TODAY’S FAYRE – Wednesday, 16th January 2013
“Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New
statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as
walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its
own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to
listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window
square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you
try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.”
Sylvia Plath – poet– 1932-1963
Despite the fact that at one time Lance Armstrong was one of my all time
sporting iconic heroes, I just could not be bothered to stay up to listen to
his rather shallow admission that he had been taking performance enhancing
drugs for virtually a decade in winning 7 ‘Tour de Frances.’ in an interview
with Winfrey Oprah. This interview took place over 2.5 hours in Austin
Texas. M/S Oprah said – “He did not come clean in the manner I expected!”
Huge charity contributions he may well have been made,
but like millions of others I am still shattered and totally disillusioned!
I must confess to be a little surprised
that Sir Mervyn King was so irked at the possibility of Goldman Sachs paying
their bonuses after 6th April to avoid the 50% tax threshold for
those earning over £150k. After all Goldman is an American bank which
contributes significantly to the growth of the UK economy. There is
nothing illegal about it. Had it been Barclays, Lloyds or RBS, one could
fully understand the angst from the Bank, politicians and public alike!
Anyway at latter day of judgement Goldman’s management announced that bonuses
would be paid on the due date. Crisis over!
Will Straw writing for the
Telegraph! Wonders never cease! Considering there can be no
political chemistry or empathy between either party, what he wrote on a
possible referendum for on-going membership of the EU made perfect sense.
He said it was a wonderful opportunity for the Europhiles to make their case
loud and clear for continued membership. He seemed to have been frustrated that
the sceptics consistently grabbed the headlines!
I have no idea why referees were so
incensed that Vincent Kompany’s appeal against his sending off at Arsenal was
rescinded! In the circumstances where a player charging at the
defender, it was about the fairest tackle I have ever seen and no I’m not
a City supporter! It was a one foot tackle and Kompany made contact with
the ball! Like it or not football is a contact sport!
That was a truly dire 4th
quarter GDP number from Germany posted yesterday - -0.5% and down to +0.7% for
the year; a far cry from +4.2% in 2010 and +3% in 2011! The forecast for 2013
is +1%. The cynics say +0.4% may be nearer the mark, which does not augur
particularly well for the rest of Europe, which is struggling like mad to keep
its head above water! It was interesting to note the World Bank’s
forecast for the larger nations posted last night for this year – USA +1.9%,
China +8.4% and Japan +0.8%. Let’s finish comments on economic data
issues by observing that CPI data in the UK, posted yesterday put inflation at
2.7%. I can live with that for the time being.
The Treasury Select Committee were in
action yesterday, taking further evidence or counsel from Sir Mervyn King, the
Governor and his cohorts – Andy Haldane and Michael Cohrs. The subject
that rattled my cage was the disclosure that some banks would need significant
capital injection, particularly RBS and Lloyds. The Bank would not be
drawn as to how much. However those who know about these things said that
£30 billion may not be an underestimation. It could be years before the
taxpayer gets his just desserts.
It was going to be only a question of time
before the US debt ceiling reared its ugly head again. The President seems to
have assumed an air of breathtakingly unattractive arrogance in his
intransigence towards dealing with cutting US debt. If the ‘Debt Ceiling’
is to be breached, where are the cuts coming from? Enter stage left
Fitch’s David Riley, who clearly left his unequivocal thoughts with the market
place in saying – “Such self-inflicted crisis as they stagger towards a new
deadline every 6 months is not typically characteristic of a AAA state!”
The President seems unmoved that the US’S “AAA” status is now threatened.
Perhaps he does not mind!
Considering the billions of Dollars, Euros
and Pounds that have supposedly been poured in to equities in recent weeks
markets were remarkably somnolent yesterday. The FTSE added a mere 9
points at 6117. The DAX and CAC surrendered very modest value and the
Street of Dreams never got out of first gear – all three remaining either side
of par! Facebook grabbed the headlines in the US. CEO Mark Zuckerberg
announced the social media giant’s next initiative, which is to introduce its
graph search tool, which it is hoped will take on Google on certain products in
the years to come. Facebook needed some good news as last month it only
grew its users by 5.5% - the slowest level ever. Today the 4th
quarter earnings floodgates open with GOLDMAN SACHS, JP MORGAN CHASE, eBAY,
BONY and US BANCORP steeping up to the plate with their interim results. JPM
have had issues with the loss of $6.2 billion triggered by the London Whale and
mortgage repayments, but one suspects that the core numbers will be good,
though the market needs more meat on the bone re LIBOR manipulation. Goldman is
expected to post solid if unspectacular numbers.
Yesterday Burberry posted improved trading
conditions with H&M doing adequately. One has to admire the pluck of
Trevor Moore CEO of HMV, who tells us he is a believer, despite the
administrator being called in after just 5 months. Maybe 100-150 shops
out of 230 could be salvaged by private equity money. There appears to be
plenty of enquiries about its assets. Will HMV’S bankers play ball. Where’s the
growth coming from, in the wake of few contingency plans and little in the way
of innovation? However gift vouchers not being valid is no way to get the
public back on board. If there is a bail-out, I suggest HMV honours its
commitments. European car sales fell by a depressing 16% last month.
Germany’s supermarket Metro posted 4th quarter sales of €19.4
billion, slightly missing estimates of €19.6 billion.
Experian stated that it had been pleased with its progress and confirms
its full year targets of high single digit organic revenue growth. Thorntons
reports total 14 week sales gained by £4.5m to £88m and states it was pleased
with its progress. Barratt Developments reports average selling prices gained
2.1% to £185k and 1st half pre-tax profit more than
doubled to £45m. JD Wetherspoon announces 11 week total sales gained 11.3% and
states that margins have been hurt by tax, labour and marketing costs.
The Asian session was mixed. Japan had
issues with Consumer Confidence, though there were sign of improved
manufacturing activity. The NIKKEI saw profit takers and it was down 2.5%
towards the close, much of this loss attributed to a strong Yen. The Hang
Seng was easier by 0.4% and the Shanghai Composite by 0.5%. All Japanese
airlines have grounded their new ‘Dreamliners’ due to more technical
issues – apparently not that serious; nonetheless irritating and worrying for
Boeing shareholders.
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