According to a recent survey, over the three months to the end of June the average price of residential building land outside of London increased by 2.1 per cent, compared with the first quarter and making for the first rise since 2007. With the notable exception the UK capital, London, land values increased in every region of the country during the quarter. The report points out that the signs are that property developers and builders were slowly but surely regrouping as they become more confident g for the future. Property developers: Taylor Wimpey, Redrow, and Barratt have all indicated they are likely to be net buyers of land this year.

Just as it started to rain, the summer sales have begun in the high streets of the UK, almost a fortnight earlier than 2008. The UK public, always on the look out for a bargain, will find that there are plenty around, with discounts and deals that are indicative of the times that we live in, as retailers fall over themselves to do whatever business that they can to survive the biting winter of recession.

One company that won’t be around to see the spring, or at least in their current format, is allied carpets. The company, long since a feature of the UK high street, has been placed into administration, and their160 plus stores are now up for sale. The administrator, BDO Stoy Hayward are in the process of establishing what is known in the trade as a “pre-pack administration”. This means that 51 of the company’s stores have been already sold to Allied Carpets Retail, a new company that has risen from the ashes of Allied’, whilst they were still exceedingly hot.

Roger Jenkins, a top Barclay’s executive who was reported to have been instrumental in aiding the bank to secure billions of pounds in overseas funding is reported to be set to leave the bank, reportedly to set up his own consultancy firm. Jenkins was generally regarded as being one of the highest paid staff, with a salary reputedly running into the tens of millions. Whilst Jenkins’s sterling efforts may well have prevented Barclays from requiring a government handout, the salary that he received for his efforts may well have caused him to fall into the category of bankers that a recent government report recommended should be subject to stricter controls as far as pay at the UK’s financial institutions.
Mr. Jenkins is expected to continue as an advisor to Barclays, where his income is likely to be less under scrutiny.

On another good day for investors British Airways, while reporting a first-quarter operating loss of around 100 million pounds had their shares rally by three percent to 136.1 pence. The rise was largely due to the announcement that the carrier intends to raise new funding as the recession hurts revenue and drains cash reserves.

BA pension plan trustees rallied to the cause by announcing that they have so agreed to release some bank guarantees that will help the airline to open up an additional credit line of around £320 million.

Commodities also did will on Friday with shares in Xstrata, the world’s fourth-largest copper producer, climbing 4.3 percent to 691.9 pence. India’s largest copper producer Vedanta Resources Plc also saw an increase 4.2 percent in their share value to 1,502 pence. The largest copper mining company in Kazakhstan, Kazakhmys Plc, gained 1.6 percent to close on 685.5 pence.

Shares in the U.K.’s largest phone company BT Group advanced 3.2 percent to 110.2 pence after analysts announced that the company’s profit expectations had fallen to an unrealistic low, and the company was looking more and more as a stable long term investment.

Also gaining momentum on the FTSE were Cable & Wireless Plc U.K.’s second-biggest phone company whose shares rallied 3.1 pence to 133.4. On predictions that their global revenue will grow by over 30 percent this year, even though the company is feeling some pressure from falling tourist numbers in its Caribbean operations. The company also said it will cut more costs to safeguard profitability.

The U.K.’s third-largest natural-gas producer BG Group was also on the up and up as news began to spread that the company was sitting on a rich seam of “an outstanding pipeline of new projects”

U.K. stocks gained for a fifth day, extending the FTSE 100 Index’s steepest weekly advance since January, closing on Friday up a further 26.91 points to 4688.75. The FTSE 250 made on Thursday’s minor fall to climb 26.91 points to close on 7,580.66, making for not a bad week.

The yen and the dollar suffered this week as better-than-expected US corporate earnings and improving economic data boosted investor confidence.

Pound/US dollar 1.6336
Pound/Euro 1.1586
Pound/Japanese Yen 153.9624
Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7577

On Wall Street Citigroup recorded a $4.4 billion profit for their second quarter, largely due to one-off input of $6.7 billion from their partial sell off of their brokerage division. Excluding the gain from the sale, a majority stake in its Smith Barney unit to Morgan Stanley, Citi recorded an operating loss of about 27 cents per share. As part of its latest bail-out, the bank is about to cede a 34 percent stake to the US government.

Forecast-beating second-quarter earnings figures, especially from bankers Goldman Sachs, and Intel the chip maker prompted a sharp rally in global equities. On Friday, the Dow Jones continued to rise, on the day by 32.12 points to 8743.94 while the NASDAQ also climbed but by very little, closing up 1.58 points to 1886.51. According to official figures, the construction of new homes in the US between May and June rose by 3.6%, their highest level in seven months. Following a post-war low in April, May’s rise makes for the second month in a row that housing starts have raised. The number of single family homes being built jumped 14.4% in June, the largest increase for over four years.

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Tags: Allied carpets, Barclays, British airways, British Economy, BT, Credit Crunch, Financial News, Land price, Recession, Roger Jenkins, Stoy Hayward, Xstrata