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

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) get their way , in the very near future company directors who turn a blind eye to price fixing at their companies are liable to be banned for up to 15 years. According to a statement published by the OFT, Britain’s antitrust regulator are preparing considerably tougher penalties not only for directors who were directly involved in price fixing but also those who were guilty by default. The current rules ban only directors who themselves breach competition law through offences such as price-fixing.

In common with other U.K. regulatory bodies the OFT, intend to raise the penalties for those individuals who are found guilty of price fixing, including jail sentences. To show that these are not empty threats, the OFT has recently charged four former and current executives of British Airways Plc with fixing the price of fuel surcharges on transatlantic flights with one of their competitors. If found guilty, the four could go to prison for as long as five years.

Anyone saying that the UK economy is dying obviously hasn’t been talking to their funeral undertakers recently. As is often the case, the funeral industry is experiencing record upturn in trade that has been going on for the last year at least. Not that more people are dying, just that many are concerned that when the time comes when they will be called to leave this Earth, their loved ones wall be unable to meet the bill. For this reason, more and more UK subjects are joining a plan organized by Britain’s largest provider of funeral plans to pay for their funeral in advance through easy payments.

The company, Co-operative Funeral care, who operate 1,100 funeral homes across the O.K., announced this week that they experienced a 28% increase in the number of funeral plan sales during the last six months alone.

A spokesman for Co-operative Funeral care pointed out that subscribing to a funeral plan represented a sound investment for people as they are guaranteed against future increases in costs.

Funeral plans, however do not cover all the costs with the "future clients" having to pay for their burial plot.

Northern Rock, the UK building society come bank, who recently reported first-half losses of £725 million, has announced that they will be deferring payments on some of its subordinated debt to help conserve capital. The UK bank, largely public owned, where permissible. Granite, the bank’s securitisation vehicle, will be unaffected.

Thomas Cook, the UK travel group announced that a large part of insolvent German retailer, Arcandor’s 53 per cent stake in the company could be sold to institutional investors as early as next month as their creditor banks attempt to reduce their loan burden.

Arcandor’s banks, led by Royal Bank of Scotland, Commerzbank and Bayern LB were reported to be still in the market for find a strategic buyer for the company so that they could sell off their combined 44 per cent stake. –.

Demands for rented accommodation will grow to eventually reach than a third of UK households within a decade, doubling the number since 2005.

With public sector construction spending expected to weaken over the next 18 months, consumers who are unable or unwilling to purchase their own property will create a strong demand for rented homes. These predictions come from Gravis Snook, chief executive of Rok, the construction and maintenance group. "He continued "The model where the individual borrows large sums to buy a house that they never quite pay off is somewhat suspect."

The group had been in talks with a number of social housing groups regarding the establishment of joint ventures with institutional investors to profit from this demand.

The FTSE 100 was in consolidation mode yesterday rising just 3.89 points to close on 4689.67. The FTSE 250 also recovered slightly, rising 15.77 points to close on 8,370.25

The pound improved against the dollar, whilst taking a tumble against the rest of the major currencies.

• Pound/US dollar 1.6509
• Pound/Euro 1.1624
• Pound/Japanese Yen 155.3987
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7614

Research in Motion (RIM) designers and producers of the BlackBerry smartphone have won the coveted honor as the company to watch, by the highly ranked Fortune Magazine.

RIM, based in Canada were ranked first in a list of the fastest growing firms around the world, due to their tremendous success with the BlackBerry Curve in the US, where they hold a 74 per cent share of the business smartphone market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average continued to recover from its collapse earlier in the week, rising a further 61.22 points to close on 9279.16. The NASDAQ also showed improvement up 13.32 points to close on 1969.24

Another interesting phenomenon was unveiled this week mirroring the unhealthy condition of the World’s leading economies. It has been reported that as the US economy has contracted and employment opportunities have considerably contracted, the number of Mexicans crossing into the US by legal and illegal means appears to have fallen considerably. Statistics show that the number of people legally entering the US from Mexico, mostly looking for work, has fallen by nearly 40 per cent since 2006 to an annual average of about 350,000. Even more compelling news is that according to official statistics, the number of people apprehended trying to enter the US illegally fell to 724,000 in 2008, the lowest since 1973.

While the Department of Homeland Security claim that the decline is related to tougher border protection efforts, however many claim that the slump in US economy is the real reason.

Oil prices dipped ahead of the latest US inventories data while base metals retreated after a sharp fall in the Chinese stock market

Demand for gold sank in the second quarter after jewellery consumption dropped by more than a fifth and investment interest slowed as the threat of meltdown in the global financial system receded

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Tags: Arcandor, Banking, BlackBerry, British airways, British Economy, British Pound, Co-operative, Co-operative Funeral care, Credit Crunch, Currency, Department of Homeland Security, Dow Jones, Economics, Financial News, FTSE, Gold, Gravis Snook, Money, NASDAQ, Northern Rock, Office of Fair Trading, OFT, price fixing, prison, Recession, Research in Motion, RIM, Royal Bank of Scotland, smartphone, Stock Markets, Thomas Cook, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK Recession, US economy