UK Stocks -- Factors to watch on Sept 1

Morning all. Market reports:

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

Saturday

Britain is in the grip of its worst economic crisis for 60 years, Alistair Darling has admitted. The Chancellor of the Exchequer warns that the slump is going to be "more profound and long-lasting than people thought". In an astonishingly frank interview, Mr Darling admits that voters are "p***** off" with Labour and says the party must recover the "zeal" which won it three successive general elections.
Britain in grip of worst economic crisis for 60 years, admits Alistair Darling

Britains mortgage lenders may be sitting on hundreds of millions of pounds of worthless loans fraudulently obtained by criminals to support drug manufacturing, illegal immigration and money-laundering.
Lenders face huge hit on mortgages fraudulently obtained by crime gangs

Bradford & Bingley gave us a glimpse on Friday of how dicey things were early in July. The bank came uncomfortably close to becoming a second Northern Rock. It admits that customers were rushing to pull out their savings as the bank repeatedly failed to nail down rescue financing.
Bradford & Bingley was so close to the edge

The pound hit a 12-year low against its basket of currencies yesterday as investors continued to dump sterling amid a raft of bad economic news and continued speculation that the Bank of England's Monetary Police Committee may cut rates next week.
Pound hits 12-year low on rate cut speculation

Allianz, the giant German insurer, is expected to announce as early as tomorrow the sale of its retail and investment bank Dresdner to Commerzbank, with insiders expecting the takeover to be worth about 9bn (7.2bn). Rumours earlier this year had linked Lloyds TSB with a possible rival bid.
Commerzbank set to seal deal on Dresdner takeover

Russia has moved to allay fears that it could cut vital oil flows to Europe despite heightened tensions over the country's aggressive stance towards its former client states. Russia's energy minister insisted that it was working to ensure stable oil supplies through the key Druzhba pipeline that links Russia to eastern Europe and the west.
Russia seeks to ease fears over oil supplies

Sunday

The Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers is this weekend locked in talks with a group of foreign government-backed investment funds in an effort to secure billions of dollars in new equity capital.
Lehman Brothers in urgent talks on capital injection

The Chancellor has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown after claiming that the current economic crisis was the worst for 60 years. Alistair Darling took to the airwaves to "clarify" his comments in a newspaper interview, saying that he was referring to global economic conditions rather than those in Britain.
Alistair Darling backtracks on claim that economic crisis is worst for 60 years

THE TREASURY has snubbed calls from Britains lenders for direct government intervention to kick-start the mortgage market. This weeks package of measures intended to stabilise the housing market will not meet a key demand from banks, building societies and housing-market lobby groups.
Mortgage hopes hit by Darling

The housing market is plunging at its fastest rate ever. The broader economy is heading for its sharpest slowdown since the early 1990s, but mysteriously the appetite for high street goods has held up well. The data tells us so, and statistics never lie. Or do they? The question is echoing around the City after a series of apparent blunders and inexplicable results raised profound questions over the accuracy of a whole host of Government statistics.
ONS called to account as doubts over figures start to stack up

Monday

More than two centuries of British banking history is set to disappear along with more than 1,000 jobs after a deal last night that saw Allianz, the German insurer, sell its Dresdner Bank subsidiary to Commerzbank.
End for Dresdner Kleinwort as Commerzbank pays 9.8bn for Dresdner Bank

The story of Dresdner Bank should become a parable for our times - a tale of greed and hubris that ended with one of the most famous names in German banking laid low. But with the sale of the bank by insurance giant Allianz to domestic rival Commerzbank expected to herald the shake-up of the entire German banking system, the question remains as to whether anyone will heed the lessons.
Greed was not good for Dresdner Bank

Lehman Brothers, trying to shore up its balance sheet, has settled on a structure that will allow it to offload billions of dollars in real-estate loans from its books, reports the WSJ. The US investment bank is still hammering out the final details and it isnt clear when a plan will be unveiled.
Lehman to offload property loans

Britain is now facing a severe recession which will last for a year or longer and a worse housing crash than in the early 1990s, according to a highly respected former Bank of England policymaker.
UK recession may last for over a year, says expert

House prices fell for the eleventh month in a row in August, in the latest sign that the housing slump is deepening. Average prices dropped by 0.9pc over the month, following a 1.2pc slump in July, according to Hometrack.
House prices fall as buyers scent bargains

This time last week, Lloyds TSB's stock was paying out more than 12pc, making it the highest yielding share in the FTSE 100 on a historic basis.
Dividend yields on bank shares reach historic highs

Turquoise, the rival trading platform to the London Stock Exchange, is confident of beating earlier forecasts that it would steal a 5 per cent market share by Christmas, its chief executive told The Times last night.
First trading day brings inroads and a glow to face of Turquoise

The London Stock Exchange will on Monday introduce deep fee cuts and incentives for traders in the latest sign of growing efforts by Europes exchanges to defend themselves against a wave of new entrants in equities trading. The move comes as Nasdaq OMX Europe, one new entrant, is expected Monday to appoint Citigroup to provide electronic routing of orders from its new trading platform to others in Europe
LSE to slash fees amid competition

Perhaps most telling is a statistic calculated by the US Chamber of Commerce, which shows that McCain has a voting record which is 82pc pro-business compared with Obama's 42pc. Obama clearly has a lot to prove in the next 64 days, not least that he can be the candidate that will most benefit American business, and therefore the US economy, as a whole.
US election: Who will get Wall Street's vote?

NATO is no longer part of my beat as a journalist, but let me remind those breezily pushing for an extension of the North Atlantic pact to Georgiaand Ukraine what this actually means. It exposes Britain and other Western powers to a high risk of war with Russia. It entangles us in ethnic disputes of enormous complexity deep inside the Kremlin sphere of influence, against a formidable military power, along supply lines that we cannot possibly defend.
There is no need to fight Russia - just harness an alternative to oil

China's tallest skyscraper, the half-kilometre-high World Financial Center (WFC) in Shanghai, has opened its doors, just as the country's property bubble shows every sign of being on the verge of collapse.
Shanghai's World Financial Center may prove to be a white elephant

Rich individuals in emerging markets are more likely to increase their investments in riskier assets in the wake of the credit crunch, while those in the West tend to batten down the hatches, according to a report.
Investors in Asia 'take more risks in downturn'

The deepening woes at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, badly stretched central bank reserves and a losing battle to support the won are pushing South Korea towards a full-blown currency crisis this month, analysts have said.
South Korea heads for black September as problems pile up for the ailing won

NIKKEI 225	AUSTRALIA ASX200	SHANGHAI	HANG SENG

PRESS DIGEST - Wall Street Journal - Sept 1

The Monday Press Roundup

Tokyo shares close lower in thin trade led by exporters

STOCKS NEWS EUROPE-Stock index futures point to lower open

Tokyo shares close lower in thin trade led by exporters - UPDATE

STOCKS NEWS EUROPE-Commerz leads Europe stocks lower at open

STOCKS NEWS EUROPE-Bodycote down; Merrill cuts to 'underperform'

TFN NEWS BRIEFING: Pharmaceuticals and chemicals highlights to 09:10 BSTTFN NEWS BRIEFING: Aerospace and transportation highlights to 09:10 BSTTFN NEWS BRIEFING: TMT highlights to 09:10 BST

TFN NEWS BRIEFING: Consumer and retailing highlights to 09:15 BSTTFN NEWS BRIEFING: Banking and insurance highlights to 09:15 BSTTFN NEWS BRIEFING: Oil and utilities highlights to 09:15 BST

TFN NEWS BRIEFING: Mergers and acquisitions highlights to 09:20 BST

TFN NEWS BRIEFING: Macroeconomics highlights to 10:10 BST

Asian stock market summary

Midday Market Overview

Precious Metals Summary - London AM Fixings

STOCKS NEWS EUROPE-Heritage Oil up on Uganda discovery hopes

*S&P CUTS BP PLC LONG-TERM RATING TO 'AA'; OUTLOOK STABLE