TODAY’S FAYRE –
Tuesday 13th November 2012
“God's mercy shines ;
And our full hearts
must make record of this,
For grief that burst
from out its dark confines
Into strange sunlit
bliss.
I stood where glowed
The merry glare of
golden whirring lights
Above the monstrous
mass that seethed and flowed
Through one of
London's nights.
1 watched the gleams
Of jagged warm lights
on shrunk faces pale :
I heard mad laughter
as one hears in dreams
Or Hell's harsh lurid
tale.
The traffic rolled,
A gliding chaos
populous of din,
A steaming wail at
doom the Lord had scrawled
For perilous loads of
sin.
And my soul thought :
'What fearful land
have my steps wandered to ?
God's love is
everywhere, but here is naught
Save love His anger
slew.”
Isaac Rosenberg –
poet & soldier – 1890-1918
I thought to myself surely when the BBC is desperately
attempting to restore the public’s trust that acting DG, Tim Davie, should not
rock up to Portland Place tie-less for the second day running! - Very poor
form! A casual appearance might venture
to suggest a casual approach to the gravity of the situation! It looks as though Lord Patten may approach
people who are not ‘lifers’ at the BBC for the post of DG, such as Tony Hall
from the Royal Opera House. ITV's director of television Peter Fincham, a former
controller of BBC1 and former chief executive of Channel 4 Michael Jackson are
also potential candidates. Lionel Barber of the FT has also had his hat thrown
in to the ring. Caroline Thompson is
probably the most favoured of the ‘in-house’ candidates.
Yesterday I felt very privileged to have bumped in to Peter
Snow at the BBC’s studios in Millbank.
Now he is an iconic broadcaster and national treasure, in the same
manner as Sir Alastair Burnett, for whom there was a memorial service
yesterday, was.
To touch briefly on the subject of international company tax
avoidance by the likes of Amazon, Starbucks and Google, Margaret Hodge MP makes
some valid points on moral issues.
However, as with Andrea Leadsom the Conservative MP who sits on the
Treasury Select Committee, they are both so unpleasant in the manner they set
about their task, they achieve less than they should for the efforts. Good manners and courtesy, regardless of the
gravity of any situation, cost nothing and they achieve a fair bit!
Equity markets are about to experience their 4th negative
day on the bounce today. Greece managed
to secure agreement for its €30.5 billion bail-out, including a two-year
extension to get its debt to GDP ratio down from 190% to 12% by 2022 rather
than 2020. This manifested itself despite resistance from the IMF in the form
of no lesser person than Mme Christine Lagarde, its managing director. Olli Rehn believes that Greece will make its
roll-overs by the end of the week and the much needed bail-out facility should
be in place by 20th November.
However full confidence has yet to be restored and overlying
concern still weighs heavily on investors’ minds. Can Greece afford to be saddled with such
gargantuan debt? Though the politicians are putting a terrific spin on the
progress made by Greece and it is considerable having reduced its deficit of
€20 billion to €6.8 billion in a year, no one feels comfortable with the idea
that there can be any growth under such austerity. Bond yields started to creep
up in Spain and Italy. However it is
interesting to note than on Greek bonds yields have halved in the last year –
10 year from circa 28% to circa 14%.
Those who have capitalised on that fall well done! However there may still be a case for 2 men
in white coats to take you away for certification of insanity!
Yesterday The Guardian found a whistleblower in the shape of
Seth Freedman, a former energy trader, who alleges that he has evidence that
energy companies including the top 6 have manipulated prices in their favour,
particularly on 28th September 2012, the year end for most of these companies.
These are very grave allegations, which these companies have denied
emphatically. I hope that the alleged
price fixings are a figment of Mr Freedman’s imagination. The level of regulation on trading is so
stringent these days, it should be almost impossible to collude in this manner.
No doubt the FSA will have the drains up, as will Energy Secretary Ed Davey.
Sir John Vickers was unequivocal in saying that if banks
were uncooperative about ring fencing their retail businesses he would not rule
out the possibility of breaking the banks up.
It is generally accepted that by 2020 the US will be a
greater producer of oil than Saudi Arabia.
It could be self sufficient and possibly an exporter. The US has just
posted the best set of oil inventories for 3 months.
The Street of Dreams experienced a flat session yesterday
and Asia brought little comfort as Japan’s Nikkei posted its seventh loss on
the bounce. The Shanghai Composite also
surrendered 1.2% thanks to rumours of a property tax being introduced. Cisco
Systems report after hours today.
ITV announced group revenues gained 4% and stated that it
made further progress in reshaping and rebalancing its business and states that
the TV ad market remains volatile. £100 million profit is expected for the 1st
9 months of the trading year and the company is trading strongly. The shares
were up 4% at the opening and 31% in the last year. Persimmon states that full
year trading is seen in line.
Now finally to Vodafone; superficially these were
disappointing numbers, which included a drop of 1.4% of service revenue – the
first contraction in 10 quarters and a £5.9 billion write down on its Italian
and Spanish operations, which have under-performed. Sadly these countries are
responsible for 20% of the business. There will be a £1.5 billion share
buy-back; considered not enough. The
£2.4 billion Verizon dividend is very welcome and one suspects that the US and
Africa will be growth countries in the future.
The dividend was raised by 7.2%.
The share fell 2.9% at the open – circa 9% so far this year. Some analysts are beginning to think they may
represent good value! We shall see.
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