Press headlines & tips: WPP, Wood Group, Barratt

Tips from the press

PRESS TIPS:

In the Telegraph Questor is still keen on advertising goliath WPP . Yesterday it reported strong revenue growth in all regions, with emerging markets, in particular booming (+11.2 per cent over the prior year).

This year has the "golden triple" of the European football championships, the London Olympics and the US presidential election - which should all boost income for advertising firms. Trading at just 10.8 forward earnings WPP is a buy (Last IC rating: Buy, 1 Mar).

In the Times Tempus likes Wood Group , the engineering company which provides ongoing maintenance to existing oil and gas facilities as well as constructing new wells and refineries and gas turbines. Gas turbines have done exceptionally well, while the maintenance arm is beginning to punch its weight and the company has exited the more cyclical well support business. Trading at 14 times earnings Tempus says the stock is a strong hold (Last IC rating: Hold, 6 Mar).

Housebuilder Barratt isn't viewed quite so positively. Yes, it's gradually selling the low margin land stock it bought before the crisis and yes it is now building in areas of high demand. But the government's NewBuy scheme may not be the panacea the politicians hope and, despite a decent Spring, the housing market has "seen false dawns before". Trading at 15 times earnings, Barratt is a leave (Last IC rating: Hold, 22 Feb).

Business press headlines:

JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon has shocked Wall Street by disclosing the bank racked up $2bn (£1.2bn) of trading losses in the past six weeks and warned they could get worse. "It puts egg on our face and we deserve any criticism we get," Mr Dimon told analysts in a hastily arranged call after stock markets closed in New York on Thursday night. He admitted the losses were linked to a Wall Street Journal report last month about a trader, nicknamed the 'London Whale', who, the report said, had amassed an outsized position which hedge funds were betting against, The Telegraph reports.

The Eurozone has lost a crucial lifeline as China's biggest sovereign wealth fund said it no longer wanted to buy European government debt. Amid resurgent political and financial crisis in Spain and Greece, Gao Ziqing, head of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), said the $440bn (£273bn) fund was "looking at opportunities in Europe" but added: "We don't want to buy any government bonds." Eurozone leaders have tried to attract investors from Asia to help mop up excess sovereign debt. Both China and Japan have been supportive in the past, in part because Europe is one of their biggest export markets. The retreat by China came amid political deadlock in Greece, the bank crisis in Spain and signs of a deepening economic recession, according to The Telegraph.

Militant shareholders staged their biggest pay rebellion of the "shareholder" spring yesterday as investors in Britain's largest car dealer comprehensively rejected controversial bonus deals. Investors speaking for more than 67 per cent of Pendragon 's voting shares opposed the group's remuneration report. A contrite chairman Mike Davies, who is also chairman of Royal Mint, promised to amend the offending changes to its executive pay schemes. The issue that most irked investors was the near-£1 million paid to Trevor Finn, the chief executive, including a £232,000 bonus for overseeing last year's rescue rights issue and refinancing. Despite the revolt, The Times understands that Mr Finn has no intention of repaying the bonus.

The number of home repossessions is "stable", breaking a recent trend of year-on-year increases, lenders said yesterday. There were 9,600 repossessions in the first three months of the year, the same number as in the same period in 2011, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. The new figure is a 10 per cent increase on the fourth quarter of 2011 but the CML said that this represents a normal seasonal pattern. Its previous prediction that repossessions would rise to 45,000 this year may be revised down later this summer when it publishes its housing market forecasts, it said. However, it cautioned that pressures on household finances, cuts to welfare benefits and an "upward drift" in mortgage rates all have the potential to disrupt the current picture, The Times says.

Homeowners were last month hit with the biggest rise in mortgage costs in almost three years despite interest rates remaining at a record low, according to Bank of England figures. Borrowers taking out two-year fixed rate deals, one of the most popular on the market, saw their average offer increase from 3.44 per cent in March to 3.65 per cent in April. It was the sharpest monthly rise since June 2009, and the seventh consecutive increase. As recently as September, a two-year fixed rate cost just 2.92 per cent. According to Defaqto, a financial research company, two-year fixed mortgages now account for 30 per cent of all current offers compared with 20 per cent in 2007. With annual gross mortgage lending running at around £150bn, the rising costs may be affecting more than £30bn of lending, The Telegraph reports.

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