State Forex Station

* Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average, the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500 share indexes are down 2.1-2.4 percent, pointing to a sharply lower start on Wall Street.
* General Electric is due to report fourth-quarter earnings, closing out a brutal year that saw its shares lose more than half their value. The market is braced for a 25 percent drop in profit, with the U.S. conglomerate’s finance arm proving the main drag.
GE shares in Frankfurt rose 2.8 percent.
* Xerox reports quarterly results in an environment where corporations are scaling back on orders, and rivals like Oce and Lexmark are cutting jobs and seeing profits shrink. Analysts expect the company to earn 33 cents per share, down from 41 cents a year earlier, according to Reuters Estimates.
Read the rest of this entry »

Entertainment Rights, the troubled owner of children’s characters such as Postman Pat, the Lone Ranger and Basil Brush, has been fined £245,000 by the Financial Services Authority for breaching rules on transparency.
It has emerged that the media company, which has issued a series of profit warnings as well as letting a third of its staff go in recent months, waited 78 days before disclosing details of problems relating to a DVD deal in the US with Genius, a distribution company.

Entertainment Rights delayed telling investors about a $13.9m (£10.3m) reduction in its estimated profits that would result from a change to the distribution deal.
Read the rest of this entry »

Computer hackers have reportedly applied sophisticated password-detection software application to steal £229million from one of the largest banking groups from Japan.

The reports unveiled that a security supervisor from the bank helped Belgian hackers to enter into the offices of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in London back in 2004.

In a plot that seems to be cribbed from a Hollywood movie, a crooked security supervisor, named Kevin O’Donohue, smuggled a couple of Belgian hackers into the bank premises at night where they fixed spy software on systems that were used for huge cash transfers.

The key-logging software tools placed by the hackers were installed to swindle crucial information, such as usernames and passwords of the bank staff, from the computer systems.

The company accounts targeted by the hackers included those of Toshiba, Mitsui OSK Lines, Sumitomo Chemicals, and Nomura Asset Management.
Read the rest of this entry »

Today, the deputy governor of the Bank of England warned that UK is now facing the worst recession in decades.
It is said that further action was required to prevent a prolonged recession, however, there was nothing that could be done to stop a sharp downturn in the first half of 2009. Interest rates could be cut again from their historic low of 1.5%.
Between July and September last year, UK’s GDP fell by 0.6%, and official figures out next week are expected to indicate that output shrank by up to 1.5% in the last quarter of 2008, confirming that the nation is in the grip of a sharp slowdown.
This came as ministers prepare to thrash out new schemes to help boost bank lending over the weekend. Large amount of small businesses are struggling to survive as their access to credit is cut off due to banks cutting back on lending.

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
Read the rest of this entry »

The unemploy number in the UK edges closer to 2 million. It’s hard time for people to find a desirable position.
According to research by the Guardian and recruitment advertising agency Barkers, the optimistic jobseekers, who think positively, would enjoy more success in landing a new position than pessimists. The survey of more than 3000 jobseekers suggests that positive thinking, pro-activity and decisiveness are the key factors that differentiate the successful candidates from the rest.
The successful jobhunters are more likely to register for job alerts and upload their CVs on job sites and they are 60% more likely to describe themselves as optimistic about finding the role they wanted than the less successful group.