By Natasha Brereton LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said Tuesday that heightened regulation can’t prevent the financial speculation that results in bank failures, and called for a serious review of the structure of the banking sector whose goal would be to eliminate institutions that are too important to fail. In a speech to business people in Scotland, King championed the idea of separating banks’ utility functions as a means of minimizing the government’s effective subsidy of risky activities and reducing the U.K.’s reliance on a small number of very big banks. Turning briefly to the economy, he noted that there was likely to be “significant” fiscal tightening in the years ahead, and stressed the need to boost broad money growth, but gave no clear indication on whether he would favor extending the bank’s bond buying policy. “The sheer creative imagination ...

In addition to expanding its international footprint, IBM (IBM) is also expanding domestic operations. The company has announced the opening of a services delivery center in the U.S.

The new facility will maintain, monitor and support computer hardware, software and manage IT services for IBM's clients. The new center joins an extensive network of more than 80 IBM delivery centers worldwide.

For the new facility, IBM intends to hire up to 1,300 people by the end of 2010.

With an investment of $300 million in 2008, IBM built 13 Business Resilience service delivery centers in 10 countries, increasing its ability to address surging demand from businesses and governments from around the world seeking to keep their operations safe from disruption. IBM also plans to open a new collocation data center at its Greenock facility in Scotland and three new global delivery centers in Argentina.

To further bolster its presence in India, the

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DrStockPick.com Stock Report!

Tuesday August 25, 2009

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EA Mobile(TM), a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS), today announced four new titles available on the App StoreSM: CLUE, THE GAME OF LIFE, SNOOD(R), and the epic sci-fi fantasy Mass Effect Galaxy(TM). EA Mobile continues to create a variety of high-quality titles giving players the option to choose from a wide array of games that can be enjoyed on the iPhone(TM) and iPod(R) touch.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Nomura Services India Private Limited - a subsidiary of the leading financial services group, Nomura - will implement IBM’s end-to-end business continuity and resiliency services to bolster its business continuity, disaster and

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by Manuel Alvarez-Rivera, Puerto Ricobr /br /An election is currently taking place in the 27 member countries of the European Union, to choose 736 members of the European Parliament for a term of five years. Some countries went to the polls on June 4, 5 and 6, but most are holding the election on Sunday, June 7. In addition, one of the smallest members of the EU, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, will hold a parliamentary election simultaneously with the EP poll.br /br /The European Parliament a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/default.htm"2009 elections website/a bills the event as "27 countries, one election," but it would be more appropriate to speak about 27 separate elections that happen to be held simultaneously across a four-day period. Even though all EU countries use proportional representation to allocate EP seats since 1999 (when Great Britain proper switched from first-past-the-post to PR), the rules vary from country to country, ...

The following is the text of the Statement from the Group of 20 summit.  I will translate and interpret it point by point.

1. We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, met in London on 2 April 2009.

2. We face the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times; a crisis which has deepened since we last met, which affects the lives of women, men, and children in every country, and which all countries must join together to resolve. A global crisis requires a global solution.

Things stink all over due to this mess, and it has gotten worse lately.

3. We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible; that growth, to be sustained, has to be shared; and that our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families, not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries

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The global economic meltdown has struck golf industry, dragging on tourism and travel, delaying golf course construction, and curbing club membership rolls.

Now, even the crown jewels of the sport – the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) and Ladies Professional Golfers Association (LPGA) – have been tarnished by financial scandal and sponsorship defections

The most recent scandal to hit Wall Street had PGA Tour players concerned about more than just tournament highlights as they teed off Thursday at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.

Many tour members at Riviera were struggling to comprehend the potential implications of the financial scandal involving tournament sponsor Stanford Financial Group, and that company’s chairman, Robert Allen Stanford.

As reported by Money Morning on Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the

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Since Donald Coxe’s departure from BMO towards the end of last year, I have been inundated with enquiries about whether his much-revered “Basic Points” research reports would still be published. The good news is that Donald is planning on resuming these reports, and a new issue may very well appear later this month.

In the meantime, Donald has also resumed his weekly audio commentaries, which can be accessed by clicking here or on his image in the right-hand sidebar of this site.

The latest recording was made on February 6 (althought the webcast site incorrectly mentions January 30). A full transcript of this recording was produced and is shared with you in the paragraphs below (courtesy of Green

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Keith Fitz-Gerald says investors have the chance to profit from the contango phenomenon in oil markets. The implied higher future oil prices mean an opportunity to buy oil-related ETFs now at a bargain price. For a safer option, Keith picks two oil transportation companies that pay healthy dividends.

This from Money Morning:

Many investors have given up on oil, fearing that a fall from grace precludes a rise in price from the ashes. But it’s worth noting that the oil markets are right now in a rare state of  ’super contango,’ which suggests that the markets expect far higher prices by next year.

Here’s what you need to know.

In case you’re not familiar with the term, ‘contango‘ denotes a normal and very specific condition associated with futures contracts in which the price of oil for distant delivery months from now exceeds the price of oil being traded right now

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /blockquote“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”br /Tolstoy/blockquotebr /Well this strongis/strong an interesting little fable of modern family life, even if all the families involved may not be ones which many of my readers would normally wish to belong to.br /br /As is now reasonably well know Russian private oil company Lukoil is currently making a bid for the shares in Spanish energy company Repsol which are owned by the deeply indebted Spanish property company Sacyr Vallhermosa.br /br /Shares in what is Spain's fifth biggest builder, and which currently occupies the somewhat ignominious position of being Spain's worst-performing stock this year, jumped the most in two years last Thursday (20 November) on reports they were about to sell their 20 percent stake in Repsol YPF to the Russian oil company OAO Lukoil. Sacyr, which said last week it ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelona"The Kazakh government is ready to step in,'' Kazakhstan's Prime Minister Karim Masimov said this morning in a telephone interview with Bloomberg "The Kazakh banking system with the support of the government and central bank will fulfill all obligations to international investors.....We have our own specific plan to survive without any external support....I don't think we need support from the International Monetary Fund or overseas.'' Well that is good news, so at least we know that one of the CIS and CEE economies won't be looking to the IMF for bail-out support in this crisis which is presently growing by the day. So Kazakstan, that country which is reputedly host to reserves of approximately 95% of the elements in the periodic table, with a population of around 15 million housed on a surface area greater than the whole of Western Europe, is going to be able to look after itself. But hang on a minute, just where is Kazakhstan, and just what have they been getting up to over there, and why the hell should I take Karim Masimov's word for it, when just about all the other Iceland Look-alike show contestants seem to be saying the same? After all, didn't those extermely bright and able young people over at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto say in a report only last week that, along with Latvia, the country's $100 billion oil-led economy is among the most vulnerable to the present global credit crisis and the skid-row economic trajectories that go with it simply because of its excessive reliance on short-term foreign borrowing. And isn't it the case that the cost of protecting Kazakhstan government debt against default has more than doubled this month - to over 1,000 basis points (or 10%), the level for borrowers that investors term ``distressed,'' according to CMA Datavision credit-default swap prices. Only Ukraine, which as we know is already seeking IMF support, is classified as being a bigger risk among European emerging-market governments. Surely all those highly dedicated, bright, and extremely able young people who are doing all that trading know what they are about, don't they?