Shareholders will be gathering today for Barclays' annual meeting. There could be fireworks around the remuneration report, and in particular the sums paid to chief executive Bob Diamond. Philip Ryland, who's seen a fair few bankers come and go during his years in finance, compares the bankers of today with their forebears. On the surface, they've changed beyond all recognition - but underneath, some things are remarkably similar.
Another thing that's changed a great deal in recent years is the property market. A few decades go, the private lettings market was a byword for shady characters like Peter Rachman, who rented out slums in Notting Hill and used threats of violence to keep arrears down. Now, there are over a million (overwhelmingly respectable) buy-to-let landlords. The rules of buy-to-let are changing, though. With house prices static in many parts of the country, yield is now king, as Stephen Wilmot explains.
Do read my editorial this week - it's about whether we should have editorials at all! There's a school of thought that says opinion should be about your opinion, not mine, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
Among the UK's oil exploration stocks, all the attention this week has been on Africa and the Falklands - but don't forget there's lots going on around the North Sea, as Mark Robinson notes.
Elsewhere on the companies front, we look at results from two companies heavily exposed to emerging markets: Fortune Oil, which is a play on China's rising use of energy, especially gas, and Anpario, which sells animal feedstuffs to countries like Brazil, where meat production and consumption is growing rapidly.
Finally, we've our usual round-up of tips and updates from this week.
visible-status-Public story-url-ICDailyEmail_270412.xml
