*** Tensions simmer between US and Iran
*** PartyGaming hits the ground running
*** Life’s tougher for the wealthy...outwitting the venture capitalists...India's entrance into Germany...and mor -------------------
– Iran’s new president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad intends to pursue his country’s nuclear policy, much to the disdain of the Americans, and the oil traders.
– Oil prices reached at all-time highs on Monday, with Brent crude up 2% to $59.21 per barrel, while Nymex crude traded over $60 a barrel, at $60.45. And with tensions growing between the US and the second-largest producer in Opec – Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said of the new President: “He’s no friend of freedom” – the crude price should soon start looking awfully comfy at $60 a barrel.
– Meanwhile the markets didn’t take the succession of new crude highs all that well: the FTSE 100 slipped 0.7%, or 35 points, to close at 5,043. The mid-cap 250 index closed 0.9% in the red, at 7,266, while the All Share index fell 0.7%.
– And while Shell traded as the top blue chip gainer, up more than 1%, fuel-dependent British Airways took a 5.5% tumble, to close at 260p. The airliner has now fallen some 8% in the last three trading days.
– Better news for PartyGaming: the online poker group started trading on the London Stock Exchange yesterday after completing the biggest London IPO in five years. The float, which raised £907m, now values the company at some £5m. By the end of its first day, shares traded 12% up at 130p.
– Not only does this mean that PartyGaming will waltz into the blue chip index when the FTSE is next reassessed, it also gives the online poker site a capitalisation ahead of supermarket group Sainsbury. But the public life of the group – which has grown pre-tax profits from £5m to £370m in just three years – has only just begun: and the firm could stumble along the way.
– Steelmaker Corus Group saw its share price close 2% in the red on Monday. Investors took to the hills after the firm admitted that high electricity costs could force the group to close its aluminium plant in Germany. The world’s largest aluminium maker Alcoa had warned that nearly 7,000 jobs were under threat following a tumble in its prices and increased energy costs. The sector also closed 5% down.
------------------ – It’s becoming even harder for the affluent to maintain their current lifestyles, says Martin Spring in his newsletter, On Target. Following the devastation wrought on them by the equity bear market, most had to change their spending habits. So what are the super-wealthy doing in order to preserve their capital? They’re seeking out those ‘alternative investments’...anything from hedge funds to precious metals and more...
– While venture capitalists are probably the “savviest” investors in the world, there are opportunities for you to do better than VCs, says Jonathan Kolber in Penny Sleuth. You need to look at small companies, backed by VCs when they were private, but that started to pick up problems when they went public. And the stocks that fall perfectly in this category? “Transformational technologies stocks,” says Jonathan: those stocks which could change the world in some area.
– While the Ruhr district was formerly part of Germany’s economic steam engine after World War II, today it resembles an “industrial museum”, says Andreas Ettle in the Profit Hunter Files. Yet something’s afoot in the region...it seems that a growing number of Indian firms are starting to invest there. And getting into these companies before they become targets for such foreign groups, like Indian or Chinese buyers, could mean a “cheque delivered straight into your bank account”.
Published in Stock markets
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by
Heather D'Alton
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