A Brief Look At The Week Ahead

Another busy week for corporate news ahead, with banks and builders to the fore. Look out for numbers from Standard Chartered (Tuesday), HBOS (Wednesday) and RBoS (Thursday), the latter keen to demonstrate the wisdom of its takeover of ABN Amro. In the same sector, press chatter about Lloyds TSB looking at Alliance & Leicester and/or Bradford & Bingley as a target might cause a few ripples.... Among the housebuilders, Persimmon reports Tuesday with Barratt and Redrow the following day. Given the current fragility of the housing market, these should be watched closely. Others to look out for this week include Hammerson (Monday), Royal & Sun Alliance (Wednesday), Aviva and BAT (Thursday) and WPP (Friday). Enough there to keep us all busy! Greystone Thanks, as always to Supermum, Kyoto and Digger for their invaluable input to The Traders Thread. (Greystone is Alan English, City Editor at MoneyAM.)

Analysis selection for this week - IVE

IVE price 2.60p

Very large volume last Friday about 20 times the usual

Slowly moving higher from lows as Indicators are moving up from oversold, there will be a BREAKOUT on going over 2.675p

Three recent broker reports say buy with upside to 15p. Oil and gas projects in the U.S. production began last month. Placing at 2p and recent adquisition whith Three recent broker reports say buy with upside to 15p. Oil and gas projects in the U.S. production began last month. Placing at 2p and recent adquisition whith operator Metro Energy holding 10%

Management has a good a track record on acquiring acreage and debt financing is in place to provide for a rapid drilling programme. Success is expected as projects are still profitable even with oil prices half of what they are now

Chart for IVE

Morning all. Friday's market reports:

Telegraph
The Times
The Times (Need to know)
The Independent
The Guardian
This is Money

Saturday

Citigroup is facing further financial write-downs after revealing it has an exposure of $4bn (2.03bn) to the troubled bond insurance sector and has been forced to move a $10bn hedge fund on to its balance sheet after significant losses.
Citigroup facing further big write-downs

The credit crunch, triggered last February by a surge in defaults on high-risk, sub-prime mortgages, appeared to have travelled right across the financial system yesterday, as it emerged that the cost of insuring even the most robust corporate bonds had reached a record high.
Credit crunch contagion has bonds cover at record high

Weakening housing markets in Britain, Ireland and Spain will stretch the finances of some mortgage lenders this year, credit ratings agency Fitch warned yesterday. Fitch expects the British housing market to see the recent trend of lower prices continue, though the scale remains hard to predict, it said, adding it did not expect a collapse in UK house prices.
Mortgage lenders at risk of falling into credit-rating trap

China's increasingly aggressive sovereign wealth fund is poised to unleash a $10 billion (5 billion) investment spree in Japan and is initially expected to set its sights on the energy sector.
Big-spending Chinese eye up Japan's energy 'champion' in $10bn drive for investment

State-backed companies, including the biggest steelmaker, Baosteel, are understood to have refused to meet Rio's opening demands for a package that would see some iron ore prices rise by more than 100pc, with knock-on implications for the price of consumer goods and inflation. Japanese steelmakers are thought to be organising a similar response as big iron ore consumers dig in against price rises.
Chinese steelmakers resist Rio Tinto's iron ore price hike

Sunday

ONE of Germanys biggest financial institutions is to sue UBS, the Swiss banking giant, claiming it was mis-sold hundreds of millions of pounds worth of sub-prime securities.
Germans accuse UBS of sub-prime mis-selling

Lloyds TSB is to weigh up potential takeover approaches to Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley as it scents opportunities to snap up rivals hit by the credit crunch.
Lloyds takes aim at A&L and B&B

The Qatari government is this weekend contemplating making an investment in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Britain's second-largest bank, which would be the latest foray by a foreign government entity into struggling western banking stocks.
Qataris' eye on RBS shares

House prices will decline by 6 per cent in 2008, and continue falling next year, as anxious homeowners rush to cash in their gains from the decade-long property boom, analysts at JP Morgan warned this weekend. Just three months after predicting that prices would remain stagnant for at least a year, Malcolm Barr, JP Morgan's chief UK economist, said the evidence now looked 'pretty bleak'.
House prices will drop 6pc in 2008 - and keep falling

TWO of Britains biggest housebuilders are expected to trigger fresh worries over the state of the housing market this week by confirming that reservation levels at their developments have plunged by more than 20% compared with a year ago.
Top builders Persimmon and Barratt set to reveal market woes

TOP fund managers such as Fidelitys Anthony Bolton and Neil Woodford of Invesco Perpetual champion contrarian investment, but a new study has found that the opposite strategy can make you big money.
Turn a 1 investment into 4.2m

Monday

The Federal Reserve will today continue its unprecedented efforts to prop up the credit markets, in what is set to be one of its most closely watched auctions of new debt.
Fed auction to be watched for signs of credit market distress

Investment banks are secretly profiting from emergency European Central Bank funding by acting as brokers to funnel billions of euros of much needed liquidity to Britain's banks and building societies.
Lloyds accesses European Central Bank funding

Sir Fred Goodwin will this week mount a robust defence of his strategy at Royal Bank of Scotland by unveiling an increase in the company's dividend and an improved cost-savings target from its takeover of ABN Amro.
Bullish RBS to confirm it will increase dividend

Private equity groups and investment banks are turning to mezzanine finance, a forgotten corner of the debt markets, in the wake of the credit crunch with firms raising multi-billion pound funds to back acquisitions.
Mezzanine finance helps beat credit crunch

House prices have fallen in February for the fifth month in a row, deepening the gloom over the property market. The average price of a new property decreased by 0.2 per cent to 174,400, according to Hometrack, the property research group. The annual rate of house price inflation fell to 1.4 per cent, its lowest in nearly two years.
House price fall continues despite small rise in buyers

Britain's largest companies saw their corporation tax bills rise by 18pc last year, far outstripping the increase in profits, a new study has found.
Corporation tax surge 'making UK unattactive'

NIKKEI 225	AUSTRALIA ASX200	SHANGHAI	HANG SENG

Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Hang Seng was up 0.4% to 23,398.75, while the Nikkei was
413.56 higher at 13,914.02 heading for the close.

April crude-oil futures gained as much as 77 cents to $99.58 a barrel in electronic
trading, after rising 58 cents to $98.81 a barrel Friday in regular trading on the
New York Mercantile Exchange.

Happy trading!

G.

Tokyo shares close at five-week high on hopes for Ambac bailout - UPDATEAustralian shares close higher on bargain hunting - UPDATETFN economic and business calendar to Friday March 7Australian shares close higher on bargain hunting

TFN UK calendar and forecasts for today

Thomson Financial UK at a glance share guide - weekend

The Monday Press Roundup

London shares outlook - firmer after late US turnaround; Hammerson in focus

Thomson Financial UK at a glance share guide

BROKERWATCH Lloyds TSB raised to 'overweight' from 'equal-weight' by Lehman

Tokyo shares close at more than 5-week high on hopes for Ambac bailout - UPDATE

STOCKWATCH AB Foods higher as Credit Suisse ups price target

UK smallcap opening - Oilex higher on oil find boostLondon shares open higher after late US turnaround; strength among banksUK smallcap opening - Henderson Morley up on positive test results

UK smallcap opening - Accuma slides on 2.7 mln stg 5-month loss expectation