chinese Demand for Commodities to Remain Strong -Bloomberg The Treasury has put billions of pounds of taxpa…
Continue Reading →Bank of England Inflation Report February 2013: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/inflationreport/2013/ir13feb.pdf The above link is for a PDF document which is an external website (www.bankofengland.co.uk)…
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Yesterday Mark Carney the current Bank of Canada Governor, and future Bank of England Governor took centre stage. The Treasury Select Committee (TSC) immediately began with questions about his remuneration and housing allowance; Carney seemed comfortable, calm and collected. Initially sterling rallied following the release of his written answers to questions he had received prior. Mark Carney hinted towards a change in stance from Mervyn King’s current approach, but was respectful that…
Continue Reading →Halifax house prices show that UK property market registered its first annual rise since October 2010 Business Secretary Vince Cable has said that the part nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland, should have been fully nationalised to avoid its current state of limbo Fitch confirmed Holland’s AAA rating but revised its outlook to negative Cameron will not accept a deal on the EU budget at this week's summit in Brussels unless it freezes or cuts European spending -Gua…
Continue Reading →Chinese HSBC services PMI which rose to a four-month high of 54.0 from 51.7 in December RBA minutes which saw the bank leave rates unchanged at 3.00% S&P credit rating agency faces lawsuit over ratings - Telegraph Hedge Funds are taking large short positions for UK retailers, in a bet that further high street chains will collapse - CityAM SGX in talks over taking a stake in LCH.Clearnet - Financial Times Ford expect to spend $5bn this year shoring up its pen…
Continue Reading →S&P affirmed Belgium's AA rating with negative outlook Pimco boss says EU exit threatens UK “standard of living” - Daily Telegraph The Eurozones biggest economies would raise an estimated €30-40bn from their planned “Tobin Tax” - Financial Times Amazon shares climb to new highs on earnings update FTSE 100 closed above 6300 yesterday for the first time since May 2008 CB's Fall in Assets Risks Rise in the Euro- WSJ Ge…
Continue Reading →The headlines were captured yesterday by the UK Prime Ministers David Cameron’s “Britain and Europe” speech. In well prepared dialogue, Cameron put forward a defining moment for the United Kingdom, how the country moves forward with the Eurozone. He explained that he will attempt to renegotiate powers from Brussels and will then hold an in/out referendum for the UK in Europe to appease the Tory Eurosceptics. Prior to his speech at Bloomberg HQ in London, sterling was weaken…
Continue Reading →Here is a link to the the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee meeting, (held on 9th and 10th January 2013): http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/minutes/Documents/mpc/pdf/2013/mpc1301.pdf *Abshire-Smith do not take responsibility for the content or security of links to external websites.…
Continue Reading →Bank of Japan has pledged to Fed style open-ended asset purchases, with the Yen and Nkkei easing following BOJ announcement, as traders had bought the rumour and sold the fact Fresh data from the Bundesbank show that Anglo-German trade in goods and services soared to €153bn in the first nine months of 2012 - Telegraph S&P affirmed Portugal's BB rating, while the outlook remains negative Japan’s Economic Minister Amari said that the government has no inten…
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The south east of England including London has been covered with snow since Friday, though a relatively small amount (4-5 inches) it has caused travel chaos. Analysts have been quick to highlight the weather disruption as an increased chance of the UK entering a double-dip recession. There have been widespread cancellations across both airport and train networks, as the UK struggles to cope with snowfall. Today is also Martin Luther King Day in the United States, which means that the…
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There have been numerous articles in the last few months over the so-called business zombies of the UK high-street. These are companies that have become reliant on low-financing rates but have had stagnated growth, thus are on the verge of collapse. HMV in a statement last night announced: The board regrets to announce that it has been unable to reach a position where it feels able to continue to trade outside of insolvency protection The music retailer has been tra…
Continue Reading →The UK supermarket industry is saturated and companies are ruthless in attempting to increase their market shares. Loss leader promotions are common and tactics to attract customers over the all-important Christmas period are key. This week has seen the supermarkets post their trading updates, with Tesco posting better than expected numbers following last week’s results from Waitrose. Marks and Spencer suffered over the Christmas period and their release was brought forward after a lea…
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Abshire-Smith is pleased to announce the release of the VertexFX 10 trading suite for its clients. Hybrid Solutions, the developers of VertexFX, have invested considerable time and resources into the launch of VertexFX 10. The trading platform has significantly enhanced features and design. VertexFX 10 provides the complete trading suite, of both web and desktop based access for retail and institutional clients. Adam Neal CEO and founder of Abshire-Smith said that: “T…
Continue Reading →The Yen is headed for its biggest 2-day gain since November The spending cuts and tax hikes scheduled to hit the UK in 2013 are milder than most other advanced economies, according to a Goldman Sachs research note out yesterday Hedge funds that use computers to follow trends lost money for a second straight year in 2012 as political debates over the U.S. fiscal cliff and Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis roiled markets – Bloomberg The U.K. economy will have a &ldqu…
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