| | Friday 3 August 2012 THOUGHT FOR THE DAY  Hello Share Fans,
Time to look at ethical investing. This has had a bit of an up and down history of success - in the money-making sense. I'm told that at the moment, trusts which specialise in ethical stocks are doing quite well. That is good, don't you think?
Many people invest in ethical set-up which sort out companies which help the environment and help to fight world poverty and a few other ethical ventures. You can put your money into one of these - but then you lose the joy of picking your own stocks (joy if they keep rising, of course, dismay, if they don't).
Let's look at some ethical choices. I can see the benefits of nuclear power on reducing global warming. So I bought loads of British energy shares. Sadly, the expression' pear-shaped' arose, and I kissed goodbye to most of that. There are ethical investors who would avoid nuclear power like the plague, and in this context, they became better off than me.
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Paper round Austerity, RBS, Apple
Delaying the austerity programme by three years would put 200,000 people back into work and raise economic growth by 239bn pounds over a decade, according to one of the UK's leading think tanks. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) published the analysis as it slashed its growth forecast for this year from 0 per cent to a contraction of 0.5 per cent and warned that the recovery would not begin in earnest until 2014. Had the Government delayed austerity this year, the economy would have grown 1.2 per cent, NIESR estimated. The research will pile more pressure on the Government to respond to the double-dip recession with a new growth strategy. Last month, the International Monetary Fund said the Chancellor would have to react in next March's Budget if the economy has failed to bounce back by then, according to The Telegraph.
Top shareholders in RBS have complained to the Treasury over "dangerous" and "damaging" suggestions that the taxpayer-backer lender could be fully nationalised. Leading shareholders in Royal Bank of Scotland have complained to the Treasury over what they say are the "dangerous" and "damaging" suggestions that government ministers are looking at fully nationalising the lender. Business Secretary Vince Cable is understood to have pushed proposals for the state to consider buying out minority shareholders in RBS, a position that flies in the face of promises made by the Government to sell down the 82% taxpayer holding in the bank over the next two to five years, The Telegraph explains.
Another bank has been penalised for not doing enough to stop the proceeds of drug trafficking and other crimes flowing through its customers' accounts. Two weeks after HSBC was denounced in the US Senate for allegedly allowing drug cartels and terrorist groups to move money around the world with insufficient scrutiny, the British division of Turkish Bank was fined GBP294,000 yesterday for breaching rules against money laundering. The Northern Cyprus-owned bank, which acts mainly for Turkish-speaking clients in London, did not put in place adequate anti-money-laundering procedures or conduct sufficiently detailed checks on its customers, the Financial Services Authority said, The Times reports.
An increasingly bitter competition for control of the West Coast Main Line was branded a "shambles" yesterday as anticipation mounted that Virgin Trains could be shunted off Britain's railways. Louise Ellman, chairman of the Commons Transport Select Committee, has joined unions and industry experts in urging the Government to think carefully before handing a franchise to operate London-to-Glasgow trains to FirstGroup, a rival to Virgin. FirstGroup has offered to pay nearly GBP7bn in profits to the Government if it wins a 14-year contract to operate the line from December, when the existing franchise expires. Its bid is about GBP1bn higher than Virgin's offer but will involve deep cost-cutting, The Times says.
Jobs at the UK arm of Sharp are under threat as the Japanese electronics maker plans to cut 5,000 roles globally following a 94.1bn yen loss. Sharp will slash thousands of jobs by March in its first cuts since 1950 as it is hit by a prolonged slump in its key television and liquid crystal display sectors. The company, which employs 57,000 people globally, and more than 1,000 in the UK, has seen operations suffer amid worries over high energy prices, a high yen, slow domestic demand and global economic uncertainty. It had originally considered cutting about 3,000 domestic jobs, but decided to expand the scope to include worldwide operations to accelerate a management restructuring, Kyodo News said. Meanwhile, Sharp executives will take pay cuts of 20% to 50%, compared with an originally planned 10% to 30%, Kyodo and broadcaster NHK said, The Telegraph reports.
Apple's iPad has claimed more than two thirds of the global tablet computer market, according to new industry figures. A report by IDC found that 25m tablets were sold worldwide in the three months to June 30, up 33.6% from the first quarter and 66.1% year-on-year. Apple got a boost from the March of its newest version of the iPad, and sold 17m tablets in the second quarter, giving it a 68% market share. Samsung jumped into second place with sales of nearly 2.4m, up 117% from a year earlier. Tom Mainelli, an IDC analyst, said: "Apple built upon its strong March iPad launch and ended the quarter with its best-ever shipment total for the iPad, outrunning even the impressive shipment record it set in the fourth quarter of last year. The vast majority of consumers continue to favor the iPad over competitors," writes The Times.
FREE SHARE TIP OF THE DAY  A report by Growth Equities & Company Research
- Sports Stars Media, the children's animation production group, released results for the seven months to 30th June 2012 on 20th July.
- The results highlighted that production of Mourinho and the Special Ones (MSO) is on track for completion by February 2013, and Gombby has signed a new broadcast agreement.
- Sports Stars also released a strategic update, announcing an enhanced business model to exploit MSO and create new potential revenue streams.
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THE LATEST ON THE CRAZY BOARD The top 5 hot company threads on the Bulletin Board: Halfords Ophir Energy Ariana Resources BTG Running trading thread
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BOOK OF THE WEEK  By Peter Lynch and John Rothchild
A book review by Ross Jones From when Lynch took over the management of Fidelity's Magellan Fund in 1977, until his departure in 1990 he delivered his investors an annualised return of 29.2%, outperforming the benchmark US markets by 13.4%, growing funds under management from $18 million to circa $14 billion. This is pretty spectacular and warrants investigation into how this was achieved.
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