Barclays Share News (BARC)

It's been a while coming, but good news finally arrived for savers and investors yesterday as strategists forecast that the FTSE 100 may 'double in a decade'. The prediction came from Citi strategists at U.S bank Citigroup, who pointed out that the FTSE 100 total return index has recently reached all-time highs in spite of the fact the world, according to the media and equity market valuations, is miserable. The bank said: 'Long run valuation measures suggest double digit compound returns over the next decade. Global nominal GDP growth of around 6% coupled with 4% dividend yields also points to double digit returns,' according to The Financial Mail on Sunday. George Osborne has said the bulk of measures in his budget will be for people on low and middle incomes, amid expectations of a tax cut for the rich with the scrapping of the 50p rate for top earners. The chancellor is reportedly also due to announce plans to pay lower salaries to public sector workers in poorer parts of the country - a move Ed Balls,for Labour, said was at odds with the aim of spreading economic prosperity across the country. Speaking on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show, Osborne refused to be drawn on claims that he intends to scrap the top rate of income tax, saying it would not be right to discuss the "specifics" of Wednesday's budget speech. He said the main measures were agreed by senior coalition figures last Monday and had been sent to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for auditing on Friday, The Guardian says. Anglo American has accused mining giant Codelco of "bullying" tactics after its Chilean rival arrived in London last week to make its case in an increasingly bitter battle over the valuable Los Bronces copper mine in Chile. Management at the FTSE 100 mining giant spoke out after Thomas Keller Lippold, the chief financial officer of the state-owned Codelco, visited the City to argue his company's position in the legal dispute. Cynthia Carroll, Anglo's chief executive, said she had been left "astonished" by the behaviour of her opponents. "We are not going to tolerate them coming here and misrepresenting the facts," she said. Anglo executives saw Codelco's address to analysts in meetings on Wednesday as an attack on its shareholder base and plan to rebut its arguments with their own round of presentations, The Telegraph reports. As the Chancellor stands on the brink of announcing a possible cut in the top rate in this week's Budget, a survey by Ernst & Young reveals that the Government is facing an uphill battle to convince business leaders that the 50p top rate of income tax should remain in any form. The Treasury is thought to be considering reducing the tax over time to 40%, possibly in a series of stages. In 2011, 9% of the businesses surveyed by Ernst & Young said that they saw the top rate of income tax as a deterrent to increasing the size of their business in the UK. In the same survey this year that figure had leapt to 27%, The Telegraph says.Barclays has been forced to formally apologise to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) after evidence uncovered by The Telegraph revealed that the bank had demanded its clients withhold information from the regulator over the sale of controversial "swap" products. Acting on evidence uncovered by The Telegraph's investigation into the potential mis-selling of complex interest rate products, the FSA has forced Barclays' investment bank to write to the businesses affected, informing them that they are no longer bound by the "confidentiality agreements". The Government's plans to reinvent financial regulation under the Bank of England suffered a big blow yesterday when Hector Sants quit the City watchdog and shunned the Deputy Governor's job at the Bank. Under the Government's plans to transfer large swaths of the FSA's powers to the Bank, Mr Sants was due to become chief executive of the new Prudential Regulation Authority and one of three deputy governors. However, Mr Sants' stewardship of the FSA, particularly relating to RBS, has come under increasing scrutiny. In January, he suffered a bruising encounter with the Treasury Select Committee, who reacted badly to his apparent efforts to pass the buck for the FSA's regulatory failings to his predecessor, John Tiner. "You keep trying to offload the blame," Michael Fallon, an influential member of the committee, told Mr Sants at a hearing, according to The Sunday Times. The Chancellor is being urged not only to ease pressure on cash-strapped households - with an income tax allowance rise or by scrapping a planned hike in fuel duty - but also to boost confidence in the ailing economy. With unemployment soaring and consumer confidence at rock bottom, growth policies are in demand too. "This might actually be a Budget worth listening to," said John Cairns, partner and head of private client tax services at BDO in Scotland. Paula Fraser, tax director at Grant Thornton in Edinburgh, said: "There may be targeted but small tax breaks for the most vulnerable sections of society, including families on low incomes and the elderly, but expect a focus on further anti-avoidance measures, including a clampdown on stamp duty land tax avoidance," writes The Scotsman Inflation is still running well ahead of the Bank of England's 2% annual target with figures on Tuesday expected to show the rate at 3.3%. Although lower than the peak of 5.2% in the year to September, it still means that price increases are continuing to outstrip average pay rises, which are running at just 1.7% a year, excluding bonuses, according to statistics. Meanwhile, provisional figures for the annual survey of working hours and earnings for 2011, due on Wednesday, seem certain to confirm that real living standards, after taking inflation into account, dropped in 2011 for the second year in a row. This has happened only once before in modern times - in 1976 and 1977. Three consecutive years of falling living standards, which now seems likely, have not been experienced since before the war, The Financial Mail on Sunday says. AB