The Financial Services Authority (FSI) recently announced that they will be taking a much closer look in the future at firms who provide financial services firms, In particular, they will be reviewing the methods used by these companies to market their payment protection insurance policies, (PPI) The FSI initiative is designed to curb continuing hard-sell tactics and miss-selling of the product.

PPI is designed to cover repayments on products bought on long term credit products, in the event that if the borrower is unable to do as a result of reduced earnings caused by accident, redundancy, sickness or to project the family in the event that the debtor passes away. Setting a precedent was the record £7 million pound imposed in October 2008 by the FSA on the Alliance & Leicester building society, for reported serious failings in procedures during recorded telephone conversations discussing PPI to prospective clients. .

The FSA are about to issue a series guidelines,- due to take effect by the end of the year that are designed to ensure that PPI sales will be handled properly and complaints will be at a minimum.

In addition, the FSA are liable to request that certain companies reassess 185,000 previously rejected customer complaints. The reason given is that the FSA complain that there are an excessively high number of complaints of rejected complaints by firms offering PPI. The average percentage level of rejected claims is around 60% with certain companies showing a reject rate of almost 100%.

Most PPI service providers, among them Lloyds Banking Group, the country’s biggest provider of PPI accounting for 40 percent of PPI contracts sold directly to borrowers have agreed to screen all such sales since July 2007.

financial

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Tags: Bank, Banking, British Economy, Economy, Financial News, Financial Services Authority, FSI, Lloyds Banking Group, Money, Money Management, Mortgage, payment protection insurance policies, PPI, Recession, UK Economy, UK Recession

People who use online banking are under threat from a new Trojan virus, known as the Clampi, which is currently sweeping both the US and UK.

The Clampi virus is a piece of computer code that has already affected over 1,000 computers in the UK, and thousands more in the US.
read the rest of the post here http://ecommerce-associates.info/WordPress/online-banking-targeted-by-clampi-virus/

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Tags: Clampi, Clampi Virus, Computer Virus, Mortgage, Online banking

With the news that the UK Co-operative society is looking to increase exposure for their bank division, Coop banks are liable to become an increasingly common site on the UK high street within the coming years. Stage one to test the extent of in-house banking with coop stores, will be the opening of two pilot schemes situated in strategic points in the UK. As well as opening in-house outlets in a similar marketing mould as Tesco. Banking analysts see the Coops move into high street bank on a national scale as a logical extension of their acquisition of Britannia building society in early 2009. A move which increased their asset base considerably, while diluting their management costs. .

There have been Cooperative banks on UK high streets for almost forty years, although their numbers have always been limited. In the wake of the recent economic downturn, and with hopes of a return to economic normality around the corner, the stage is set for the appearance of new and clean faces in the high street. The Cooperative Bank many not be new face but it is certainly shiningly clean

UK politicians have made it no secret that they are keen to see medium sized players make greater inroads into retail banking to improve consumer choice with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) reportedly swamped with applications for banking licences

The Co-op Banking group is bound to be among the front runners, with a track record that shows prudent lending policies, and boasting an average equity to property value of close to 50 percent.

The stage is set for some interesting times in high street banking in the UK high street, with some surprising new faces entering the banking world. The Coop has been around for a long time, yet there new banking policy looks like cleaning up the high street.

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Tags: Bank, Banking, Britannia building society, British Economy, Coop Bank, Cooperative, Current Account, Economy, Employment, Financial News, Financial Services Authority, Money, Money Management, Savings, Tesco, UK Co-operative, UK Credit Cards, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession

Although your bank manager will tell you that he or she is your friend, and that they have your best interest at heart when they cut your overdraft or credit card levels, don’t believe them. The truth is that banks thrive on people who are in financial trouble and know exactly how to play on your weakened situations to continue to feed their insatiable drive for profit.

More so, that when you go to them on your knees asking for just a little more leeway, they will already have made sure that you will find it difficult if not impossible to find alternative finance elsewhere, and will take full advantage by providing you with additional finance at horrendously high interest rates.

The UK public must surely have learned one expensive and painful lesson from the current financial crisis and that is to keep the credit under control, and to try to do so by achieving and maintaining a credit rating that is as pure and white as the first snows of winter.

And believe it or not, despite prodigious efforts by the FSA to prevent this from happening, lenders, be they banks, building societies or credit card companies, are pooling their efforts to make sure that people who have fallen into debt in the past will find it very difficult to improve their credit rating.

There is, and always has been, a great anomaly about how finance providers look upon a potential client. If someone has money, why should they need to borrow it? Yet in many cases it is sensible to borrow money, particularly for a mortgage, or to buy a new car or even some major household appliance. Banks carry out tens of thousands of transactions every month, although secured loans are much less attractive to them than unsecured loans, where they can make more than twice the interest.

The sad truth of the matter is that if people are in severe financial trouble the last place they should set foot in is a bank, building society or credit card company, except to ask for an extended agreement on the same terms. Under no circumstances should they agree to accept a new refinancing agreement which will certainly be on prohibitive terms.

Only time will cure most people’s problems, and eventually better times will come. In the meantime it is everyone’s interest to keep the head down, draw in the belt even tighter, and repair each credit status. Learning to be less credit dependent will be a challenge for all of us, but it will be justified by never having to bend your knees to your bank manager again.

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Tags: bank manager, Banking, Building Society, Credit, Credit Card, Credit Crunch, credit rating, Current Account, Debt, extended agreement, Finance, finance providers, financial trouble, FSA, Interest Rates, Loans, Money, Money Management, Mortgage, Mortgages, negative equity, Savings, UK Banks, UK Credit Cards, unsecured loans

The FTSE was at the centre of UK financial news with many of its major companies announcing or about to announce their half year results. Which till now have been mostly encouraging.

The UK companies owned by Spanish bank Santander saw their profits rise by a third in the first half of the year as bad debts showed a second consecutive quarterly decline.

Santander announced that their bad debt provisions in its UK business were £176 million pounds in the second quarter, up from £92 million pounds a year ago but still considerably less than the £189 million in the first quarter of this year. The first-half provision of £365 million pounds doubled from a year ago.

Most of the UK banks are expected to report a jump in bad debts when they report next week, while analysts and investors as one are looking for clues as to whether the levels of bad debt have been arrested

UK Profits for Santander, taking in includes Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley were £790 million in the six months to the end of June, helping the bank’s Spanish parent to a net profit of 4.5 billion Euros, down 5 percent on the year but ahead of forecasts.

British Airways has reported a pre-tax loss of £148 million in the three months to the end of June, compared with a profit of £37 million in the same period last year, with revenues falling l 12.2% to £1.983 billion for the quarter.

Also falling deep into the red were German airline Lufthansa, Europe’s largest measured by turnover, who reported to a net loss of €216 million from a net profit of €381 million a year ago.

Leading airline chief executives have told the European Commission the industry on the ground as well as in the air is facing “the worst economic conditions on record”.

Meanwhile British Airports Authority (BAA) continue to make every effort to offload Gatwick Airport, but not at any price.

This example of possibly false bravado came as the UK’s largest airports operator revealed interim pre-tax losses for the six months to June 30 widened to £545.7 million from £135. 3 million

On one of the busiest results days of the year eight FTSE 100 companies released their half year results on Thursday including the BT Group which announced first-quarter adjusted earnings of £1.37 billion, larger than the £1.27 billion originally forecasted.

Pay TV operator BSkyB announced year end profits of £456 million an increase of £60 million. Company revenue rose by 8.2 per cent to £5.4 billion. BSkyB announced that during the last quarter It added a further 124,000 subscription holders.

Also rising was the FTSE 100, up 84 points to 4,631.6 and only seven points from away from its year high. The index has gained 9 per cent so far this month and is looking good to overtake its best monthly gain, reached in September 1992.

The FTSE 250 leapt forward 172.04 points to close on 7,934.63

Sterling was among the best performing of the major currencies against a generally weaker dollar, as rallying equity markets and better-than-expected housing data drove appetite for risk

Pound/US dollar 1.6516

Pound/Euro 1.1695

Pound/Japanese Yen 157.3943

Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7916

According to a prominent US financial regulator, the Obama administration’s plan to give US states more power to protect consumers from unfair banking practices would make it more difficult and costly for large lenders to operate across the country.

The regulator, Mr. John Dugan, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, who job it is to oversee national banks as comptroller of the currency, announced recently that the proposals to create a federal consumer protection agency and give states more leeway to crack down on unfair practices would have negative “ramifications for companies operating across state lines”.

On Wall Street the Dow Jones made a strong recovery on Thursday’s trading, up 83.74 to 9154.46 The NASDAQ also rose by 16.54 points to 1984.3

Japanese industrial output rose in June for its fourth straight month and it appears that they will be no looking back as electronics manufacturers, steel makers and chemical producers begin to climb back to full production…

Preliminary data has shown that in June industrial production was up 2.4 per cent from May, less than half the revised 5.7 per cent growth recorded the previous month but broadly in line with economists’ expectations.

However despite encouraging growth over the last quarter, production in June was still down 23 per cent compared with the same month of 2008.

A spokesman for Arcelor Mittal, has predicted that world steel demand will pick up by at least 10% next year, as emerging economies were coming out of the downturn “reasonably quickly” and that stimulus spending in the US and Europe was having an impact. Arcelor Mittal reported a second quarter net loss of $792 million, against a $5.8 billion net profit a year ago, causing their shares to fall 4.4% to €24.20.

Two of the world’s largest oil companies, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, have announced major profit setbacks in the wake of tumbling international oil prices and weaker demand.

Exxon, the largest US oil group, and Shell, the biggest in Europe, on Thursday unveiled post-tax profits for the second quarter that were roughly a third of those a year ago, with both companies attributing the blame to the continuing global economic crisis and softer demand for the collapse in their revenues..

Exxon’s profits dropped by two thirds $3.95 billion, the steepest fall in profits for more than a decade, and Shell’s 70 per cent decline in post-tax profit to $3.24 billion.

On the day US light crude was up $3.66, or almost 6%, to $67.01 a barrel, while London Brent was ahead by $3.68, at $70.21.

US light crude slumped $3.88 on Wednesday after figures showed a rise in US oil stockpiles, indicating too much supply in relation to demand

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Tags: Abbey, Alliance & Leicester, Arcelor Mittal, BAA, Bank, Banking, Bradford & Bingley, British Airports Authority, British airways, British Economy, British Pound, BskyB, BT, Credit Crunch, Currency, Dow Jones, Economics, European Commission, Exxon, Financial News, FTSE, Gatwick Airport, John Dugan, Lufthansa, Mobil, Money, Money Markets, NASDAQ, Obama, Oil, Recession, Santander, Shell, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, UK Banks, Wall Street

Signs are beginning across the Atlantic that consumers are beginning resurrect the practice of borrowing their way out of trouble. A recent surge in consumer debt defaults in the US could well spread to the UK, according to a recent report issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The IMF have forecasted that of the almost £1.5 billion of credit card debt currently held in the UK, around seven percent of that, or around £100 million may need to be written off. Confirmation of the sad facts is expected to be released next week when UK banks begin reporting their first-half results. Some of them have already warned that a sharp increase in credit card debts will need to be taken into account.

House prices in the U.K. continue to solidify, expected to hold their value for a third consecutive month in July. While the credit squeeze and the recession continues to prevent the property market from improving the average cost of a home in England and Wales was stable at £155,600 pounds, which was still almost eight percent lower than in July 2008.

The National Express takeover saga continues. The company announced that they are liable reject the Cosmen family takeover bid, which only values the group at around £500 million.

It is expected when National Express present their interim results towards the end of the week, they will explain to their shareholders that their desire to remain independent, and become profitable through cutting costs and reducing their debt burdens. Steps that should make the company far more attractive for takeover in the future. ,

Two potential suitors for National Express have been turned away as they have offered around 325 pence per share, while National Express are looking for 400 pence, giving the company a value of around £620 million.

The Cosmen family are National Express’s largest single shareholder, with an 18.5 per cent holding, and Jorge Cosmen is its deputy chairman. Shares in the company have risen since Friday when the Cosmen family in partnership with CVC confirmed their interest.

It was carnival time on the FTSE as the market equaled its record of eleven consecutive positive session

Among the best performers was Lloyds Banking Group who added 6.9 per cent to close on 88.33 pence. Analysts expect shares in Lloyds to reach as high as 100 pence in anticipation of the bank’s half year results to be announced on Wednesday.

The FTSE 100 index closed up by only 9.52 points to 4586.13, taking e index’s gains over the past 11 sessions to 10.6 per cent which is a new record, beating the 7.1 per cent in 1997.

Meanwhile the FTSE 250 recorded its first reverse for a while down 61.58 points to 7,876.86

The pound gained a little ground on Monday against the leading currencies.

Pound/US dollar 1.6464

Pound/Euro 1.1573

Pound/Japanese Yen 156.5371

Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7634

Chairman of the US central bank Ben Bernanke rushed to defend the US bail-out plan of which he was among the principal architects. Bernanke admitted that his fears that the UK were heading into a second Great Depression had helped him to decide to back the stimulus plan which has so far cost the US taxpayer around $700 billion. Bernanke went on to point out that the bailout had widely benefitted the US economy and that no one should be surprised if further capital might be required to prop up the system.

Seemingly unfazed, the Dow Jones continued its steady rise, up by 15.27 points to 9108.51. The NASDAQ made a small gain, up a mere 1.93 points to close on 1967.89.

Recent reports have revealed that the annual rate of new home sales in the United States has risen by more than ten percent in June, further signs that the property sector is over the worst.

The US Department of Commerce announced that sales of new properties have hit a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 384,000 in June, against 346,000 in May.

Whilst June’s figures were the strongest seen since November 2008, the average sale was down 5.8% from May and 12% lower than a year ago at $206,200 (£125,000),

On Monday Commodities made a strong start to trading, continuing last week’s gains. Prices of European crude rose beyond the $70-a-barrel mark while base metals staged a broad advance, led by copper that

jumped to its highest level in almost 10 months in the London, New York and Shanghai markets. The commodities are always an excellent barometer to gauge the extent of the global economic recovery.

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Tags: Bank, Bank of England, Banking, Ben Bernanke, British Economy, British Pound, Cosmen, Credit Card, credit card debt, Credit Crunch, Currency, Debt, Dow Jones, Economics, Economy, Financial News, FTSE, House Prices, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Lloyds Banking Group, Money, Money Management, Money Markets, Mortgage, Mortgages, NASDAQ, National Express, property market, Recession, UK Recession

Thursday saw the launch of a long awaited white paper on consumer affairs that would prevent the practice of banks increasing customers’ credit card limits without their permission, as well as completing disallowing the them from sending out unsolicited ‘credit-card cheques’ . According to almost ten percent of the UK population had their credit card limits increased last year without them asking, meaning that to date less than three per cent of the UK’s 30 million card holders have had their borrowing power reduced since the credit crunch began. Banks continue to defend their in your face credit marketing tactics, insisting that full credit checks are made.

Bowing to increasing investor pressure, Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester has announced his intention to defer part of his controversial 9.6 million pound pay package for an extra two years. Hester has been the subject of criticism for accepting such a large overall package before achieving real results at the loss-making bank,

Disproving the theory that lawyers make money no matter what, was the news that the World’s largest law firm are reporting a very significant dip in profits and the need to make significant cutbacks. The practice, Clifford Chance boasts a client base that includes some of the financial institutions hardest hit by the downturn, from Royal Bank of Scotland to Citigroup.

The prospect of a bidding war for T-Mobile UK was hotting up on Thursday, on the news that Telefonica are also taking a close look at the mobile phone service operator. Spain based Telefonica has been spurred into action by the possibility that Vodafone purchases T-Mobile UK. France Telecom is also reportedly in the running, through forming a joint venture between its UK mobile business Orange and T-Mobile UK.

Marks & Spencer executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose has hinted strongly of his intentions to step down as chief executive in 2010, with his likely replacement looking like being director of food at the company, John Dixon. Rose has insisted that he would only relinquish the chief executive’s role if a successor was found, and after he hands on the keys, will stay on for a period as chairman.
The search for a new executive chairman at M&S could officially begin as early as September.

London equities fell on Thursday as the improving economic outlook failed a stern test in the form of closely-watched US jobs data.
The FTSE 100’s losses accelerated due to a sluggish start to trade across the Atlantic. London’s benchmark index fell 106 points, to 4,234.27. The FTSE 250 closed on 7,374.01 down 132.70

Sterling had another bad day against the leading currencies, falling on all four fronts.
Pound/US dollar 1.6418
Pound/Euro 1.706
Pound/Japanese Yen 157.2965
Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7772

The number of jobs lost in the US last month which was much more than had been expected, coming in at 467,000, as the grass roots of the US economy continued to struggle.

The jobless rate was 9.5% in June, up from 9.4% in May and
The highest since August 1983.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones took a major tumble on the announcement of the unemployment figures, closing the day down 180.09 points to 8323.97, while the NASDAQ lost 33.02 points to close on 1802.76.

Confirming that the world’s third-largest economy is continuing to expand, China’s manufacturing and business activity for June finished in positive mode.
Another emerging superpower, India has announced a slight step up production, since a sharp downturn began in late 2008.
Meanwhile Japan and Australia are both displaying tentative signs that the worst of the economic downturn may soon be behind them.
Oil fell on Thursday as the market continued to digest US government data showing a large increase in gasoline stocks, increasing crude oil producer’s worries that consumer demand was flagging and the energy markets had been overbought.

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Tags: Bank, Banking, Credit, Credit Crunch, Debt, Financial News, Royal Bank of Scotland, Stephen Hester, UK Banks, UK Credit Cards

Whilst it is easy to gain the government and the banks for the financial quagmire that the UK succeeded in sinking itself in, the public also have to be levied a portion of the blame. As a leading financial analyst proudly proclaims, it was the shopping centres and the credit cards that did it as much as anything else. The banks and credit card seemed driven to provide unlimited credit, and the government turned their backs and pretended that it wasn’t happening. And the British public at large had a great time running up debts on their credit cards that they had no chance. And in some cases, no intention of repaying.

There are people who will be saddled with debts for at least the next decade, and will be paying fairly exorbitant interest on those debts as a lesson on how to use credit cards in the era which is hopefully not too far away. The end of the first great economic turn down of the 21st century.

Let’s face it. Having a credit card at your disposal is very convenient. And make no mistake about it, the majority of people whose lives became very difficult through misuse of the powers and responsibilities that being issued with a credit card entails, will continue to use them in the future.

However the rules of the game will be different. Anyone who has found themselves under an immense burden of debt would never have enjoyed the experience, and will never want to repeat it. And even if they did, the banks will have imposed such a strict system of checks and balances that the chances that it will happen will be miniscule. Credit cards were meant to replace cash and cheques, and when viewed in that light, they do an excellent job. A responsible person with a credit card should only use that card to cover around 40% of their monthly financial outlay, and should stagger payments amounting to no more than a quarter of their monthly credit card bill.

These are very simple rules, but if adhered to, will prevent a repeat of the most uncomfortable experiences that too many people have gone through in the last couple of year.

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Tags: Bank, Banking, Budget, Credit, Credit Crunch, UK Credit Cards

Bank of England profits soared to nearly £1bn last year on the back of operations supporting the financial sector.

Pre-tax profits quintupled to a record £995m in the year ended February, the most since the Bank began revealing its earnings in 1971.
This allowed the bank to pay out a dividend to the Treasury of £417m, up from more than five times from the previous year, according to the bank’s annual report.
The scale of the BOE profits has raised a few eyebrows however, with some analysts of the opinion that the Bank has been charging troubled lenders “distress rates”.

Meanwhile the organisation formed by the UK treasury to handle their interest in the semi-nationalised banks under their control have begun to sound out investors about the possibility in selling off some of their share holdings as stock market revival appears to be increasing confidence in the financial sector.
The body, UK Financial Investments, manage the 43.5 per cent stake in Lloyds Banking Group as well as the 70 per cent stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, hope to have completed some sell offs within the next twelve months.

Shares in both banks rose strongly on Tuesday after news of this possible development began to filter through. Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group (LYG) rose strongly Tuesday following a report that the government is sounding out investors with a view to selling its interests in the banks – even though that sale could take up to several years. RBS was up 5.8% at 44 pence while Lloyds was up 4.8% at 103 pence, both outperforming the FTSE100 index which was up 0.9%.

The report also said it could take five or six years for the U.K. government to exit the two banks.
HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBA.LN) was up 3.5% at 575 pence while Barclays PLC (BCS) was up 2.4% at 288 pence.

A UK car scrappage scheme championed by Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, got off to a stuttering start on Monday as confusion about how it would work prompted several leading manufacturers to delay their involvement.

Glitches over tax and other administrative issues marred the launch of the scheme while Honda, Ford and GM were reported to be waiting to clear up some important details on how the trade-in scheme will operate , with the first scraps of information only being received from the Department for Business and Regulatory Reform before the weekend.

As expected, Marks & Spencer confirmed yesterday that the dividend due to be paid to shareholders will fall by a third after annual results revealed a near 40% drop in profits. (£604.4million compared to £1billion in 2007) This is the first time that M&S has been forced t cut their dividend since 2000, causing considerable consternation among their shareholders.

Doing better is Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE), who is expected to announce “modest” increase in profits, when producing their annual results on Thursday. Analysts predict that SSE will post underlying profits of about £1.25 billion for the year to the end of March, up only £200,000 from 2007, but still showing an increase. To retain their market share, the energy group has been forced to cut both electricity and gas tariffs during 2008, although both by much less than had been feared.

The benchmark FTSE 100 Index continued to impress, rising 36 points to 4,482.45, while the FTSE 250 index also rose by 121.69 points to close on7698.32
Sterling rose slightly against the dollar and the Euro and rose slightly against the Japanese Yen and the Swiss Franc:
· Pound/US dollar 1.5484

· Pound/Euro 1.11367

· Pound/Japanese Yen 149.02

· Pound/Swiss Franc 1.719

Wall Street had a reasonable day on trading The Dow Jones Average dropped a mere 6.7points to close at 8497.39, while the NASDAQ rose 7.36 points to 1739.72.
The US Senate have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a bill that will impose new restrictions on the credit card industry. Designed to set a curb on sudden interest rate increases and hidden fees The bill marks the first major financial reform made by the Obama administration.

Spokesmen for the credit industry have warned that the measure could lead banks to issue fewer credit cards thus making it more difficult for consumers to get credit.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) reported a 17% fall in quarterly profit, attributed to reduced businesses and consumers spending on computers, printers and ancillary products. .
The world’s top PC marker said that net profit totalled £1.1billion in the three months ended 30 April, whilst warning that profits and revenue were likely to continue to fall during 2009 HP made the expected announcement that they are about to cut around 2% of its global workforce, making for a job loss of more than six thousand people.

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Tags: Credit, Credit Card, Gordon Brown, Hewlett-Packard, Marks & Spencer, Scottish & Southern Energy, UK Credit Cards, UK Financial Investments

As the finance industry appears to be pulling out all of the stops to win back the hearts of the UK consumer, the news announced recently that MasterCard, one of the World’s most well-known, widely accepted payment cards brands have agrees to significantly reduce the fees that they have been charging to banks across Europe. The hope is that these savings will be passed on to the consumer in compensation for some of the hefty fees that had been imposed in autumn of last year. MasterCard had been under considerable pressure to reduce their fees and eventually have bowed to the weight of public opinion as we well as no little pressure from the European Union to reduce their fees. Pressure that appears to have borne fruit with the announcement that MasterCard will reduce their fees to the banks by 50% at least temporally. Estimates are that their generosity will be worth around £15m a year on MasterCard transactions in the UK.

In another move that might appear to be an effort to buy time, representatives of the major UK’s banks have petitioned the House of Lords to appeal against a recent judgement on inflated bank charges that was awarded against them after appeal.

The move comes after the High Court had decided to allow the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to investigate the legitimacy of excessive overdraft charges levied by banks on individuals or business that had exceeded their overdraft levels. This test case has already been going on for 18 months, and with no end in sight due to possible delaying tactics by the banks, many tens of thousands of similar cases have been frozen till a final decision is reached on the subject.

Another sign of increased consumer confidence is that on the FTSE, retailers were leading the way on share value increases. Analysts confirmed that stock prices in the sector were being pushed up amidst increasing speculation that the coming Budget will introduce measures designed to underwrite trade credit insurance.

Star of the day was the Home Retail Group whose shares rose by 7.8 per cent (20 pence to 242) Not far behind were Kingfisher whose shares rose by 4.8 per cent (8 pence to 157) Major high street fashion group, Next Plc also fared well rising 6.5 percent (91 pence to 1410)

The mobile phone and internet company Vodafone had a good day on the news that interest was remaining stable in the UK market. Shares in the company began to surge forward rising by 4.4 percent (6 pence to 128)

The commodity market also was positive with the “diamond of the day” being Randgold Reserves whose shares rose by 5.4 percent (200 pence to 3883). The rise was in anticipation of the release of the company’s annual report due today, which is expected to include details of the company’s successful Massawa gold project in Senegal.

Property owners Hammerson saw their shares rise by a modest 1.6 per cent to (4 pence to 258). The rise came after speculation that the company was considering offers to acquire their Bishops Square development in the City of London.

Transport companies were also in the spotlight as they awaited news on the Government’s decision to allow them to re-negotiate contracts signed during more positive times for the UK. National Express pushed forward by a whopping 23.2 percent (43 pence to 187) with Stagecoach also doing well. Their shares rose by 9.8 percent on the day (13 pence to 131)

The FTSE 100 embarked on the first day of the second quarter of 2009 on a rise, reaching at one point its highest level since mid February, closing up 2.23 percent by 88.34 points at 4,043.95. The FTSE 250 also did well climbing 1.37 percent (89.77 points to 6,630.79)

Sterling rose conservatively against the dollar and the Euro and more strongly against the Japanese Yen and the Swiss Franc:

Pound/US dollar 1.4553

Pound/Euro 1.0977

Pound/Japanese Yen 144.04

Pound/Swiss Franc 1.6676
Wall Street enjoyed its second consecutive session of gains as stocks rallied after some early uncertainty regarding the state of the economy.

The Dow Jones Average rose 152.68. to close at 7761.6. Nasdaq also rose 23 points to 1551.6

The rises came despite figures announced showing that around three quarter of a million Americans has lost their private sector jobs during March, which is more than fifteen percent above the figure expected. Long term confidence however allowed the stock prices to rise.

Crude oil prices fell on Wednesday large due to a very significant drop in Japanese energy consumption. Demand of oil in February was at its lowest level since 1970, causing US oil inventories to reach a 16-year high. Crude oil is now trading at less than $50 a barrel on average

According to a recent survey, the Chinese manufacturing sector continued to shrink and it has now been eight months since the index has actually risen.

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