Financial news

• Saudi oil company named world's most profitable business

  01-04-2019 20:35 via theguardian.com
  State-owned Saudi Aramco makes profits of £84.7bn last year, beating Apple and ExxonSaudi Arabia’s state oil company has emerged as the most profitable business in the world, racking up profits of $111.1bn (£84.7bn) in 2018 to overtake Apple.According to a rare glimpse into its finances contained in a bond-offering document, Saudi Aramco made the profit on revenues of $355.9bn last year, as it produced 10.3m barrels per day of crude oil. Continue reading...
  
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• Broadband firms agree to automatically compensate customers

  01-04-2019 13:02 via theguardian.com
  Customers to be reimbursed automatically for delays under new Ofcom scheme Most broadband and landline customers will now get money back from their providers when things go wrong, without having to ask.Only about one in seven broadband or landline customers inconvenienced by delayed repairs, installations or missed engineer appointments has received compensation from their provider, and only in small amounts, Ofcom said. Continue reading...
  
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• Was the US stock market boom predictable? | Robert Shiller

  01-04-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Major shifts in the economy should be foreseeable, but no one forecast such massive risesShould we have known in March 2009 that the US S&P 500 stock index would quadruple in value in the next 10 years, or that Japan’s Nikkei 225 would triple, followed closely by Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index? The conventional wisdom is that it is never possible to “time the market”. But moves as big as these, it might seem, must have been at least partly foreseeable.The problem is that
  
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• Travelodge failed to warn me about Network Rail noise

  01-04-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  I endured a sleepless night at a Travelodge due to noise caused by nearby rail maintenanceI recently stayed at a Travelodge hotel in Macclesfield adjacent to the station. I was woken at midnight by loud drilling due to maintenance by Network Rail. This continued until approximately 3am and I was unable to sleep. Network Rail advised me that Travelodge was informed of this maintenance in February, and a week before my booking. It also told me Travelodge and all hotels must inform customers when w
  
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• My daughter is buying me out of a house – must she pay stamp duty?

  01-04-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  She hasn’t had a mortgage before, but I’m told she will need to pay stamp duty on a mortgageQ My two daughters and I are the joint owners of a property for which we paid cash (so there is no mortgage involved). One of my daughters lives in the house and is now in the process – with her husband – of taking out a £120,000 mortgage so that she can buy her sister and me out (the house is valued at £180,000). On the strength of the £60,000 that she will get f
  
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• Shared ownership households complain of housing segregation

  01-04-2019 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Residents denied access to car parks, gyms and swimming pools amid outrage over playground bansPeople living in shared ownership homes are being denied access to open spaces, car parks, gymnasiums and swimming pools, fuelling complaints of housing segregation.Residents who own homes outright enjoy access to the facilities in complexes that often feature side or rear entrances for shared owners, like “poor doors” used in social housing. But householders who own only a part of their ho
  
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