Mike Ashley counts the cost of mixing pleasure with business

May 25th, 2009 by admin | Filed under Daily News, Employment, Money Management, Recession.

moneyinfo1 Controversial sportswear retailer Mike Ashley, who followed every schoolboy’s dream to own the football club that he loved and supported, has just discovered that sometimes these kinds of dreams can be expensive. Yesterday finally saw the club that he owns, Newcastle United narrowly lose their final match of the Premier League season and be officially relegated. Being in the Second division is not the stuff that dreams are made of, and Ashley is expected to see his investment dwindle even further, some say by as much as £60million. Right now the less than erudite owner of Newcastle might well be asking himself why didn’t he buy a PlayStation instead.
With the possible exception of Mr. Ashley, reports have it that confidence amongst business professionals has raised, yet still sits in a minus situation. At least, according to the latest survey by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) confidence has risen for the future from -45.3 to -28.2.

A spokesman for the ICAEW did point out that the rise in confidence is a positive step, indicating a reversal in the trend over the last six quarters.
News from the recently under fire Lloyds Banking Group is that they are closely examining the possibility of selling off stakes in some of the sixty companies owned by their subsidiary HBOS.

Lloyds has brought a consultant to assist them in evaluating the current value of the equities that HBOS acquired in a cross section of UK companies that they also lent money to
Moderate gains on the FTSE 100 on Friday brought the index’s overall performance for the week to a minor increase.
The FTSE 100 index took on 19.8 points or 0.5% to settle at 4,365.3 by close of play, while the FTSE 250 index gained 29.1 points or 0.4% to 7,541.5.
Trading volumes were thin on the final session of the week as both the UK and US markets wound down ahead of the long holiday weekend.
Despite a fairly insipid couple of days, sterling continued to rise against the dollar while falling back fairly strongly against the Euro.

· Pound/US dollar 1.5935
· Pound/Euro 1.1370
· Pound/Japanese Yen 150.8415
· Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7252
On Wall Street, stocks rose over the week, with the bulk of advances coming in the early part, with the advances later being limited by concerns over a recent report showing jobless claims increased more than economists’ forecasts. The Treasury announced that they plan to auction about $162 billion of securities next week; spurring concern mounting budget deficits may jeopardize the U.S.AAA credit rating.

On Friday the Dow Jones closed on 8277.32 down 14.81 on the day, while the Nasdaq continued to stutter, falling 3/24 points to close on 1692.01
US carmakers need to emerge from their current crisis much “leaner and meaner” according to President Barack Obama.
According to President Obama US car market could expand to producing as many as 15 million cars when the economy recovers, more than fifty percent than what will flow off the production lines in 2009.

In Asia, the news that North Korea’s had conducted a nuclear test caused a lot of concern in the markets. South Korean equities were especially hard hit.

In spite of increasingly vocal fear of a dollar collapse coming out of Beijing,, China’s official foreign exchange is still buying record amounts of US government bonds, according to analysts. Senior Chinese officials have repeatedly voiced their concern that US policies could lead to a collapse in the dollar and global inflation.