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Markets & Analysis

HEADLINES:
Gas bill

Can ‘smart grid’ stop energy bills from soaring?

Energy analysys: When Ofgem issued its inflammatory research recently to argue domestic energy bills might rise by more than 60% in the next seven years, a fuse blew at the Department of Energy and Climate Change  Comments 
Vogue front cover

Glossy mags are still in vogue despite tough times

Media analysis: Newspaper sales are going down. Television audiences are fragmenting. But there is one branch of media that has good reason to be cheerful  Comments 
Banks in basket

For sale: Three UK banks surplus to requirements

Banking analysis: The Government wants to create three new High Street banks to increase competition in the UK - and today it finally became clear what these banks might look like  Comments 

John Varley

Awfully sorry, but Barclays looks in pretty good shape

Rebuilding Britain's banks: While most banking bosses stuggled to say the "s" word, the chief executive of Barclays, John Varley, has spent the last year saying sorry  Comments 
Derivative graphic

Derivatives are not weapons of mass destruction

After one expert on these pages argued $600 trillion market is big threat, a top risk manager responds  Comments 


 

Graph shows the hollowness of Brown’s economic claims

Foreign recovery could be a tonic for UK’s sick economy

Economics analysis: The Government has long boasted that Britain is better placed to deal with the global recession than other major nations  Comments 
Power station

Do we need new coal-fired power stations?

Energy analysis: The decision by E.ON this month to abandon plans to build a new coal-fired plant at its existing site at Kingsnorth in Kent was seen as a huge victory for the Green lobby  Comments 

The Guardian

How much pain can the Guardian take?

Media analysis: An air of trepidation is hanging over The Guardian’s new offices in Kings Place  Comments 
BNP leader Nick Griffin

Getting balance right between free speech and censorship

Media analysis: It is recognised, except by the most fundamentalist of libertarians, that the exercise of free speech carries with it certain responsibilities  Comments 

Steve Jobs

Google is looking rocky while Apple enjoys a second wind

There was a subtle but significant shift in the Silicon Valley universe just the other week. On 12 October, Arthur D Levinson — chairman of Genentech — resigned from Google's board  Comments 
HSBC's HQ

Let’s hear it for the bank which takes pride in being dull

Rebuilding Britain's banks: When Britain's greatest comic writer PG Wodehouse penned Psmith In The City in 1908 there was more than a touch of the autobiographical about it  Comments 

Oil rig

On the brink - what happens after peak oil?

Energy analysis: Peak oil is the future time and place where the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction has been reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline and from where, it is said, the world implodes into global crisis, war and probably the eventual death of the planet  Comments 
Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook’s Boy Wonder: the new Bill Gates?

Social networking site’s 25-year-old chief hints at his ambitions as the industry’s Web 2.0 Summit takes place in the US  Comments 

Looking for truth about BAE, bungs and the Czechs

Analysis: Why is there so much fuss over the BAE Systems corruption investigation? If you have ever lived in a country where corruption is rife then you will know what corruption does. It corrupts.  Comments 

Time to come clean: Is £1200 a year value for money?

Energy analysis: Did you know this winter’s household energy consumer has never had it so good? Ask Steve Holliday, chief executive of the National Grid  Comments 

Brokers at BGC Partners’ dealing room

Be afraid! A year after AIG, derivatives remain big risk

The global financial crisis has introduced ordinary people to the extraordinary and arcane world of “derivative product”  Comments 
Commuters graphic

After jobs pain in the private sector, now it is Whitehall’s turn

Economics analysis: The public sector is having a good recession — but this is about to change as both Labour and the Tories sharpen the knife to slash the ballooning level of Government debt  Comments 


 
Market Roundup
FRIDAY UPDATE

City remains positive despite shockers from BA and RBS

Investors were doing their best to look on the bright side today after the combined losses from Royal Bank of Scotland and British Airways reached £1.79 billion during the first six months of the year

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City Spy, cityspy@standard.co.uk

Two houses for me, no jobs for you

“Johnson & Johnson workers who lost their jobs in Britain this week will be pleased to hear that not everyone at the US-based company is struggling

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