Fri, 01 Aug 2008
6th Podcast – Stephen
There are two stories that caught my eye this week: the mixed news coming out of the United States and profits (yes profits!) from British companies.
A huge budget deficit of some $500bn was announced at the same time as world trade talks collapsed, the housing market continued to falter and ongoing nervousness about financial services. But on the bright side, after 6 consecutive negative months, consumer confidence improved and Wall Street rallied on the back of oil weakness. The world of course is looking to the US for signs of recovery and the new President will have a very mixed bag of statistics on his desk when he takes over in the new year. Are we seeing America recover? It’s too early to say but investors will be pouring over these stories for some time to come.
Profits in British companies announced this week were again a mixed bag but amongst them there were some impressive numbers. Unsurprisingly, the energy companies did pretty well - Centrica posted a £1bn profit, Shell £4bn - Anglo American mining saw its profits up 27% to over £2bn. The banks have suffered as have the likes of BT and Unilever. But while profits fell substantially, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that they still made sizable profits. And here’s the point,I suppose, for investors we talk a lot about sentiment but profits are important and even in these pessimistic times British companies continue to post big profits.
posted at: 18:30 | path: | permanent link to this entry