Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Hang Seng ended the morning up 188.06 points at 15,230.87,
while the Nikkei gained 183.56 points to 9,043.12, ending above 9,000 for the first
time in two months.

Oil stayed above $47 a barrel in Asian trade on Monday.

Happy trading!

G.

Morning all. Friday's market reports:

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

Saturday

Interest rates on short-term UK government bonds have dipped beneath 1pc for the first time amid a shower of evidence that Gordon Brown's banking bail-out package has failed to reignite lending.
Signs that Government bail-out is failing

Britain's banks are defying the government by starving businesses and households of loans and warning that credit will become even scarcer in the first three months of this year.
Banks defy Brown call to free up credit

The Financial Services Authority is in the final stages of a review of the ban on short selling introduced to protect HBOS at the height of last year's financial crisis. The City regulator is expected to announce next week whether it will heed calls from politicians to extend the ban, which prevents traders making profits from a fall in a company's share price.
Pressure grows on regulator as short-selling ban nears expiry

THE manufacturing sector is trapped in the worst slump since the early 1990s, economists warned after the publication of "grim" statistics on industry's health.
Manufacturing outlook 'grim'

China’s vast manufacturing sector, the driving force behind the country’s celebrated economic growth story, is on the brink of technical recession as order books run dry and once humming factories fall silent.
Fire dies under China’s once booming manufacturing industry

Halifax and Nationwide, the mortgage lenders responsible for the two most widely-watched surveys of Britain's housing market, have given up making forecasts for 2009 after their 2008 predictions proved far too optimistic.
Halifax and Nationwide give up on house-price forecasts for 2009

Europe and America urged a rapid solution to Russia and Ukraine's new "gas war" last night amid fears that supplies to European client countries could be affected.
Jitters across EU as Russia cuts Ukraine fuel supply

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway slumped 32pc last year, the worst performance in more than three decades, as the U.S. recession forced down the value of the firm's equity holdings and derivative bets.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway suffers worst performance in 30 years with 32pc fall

Sunday

CORPORATE BRITAIN is facing a refinancing timebomb this year as more than £50 billion of bank debt expires during the biggest credit crunch in global history.
UK’s refinancing timebomb

Two-thirds of Britons want the rich to face punitive tax rates not seen since the 1980s, according to a new poll which suggests that the recession has hardened attitudes towards the wealthy.
Public wants taxes that hurt the rich

Monday

Low oil prices could boost economic growth by as much as 1.2pc in the next two years, providing support for the UK economy, according to new research from the Ernst & Young Item Club.
Low price of oil will fuel UK economy

Countries across Europe yesterday began to report declining gas supplies as the bitter dispute between Russia and Ukraine over energy contracts intensified.
Russian gas row cuts supplies to Europe

Leading British and multinational companies are being probed by the FSA financial watchdog over possible failures to disclose key data to the UK stock market, in a sweeping crackdown that threatens fines and prosecutions for “market abuse”.
UK watchdog to probe profit warnings

Before Christmas MoneyAM announced that they would no longer be carrying AFX news - unfortunately I can't find the thread now. This means I won't be posting news links here in future, because almost all of them were from AFX-related sources, so unfortunately there is no content to post now.

Midday Market Overview

Kyoto: MoneyAM are now writing UK company stories to replace those of the old AFX

BVC 35.75p +2.25

Yesterday's "Keep and eye" share on the UPS thread is doing well after surpasing the 34p break point.

Master RSI - 4 Jan'09 - 17:56 - 12 of 28 edit
KEEP an EYE
BVC 32.875 (32.25 / 33.50p )

Rising volume and share price, it needs to go over 34p for the double bottom to be realised and change of trend to UPTREND.

Kyoto: MoneyAM are now writing UK company stories to replace those of the old AFX

I appreciate that was the intention as per the announcement before Christmas, but I'm afraid my observation is that this has so far been an inadequate replacement for the scope of the old AFX. The MoneyAM stories mainly seem to be selective summaries of RNS stories and we've lost the macro-economic, overseas markets, broker recommendations and round-up stories that I thought were of more interest and which I used to post on the thread. There were only six stories on the MoneyAM news page between 6am and 7am all from HUG, and all spectacularly uninteresting. It's very sparse compared to what used to be there.

It's a shame we seem to be losing the content of one of the services but I can read this stuff elsewhere so if nobody cares I wouldn't worry about it.

Kyoto, I am sure regulars here will miss your feeds, reports and links.

Kyoto, I share Midknight's views on this & agree with you that it's a great shame that we have lost all the more intersting stuff. MoneyAm's stories totally inadeqaute so far.

Thanks for all your work here and these postings will be greatly missed by me and many others.

indu

Thanks midknight and indushah - I think AFX, which is owned by Thomson Financial, has been more-or-less rebranded/replaced by TFN (Thomson Financial News) and I'm guessing that MoneyAM have decided not to carry it. ADVFN carries TFN amongst other news feeds so the stories I used to post here can still be read there, but it might require a subscription.

End-of-day Market Overview