Lloyds Banking Group is to cut 5,000 more jobs by the end of next year as it continues to reduce overlap following its merger with HBOS last year.

While almost half of these posts are among staff, 2,600 permanent jobs would be lost. The union Unite accused the bank of "corporate arrogance" and short-termism following the announcement, which will mean that Lloyds will have cut 15,000 jobs this year.

Japan’s second- largest carmaker Honda Motor Co have announced that they will be widening job cuts at its UK factory in Swindon, due to a major fall in demand in Europe as the end of government stimulus programs draws close.

According to a company spokesman, Honda plans to expand their voluntary early retirement plan, which succeeded in reducing the number of workers at the factory by 1,300 last December, although the spokesman declined to say how many additional jobs would be cut. The plant, which builds the CR-V and Civic models for the European market, saw production plunge by 75 percent to 400,000 units in the year until end September 2009.

A rapid recovery in UK commercial property values conditions could see the sector turn positive this year. The recovery comes after the deepest slump on record that looks like leading to an almost boom like situation according to forecasts. Real estate values are set to overturn most of the losses suffered in the first half as booming investor demand has taken prices back to near peak levels in some sectors.

As was widely expected, Cadbury have rejected the formal bid from Kraft on Monday, going as far as to describe the US food group’s offer as “derisory”. Roger Carr, Cadbury’s chairman, declared the formal offer “worse than the proposal the board has previously rejected” as it made no attempt to improve the terms of its original offer of two months ago. In the meantime Kraft’s share price has fallen steadily since their offer in early September, reducing the value of the bid from 745 pence a share to 717. Cadbury’s shares closed up 3 pence to 761 on the FTSE, while Kraft’s shares fell 31 cents in New York in midday trading to $26.47. However, Kraft have not rules out making an increased offer during the formal takeover offer period, which could last up to three months as analysts predict that the company may wait until towards the end of the offer period before making a final offer.

Company management at Sainsburys will be feeling the pressure as recent figures show that the supermarket group sales were expanding at the lowest rate of the UKs "big four " supermarkets. Sainsbury’s sales were shown to have risen by 4.7 percent in the 12 weeks to October 31, making for the lowest turnover expansion, less than the 5.6 percent recorded by Tesco, with Asda and Morrisons leading the way.

Unofficial reports have it that Orange UK sold more than 30,000 iPhones on launch day. Orange is the second carrier to offer the iPhone in the UK behind O2, while Vodafone has announced plans to begin offering the handset early in 2010, as well as the iPhone, Orange UK have also launched a so-called business homescreen for the soon to be launched Samsung Omnia Pro B7330. The Omnia Pro is reputed to be a smartphone based on a different concept from the iPhone, featuring Windows Mobile 6.5 and a full QWERTY keypad. Orange’s new homescreen provide quick access to email, voicemail, contacts, calendar and so on, “ensuring vital business applications are right at their employees’ finger tips”. The Samsung Omnia Pro B7330 will be soon available through Orange, coming as the carrier’s first “business WM6.5 device,” targeted at medium and large business customers.

For more information about The Samsung Omnia Pro B7330 Visit Compare-Mobile.co.uk

Sterling lost ground on Tuesday after a ratings agency said the UK was the major economy most at risk of losing its AAA credit rating , Since then the pound has weakened in value over the last two days against all the major currencies.

• Pound/US dollar 1.6719
• Pound/Euro 1.1161
• Pound/Japanese Yen 149.468
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.6852

The FTSE 100 has rallied strongly since the beginning of the week up 86 points to 5,230.55. The FTSE 250 also rose 38.3 points to 9,120.96. London equities principally made progress on Monday, largely thanks to strong trading in insurance stocks.

As US carmaker General Motors (GM) were seen to be making efforts to calm the waves after their surprise decision last week to retain ownership of their European plants, a spokesman for the company has forecast that Opel and Vauxhall will retain consider independence as well as receiving considerable financial support . The US carmaker has announced that that they will provide a “reasonable and sizeable” portion of the restructuring costs for Opel and Vauxhall, rather than seek 100 percent government aid. GM have forecast that they will need €3 billion ($4.5 billion) to restructure the Opel and Vauxhall operations and intend to raise at least partial funding from interested European governments.

The Dow Jones has made some major steps forward since the weekend, up 243 points to 10246.97, closing at the highest level since October 2008.

The NASDAQ also jumped, reaching 2151.08.

US software company Adobe Systems has announced that it is to cut almost 10% of its workforce, a total of 680 jobs. Adobe Systems best known for Photoshop, Flash and Acrobat, said the cuts were necessary to cut costs.

Gold extended its record-breaking run above the $1,100 mark on Monday while crude oil raised more than $2 a barrel as markets made a strong start to the new trading week. Gold hit a record at $1,110.85 a troy ounce, a rise of 26.5 per cent this year, before easing back to $1,107.00, up 1.1 per cent on the day as analysts digested the implications of India’s decision last week to buy half of the gold the International Monetary Fund has put up for sale.

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Tags: Acrobat, Adobe, Adobe Systems, ASDA, Banking, British Economy, Cadbury, Currency, Dow Jones, Economy, Employment, Financial News, Flash, FTSE, General Motors, GM, Gold, HBos, Honda Motor Co, International Monetary Fund, iPhone, Kraft, Lloyds, Lloyds Banking Group, Money, Money Markets, Morrisons, NASDAQ, O2, Oil, Omnia Pro, Opel, Orange UK, Photoshop, property values, Recession, Retail, Roger Carr, Sainsburys, Samsung Omnia Pro B7330, smartphone, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, Tesco, UK Banks, UK commercial property, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession, Vauxhall, Vodafone

In spite of various and long ranging attempts to steer clear of it, Lloyds Banking Group now appear likely to participate in the government sponsored insurance scheme to freeze their toxic assets

Despite the fact that Lloyds signed up for the insurance scheme way back in March, giving itself the option of freezing £260 billion of toxic assets, mostly taken on when it acquired mortgage lender HBOS, the bank has made no serious attempts to participate in the scheme. It would mean that up to £20 billion would be freed for fresh lending but in turn would allowed the UK taxpayer to own close to thirds of the bank. When the deal was first signed in March, shares in stood at 36 pence per share, and yesterday they were almost three times that amount.

At their meeting on Thursday, European Union leaders are expected to urge sanctions for banks that pay excessive bonuses. Ahead of the meeting, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has insisted that there was broad backing for bonus restrictions. The EU leaders are likely to urge the Group of 20 (G20) richest nations to maintain their stimulus spending as signs of global recovery grow stronger. Many EU countries blamed excessive bonus taking as a principal cause of the crisis and are seeking to regulate how bonuses are paid at banks in the future.

Vodafone are seeking to assure their investors that they stand to benefit from the recent plans of UK mobile phone businesses of France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom to merge. If the merger does take place, Vodafone once the market leader in the UK, faces falling down the ladder to become the third largest British mobile operator. Currently Vodafone is the second largest UK network operator, behind Telefonica’s O2 subsidiary. Orange UK and T-Mobile UK are respectively the third and fourth largest UK mobile phone operators, but would become the market leader after the proposed merger. On the announcement, stock in Vodafone rose 0.2 percent, to 139.5 pence.

On the FTSE yesterday HSBC provided the foundation for the climb for a fifth straight day of gains. Shares in the bank’s shares gained 2.5 per cent to 717 pence amid growing optimism about its household consumer credit division, now renamed HSBC Finance.

Europe’s largest home-improvement retailer Kingfisher Plc are due to report their interim trading results. In anticipation, their stock rose 1.9 percent to 205.5 pence.

Stuart Rose, chairman and chief executive officer of the Marks & Spencer Group has dismissed the suggestion that his plan to remain as chairman of the company after the hiring of a new CEO was deterring candidates for the job. After that matter was put to rest, stock in M&S climbed 1.7 percent, to 373.8 pence.

Meanwhile Britain’s second-largest clothing retailer Next Plc announced pre-tax profits for the six months through the end of July profit had increased by 6.9 percent to reach £185.5 million pounds. Despite the fact, their stocks fell 1.2 percent, to 1,699 pence.

The UK’s FTSE 100 index continued to climb, rising 39.82 points to close at 5163.95 while the FTSE 250 rose on Thursday by a further 58.84 points to finish the day on 9364.08.

The pound, after making a minor recovery yesterday, fell back against the main currencies yesterday.

• Pound/US dollar 1.6443
• Pound/Euro 1.1155
• Pound/Japanese Yen 149.8274
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.6914

The Dow Jones Industrial Average adjusted downwards but only slightly on Thursday trading, downing 7.79 points at 9,783.02. The NASDAQ also fell, but just a little, 6.4 points to 2126.75.

The European plane maker Airbus has raised its forecast for new aircraft demand over the next 20 years.

It predicted global demand for 25,000 new aircraft across the industry between 2009 and 2029, up from the 24,262 it forecast for 2007 to 2027.

Airbus have also said that passenger numbers would fall by 2% this year but rise 4.6% next year going on to add that that demand for aircraft would be susceptible to economic upturns and downturns.

Their principal rival the Boeing Company predicted in June that 29,000 new planes would be ordered between 2009 and 2029.

financial

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