The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has predicted that the recovery and growth seen in the second half of 2009 is expected to continue in 2010. Their recent figures show that its 30 member countries, including the US and UK have more than doubled its growth projections for next year. However a spokesman from the OECD warned the developed nations not to expect a smooth ride and that "growth was being held back by still substantial headwinds" and would be restrained for some time in the near future. They went on to explain that some of the very measures that were being used to help the richer nation’s economies to recover might return like a boomerang upon them. The feeling was at the OECD was that the UK, needed to come up with a concrete plan to ease concerns about the stability of their public finances, and that the results that could be achieved through continuing the country’s quantitative easing programme remained uncertain. The UK, which now has overall debt of £825 billion, is set to borrow a record £175 billion over the next two years with further details of how and why due to be set out in Chancellor Darling’s pre-Budget report on 9 December.

US investment bank JP Morgan have announced that they are to complete their take-over of UK stockbroker Cazenove. Morgan are reported to be paying a further £1 billion ($1.67 billion) for the remaining 50% of Cazenove that is not in their hands. JP Morgan and Cazenove reached a joint venture agreement in 2004, where they merged their investment banking operations.

The news that Marks and Spencer have chosen Marc Bolland, current head of Wm Morrison, as its new chief executive, saw a dramatic and immediate shift in fortunes for both companies, at least in stock market terms. Shares in M&S rose 6 per cent to close on 390 pence while Morrisons’ fell by 5 per cent to 281 pence, making for a combined £600 million swing”.

Dutch born Bolland’s appointment puts a long awaited end to the speculation of who will replace incumbent chairman, Sir Stuart Rose, who will remain with the company as part-time chairman until mid-2011.

ITN were expected to reveal the first trading first-ever loss on Thursday as the company launched a set of austerity measures which will be required to put the company back on track. ITN, who produce news bulletins for ITV, as well as for Channel 4, is owned by four media companies, ITV Daily Mail & General Trust, United Business Media and Thomson Reuters, each of whom hold a 20 percent share, except ITV who hold 40 percent. Reasons given for the drop in sales and profit were mainly the recession, which has affected advertising revenues on all commercial broadcasters, and the closure of Setanta Sports News, the news channel operated by the Ireland-based sports channel network that went into administration this year. Revenue from Setanta made up approximately 5 per cent of ITN’s sales in 2008. ITN made a profit of £4.1 million on turnover of £105 million.

Postal and parcel delivery company UK Mail, who only this moth adopted their new trading title from Business Post, have announced a rise in their interim profits, despite of a fall in revenues caused by a recession driven fall in demand. A spokesman for the company pointed out that their parcel business, which holds around a 7 per cent share of the UK market, has witnessed an upturn is sales during the period of postal strikes, as the public began to seek alternatives to Royal Mail’s service. However the company, which also handles around 17 million items of mail a day, said the strikes affected the volumes of mail handled by the company much less significantly than they had hoped for. UK Mail, who relies on the Royal Mail for “last mile” delivery of its sorted post, pointed out that the impact the strikes had been less severe than anticipated.

Sterling lost some of its gains against the major currencies in midweek trading.

• Pound/US dollar 1.6636
• Pound/Euro 1.1163
• Pound/Japanese Yen 148.0862
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.6881

The UK’s benchmark FTSE 100 index lost the bulk of its early gains for the week, down 78 points to 5,267.70. The FTSE 250 took its usual midweek tumble down 165 points to 9,237.

New home construction in the US have taken a surprise drop fall in October, down 10.6% to an annual rate of 529,000 homes, making for the lowest level in housing starts since April of this year, Reasons for the decrease in demand was put down to .a fall in demand for both single and family housing.

On the news, the Dow Jones average slumped 105 points to close on 10332.42. The NASDAQ also took a tumble, but for reasons of its own and finished the day on Thursday on 2156.92.

Internet giant America on Line (AOL) have announced that they are to lay off more than 2,000 of their staff , representing one third of their entire work forces when it completes its spinoff from Time Warner, with whom they have been in partnership since 2001. Representatives from Time Warner have stated that the separation will be completed by the end of 2009.

Also cutting jobs are Air France-KLM who plans to cut their work force by cut 1,700 during 2010. Their decision comes after the airline posted a worse than predicted third quarter loss of 147 million Euros (£131 million) the job losses are in addition to the 3,000 already cut in 2009.

Silver, platinum, palladium and copper have reached fresh highs for the year while gold continued to extend its record-breaking run breaching the $1,150 mark, seen as the next key milestone in the rally, to reach a record $1,152.74 an ounce, before easing back to $1,148.

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Tags: Air France-KLM, Alastair Darling, America on Line, AOL, Bolland, British Economy, British Pound, Business Post, Cazenove, copper, Credit Crunch, Currency, Daily Mail, Dow Jones, Economy, Financial News, FTSE, General Trust, Gold, ITN, JP Morgan, M&S, Marc Bolland, Marks and Spencer, Money, Money Markets, NASDAQ, OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, palladium, platinum, quantative easing, Recession, Retail, Royal Mail, Setanta, Silver, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, Stuart Rose, Thomson Reuters, Time Warner, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government, UK Mail, UK Recession, United Business Media, WM Morrison

Qatar Holdings, who were and still remain Barclays’ largest shareholder, have realized their profits on 3.5% of their stake in the bank, taking home a tidy £615m profit in the process. People in the know are saying that Qatar Holdings, who act as the emirate’s private investment vehicle, will use the money to increase their holdings in UK supermarket giants, J Sainsbury. The share sell off transaction, valued at around £1.4billion, would allow the Qataris sufficient funding to increase their existing 26% stake in Sainsburys. Despite the share disposal, Qatar Holdings will still retain 7.1% equity in Barclays.

BAA has finally reached an agreement to sell Gatwick for a sum of £1.5 billion, setting the long-awaited break-up of the UK’s biggest airport group in motion. Final details of the sale were expected to be announced early on Wednesday morning before the FTSE opened its doors. After lengthy and intricate negotiations, the Competition Commission finally approved the late on Tuesday. The anticipated sale sees the end of a process which began when BAA, a subsidiary of Spain’s Ferrovial infrastructure group, put Gatwick up for sale in an attempt to head off competition concerns about its market dominance. Initially BAA had hoped to receive around £1.8 billion for Gatwick, and held on grimly for this sum; till the realization sunk in that they were pricing themselves out of the market. They reduced their asking price to £1.6 billion and finally have accepted even less for the airport from Global Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure fund backed by Credit Suisse and General Electric who already own London City Airport. The Competition Commission expects BAA to sell two of its remaining six airports, within the next two years: while still leaving the group in control of the country’s biggest airport, Heathrow.

The Euro zone’s largest bank, Santander, continues to generate turnover and profit at such an outstanding rate it may have no option but to pay their shareholders a significant cash dividend in the coming year, according to a leading executive of the company. The ongoing financial crisis has prompted regulators to press European banks to increase their capital ratios, with Santander setting a target of seven per cent of their risk weighted assets, regarded as adequate for its retail banking model.

By the end of June, half way through their financial year, Santander had succeeded in increasing their ratio to 7.5 per cent, and have since added a further 0.6 % in October alone with the bank now expected to surpass their target and reach as high as 8.5 per cent of capital ratio, some of which will be able to be dispersed to their shareholders. RBS eat your heart out…

In the money markets, the pound continued its steady rise, despite faltering slightly against the Euro and the Swiss Franc.

• Pound/US dollar 1.6373
• Pound/Euro 1.10971
• Pound/Japanese Yen 147.9728
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.6587

Tesco was among the few stocks to beat a weakening trend as the FTSE 100 began to lose some of the heights it had achieved in the last week or so. The UK grocery chain has been described by analysts as a “cash cow” and ripe for rapid expansion, both in grocery and non-grocery sectors in the UK as well as overseas. Shares in Tesco closed higher on Tuesday by 1.2 per cent at 383½p.

Their progress was overshadowed however by J Sainsbury who were the day’s biggest gainer, up 5.4 per cent to 348 pence after Qatar holdings looked likely to add to its 26 per cent stake in the company or even make a takeover approach after selling a block of shares in Barclays. Barclays did less well, and closed down 4.8 per cent to 364 pence.

An upbeat trading statement from Pearson, owner of the Financial Times, lifted its shares by 4.4 per cent to 858½ pence which had a knock on effect on many players in the publishing sector. Reed Elsevier was among those feeling the ripples, and their shares rose 1.4 per cent to 466 pence. This increase may have been largely fired by reports that Reed was potential bidder for United Business Media, whose shares also rose in turn, up 0.5 per cent to 504½ pence. .

Shares in National Express edged 1 per cent higher at 404 pence after news broke that the company’s largest shareholder is backing the merger proposal from Stagecoach, the bus and train operator and National Express competitor. The move, which shines a light on the depth of boardroom divisions within the company. In a meeting with the National Express board on Monday, Jorge Cosmen, the company’s deputy chairman and its largest shareholder, announced his support for Stagecoach’s approach.

Shares in Greggs, the high street bakery chain were down by 3.7 per cent weaker at 448 pence, largely due to misplaced speculation that the group was considering outsourcing its bakery operations.

The FTSE 100 had a good day, up 91.34 points to 5281.54 The FTSE 250 rose strongly on the day’s trading, up 138.44 points to close on. 9564.64.

In the US, the number of new housing starts was reported to have increased in September, but at a lower rate than expected, raising limited concerns about the strength of the recovery in the country. Housing starts rose by 0.5% to a 590,000 homes, compared with a revised figure of 587,000 in August, down by 28.2% on the 822,000 homes started in September 2008, according to the US Department of Commerce.

As a possible reflection, the Dow Jones was down 50.71 points to close on 10041.48 The NASDAQ Composite index continued to fluctuate, this time down 12.85 points to close on 2,163.47.

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Tags: BAA, Bank, Banking, Barclays, British Economy, British Pound, Competition Commission, Credit Suisse, Currency, Dow Jones, Economics, Economy, Ferrovial infrastructure group, Financial News, Financial Times, FTSE, Gatwick, General Electric, Global Infrastructure Partners, Greggs, J Sainsbury, London City Airport, Money, Money Markets, NASDAQ, National Express, Qatar Holdings, RBS, Recession, Reed Elsevier, Retail, Royal Bank of Scotland, Sainsburys, Santander, Stagecoach, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, Tesco, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession, United Business Media