| Home | Log In | Register | Our Services | My Account | Contact | Help |
|
|
|
Gold
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
S&P &Futures (Click for latest) |
Pre Market Futures (7:30) | ||
| FTSE | +23 | ||
| TechMark | +3 | ||
| DAX | +30 | ||
|
Hang Seng +136 |
Nikkei +118 |
DOW | +14 |
| S&P | +1.8 | ||
| Nasdaq | +0.5 | ||
|
News Headlines: U.S: Stocks stage late-day rally as buyers enter the market in the last hour of trading on the back of better data. The day's upbeat economic from the Commerce Department said gross domestic product rose 3.1 percent in the second quarter, better than economists' expected 2.9 percent and up from an earlier estimate of 2.4 percent. The FTSE 100 index is set to rise following the late rebound on Wall Street. On the economic front, weekly U.S. jobless claims are due out at 1:30 p.m. with the final Michigan Consumer sentiment survey out at 1345 GMT.National Grid: The power lines operator is in the firing line after last night's power failure that hit parts of London and the South East, the Daily Mail reports.Glaxo: Europe's biggest pharmaceutical company, said late on Thursday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved sales of Wellbutrin XL, a once-daily version of the company's antidepressant pill. Glaxo said it expects Wellbutrin XL to be available in pharmacies by mid-September.British Airways: slashed the commisssions it pays to travel agents as part of the airline's cost cutting drive, said the Times. Royal Sun Alliance The Guardian said there was market talk that the UK insurer is considering a 2 for 3 rights issue at 100 pence which will be announced along with next week's resultsPsion said it plans to increase its stake in mobile phone software developer Symbian to 31.1 percent for 17.4 million pounds from MotorolaRegus said it planned to exit bankruptcy protection in the United States earlier than expected after it successfully restructured its U.S. operations.Greene King regional brewer and pubs group said that trading in the first 12 weeks of its financial year was a little ahead of expectations across all areas of its business. With like-for-like sales rose 1.2 percent at its managed pubs which had not benefited from recent investment.
|
|||||||||||||||||
- 29 Aug 2003 07:50
- 5 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 08:27
- 6 of 24
| interview with the Barclays Global Investors
Chief Economist Haydn Davies, produced by Cantos. Cantos is a U.K. financial
and corporate information service, available free to anyone with access to
the Internet (www.cantos.com).
Overview of the Eurozone
Why has Europe slipped into recession?
Q.
Why have major economies in the euro-zone slipped into recession and how
long do you think they'll remain there?
A.
The big problem with Europe in contrast to the U.S. is the weakness of
consumer spending. Of course in the U.S. consumers have been spending quite
resiliently and piling on the debt no matter what's been happening in the
labour market. In Europe that hasn't been the case.
Unemployment has been climbing, so that's been hitting consumers, and in
particular in Europe consumers are very, very sensitive to the labour market
- when they see unemployment rise they cut back on their spending. And
that's really why the European economy has been so weak.
At the same time investment expenditure from firms has been very weak as
well and coupled with the very weak international outlook European firms
haven't been able to rely on sales to the U.S. or Japan.
It's all coming together in the melting pot and made a recipe for a very
weak economy in Europe.
Q.
Are there any signs of a pick-up in business confidence and investment?
A.
The big barometer that everyone watches is the IFO survey of German business
confidence. It's a great measure of activity across the whole region. That's
picking up. But the problem with the IFO survey is that its two main
components are hopes for the future, businessmen's expectations, and natural
measure of new orders.
Now, all of the improvement in business confidence has come through
expectations rather than new orders. So whilst there's an improvement in
confidence, and that is good news, really we all want to see new orders
start to pick up. And at the moment all onlookers really are waiting for
that.
Is the euro to blame?
Q.
Are the budget deficit restrictions imposed by Brussels to blame for
deepening these recessions?
A.
They're certainly not helping. For example, in the U.K. and the U.S. a
couple of years ago the governments were running surpluses around 2 to 3% of
economic output.
Over the last two years that's completely reversed and now those governments
are running a deficit of about the same magnitude. So there has been a
substantial loosening of policy in the U.S., in the U.K..
Of course in Europe that hasn't been happening because everyone has been
handcuffed by the stability pact. So it would have been more helpful,
certainly, if governments had been able to increase spending or cut taxes a
little bit more than they had. But it's not to blame for the overall
weakness.
The real reason is that consumers are reluctant to spend and perhaps the
European Central Bank wasn't as proactive as perhaps central banks in the
U.S..
Q.
Isn't the euro's growing strength efforts to boost exports?
A.
The euro is certainly a problem but the ECB can't complain because ever
since the euro was born it's has been complaining that it was too cheap. Now
the euros in the range that the ECB would see as being fair value it would
be very difficult for it to turn round and say, actually we'd prefer it if
the euro was a little bit weaker.
So yes of course it's bad news for exporters, of course the last few weeks
we've actually seen the euro weaken a little bit more and already firms are
starting to welcome that and that should help to boost profits.
Will the US economy have to rescue Europe?
Q.
Will Europe just have to wait for the U.S. economy to give it some lift as
it recovers.
A.
That seems to be the story over the last 10 years; very little growth has
been generated from within Europe, its always waited for U.S. demand to pick
up and basically ridden off the back of an export-led recovery.
Of course, interest rate policy in the euro-zone is very loose at the
moment, perhaps not as loose as it could be, particularly in Germany. For
example, in the euro-zone the interest rates are close to zero. That's not
the case in Germany because inflation is a little bit lower.
So certainly policy is quite stimulative so there is room there and plenty
of scope for growth to re-emerge but as usual Europe will be reliant on the
U.S. recovery.
Q.
Economists have been saying that structural reform has been needed in Europe
for a long time. Are there any signs that governments are removing
restrictive practices.
A.
There are signs that things are improving. Germany has been making a lot of
headway in recent weeks and a lot of headlines. And that's all very welcome
but these are quite small steps and unfortunately they take an awful long
time to have much of an impact and even the steps in Germany aren't going to
make that much difference to Germany's capacity to grow without generating
inflation.
The overwhelming problem in the euro-zone isn't the economy's ability to
grow without generating inflation, it's trend rate of growth. The problem is
that the economy is growing below its trend rate of growth and really we
need to see growth recover, basically helped by further interest rate
policy.
Q.
Can we expect to see more cross border mergers in the longer term future as
Europe seeks to create more world class players.
A.
Of course investment bankers have been saying for a very long time, ever
since the single market came about, that firms would start to merge across
borders in order to create global champions, or European champions . That
hasn't happened.
There are significant impediments to firms merging, stock markets in Europe
tend to be quite locally focused and at the moment there doesn't seem to be
much that's going to change on that score. At the moment firms have enough
problems trying to sort out their bottom lines without trying to create
large companies.
|
- 29 Aug 2003 09:01
- 9 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 09:52
- 10 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 13:31
- 12 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 15:17
- 14 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 16:19
- 17 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 16:24
- 18 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 16:37
- 19 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 16:51
- 21 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 17:08
- 22 of 24
- 29 Aug 2003 22:47
- 23 of 24
- 01 Sep 2003 08:38
- 24 of 24