Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Dalesider, you evidently don’t understand buybacks. The share price would be lower than it currently is without them. Each to their own. At this price, another splurge on buybacks will be an excellent use of distributable profits.
“Labour leader Keir Starmer has committed to reverse a decision to scrap inheritance tax (IHT) if it is made by the Conservative Party before the next general election.
Starmer confirmed a Labour government would reverse the rumoured plans in an interview with Sky News yesterday.”
Same old Labour, tax those who have worked hard and saved and give it to those who haven’t.
Britain’s private sector companies ended last year “on a high” just as businesses in the eurozone face a recession, latest survey data show.
Closely-watched purchasing managers indexes (PMIs) compiled by S&P Global show that Britain’s services sector saw the fastest jump in activity in December for six months, beating expectations.
The final composite PMI - covering both manufacturing and services - rose to 52.1 in December, up from 50.7 in November in what was the best performance of all the world’s major economies. A reading above 50 indicates growth.
Tim Moore, economics director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said the UK service sector “ended last year on a high” amid a recovery in client demand “attributed to hopes of lower borrowing costs and an improving global economic backdrop in 2024”.
Meanwhile, the eurozone could be in recession after a contraction in business activity continued at the end of 2023.
The bloc’s PMI was revised up for December to match November’s 47.6 but it remained below the 50 mark for a seventh month.
That indicated that the economy of the 20-country currency union, which shrank 0.1pc in the third quarter of 2023, likely contracted again last quarter, meeting the technical definition of a recession.
In a further blow, inflation in the eurozone’s second-largest economy France accelerated in December from 3.5pc to 3.7pc, with food prices a persistent sore point for consumers.