The most important Russia search engine Yandex soars, first day of trading

Shares of Yandex, which were sold for $25 (16 pounds) a piece on Wall Street, rose further by 40pc in their first day of trading Tuesday on the Nasdaq, valuing the company billion $. The first is less than a week after the actions of LinkedIn, the professional networking site, has more than doubled on the first day of trading.

Account assessments required of these two companies raises concerns that investors are repeating the error of ten years, when the dotcom companies shares soared before crashing spectacularly. Most analysts say puzzle of today is not whether internet companies are money - those who attempt to float are - but if they can support the growth of the profits necessary to justify their assessments.

Currently, Yandex, which was founded by two technologists who have gathered at the school, enjoys a 65pc of the market share of the research in Russia but faces a tough competition to Google. Russia online advertising revenues jumped 51pc in the course of the past two years, according to the Association of the agencies of Communication, which is based in Moscow.

The flotation, which saw Yandex raise 5.3 $1, has also seen existing investors, including hedge fund Tiger Global Management, sell a portion of their shares. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank managed the sale.

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The Korean war hit already nervous FTSE 100

"As if Irish and climbing woes fear of possible contagion were not enough, the situation on the Korean peninsula destabilized the Asian markets," said Giles Watts, head of the shares to the index of the city.

"In such a volatile climate, investors will observe carefully see how the United States and China will respond to the ever deepening of the tension between the two countries", he added.

As risk appetite decreases, stockpiled mines have been predictable laggards as they were also affected by fears renewed that China will intensify steps to tame inflation.

Vedanta Resources, Antofagasta and Kazakhmys threw a 101 p to £ 57.28, p £ 13.17 58 and 49 percent to £ 13.91 respectively.

The Korean war were not a great moment for Tesco - chain supermarket Tuesday hosted the last day of his journey in China and southern Korea analysts.

Earlier in the week, Coast capital analysts sent an optimistic expedition, saying the trip from the airport to Seoul illustrated "the remarkable achievement of Koreans in the development of a modern nation of urban and industrial" in the past 60 years.

Matrix analysts felt a little less casual. ""After two days in China and South Korea, analysts and investors are at a low ebb, but enthusiastic team Tesco is unlimited," wrote a Tom Gadsby sounding tired.

Tesco takes trip analysts as an opportunity to announce plans to almost double its central sales space and Europe is over five years, including improving small bookstores and hypermarkets.

With rivals such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco spreads rapidly in emerging markets in a bid to offset the sluggish growth in Western Europe and to .Tesco United States throw 418.25 3.6 p.

Retailers were focusing on a score of Nomura. Analysts retained their "neutral" rating on the sector, saying that the recent sales data had been slowing.

"This can be confirmed by updates to future negotiations for Dixons Kingfisher, KESA, HMV, which, in our opinion, can highlight the negative like-for-like doing business with a cautious approach," they added.

Dixons lost 25.14, Kingfisher 0.02 throw 0.9 248.3 p, KESA Electricals was flat p 166,1 and HMV has dropped from 1.25 to 44½p.

Return among blue-chips, Group Man takes the fall more marked as obtained bear their claws into stocks financial.

The larger world listed hedge fund decreased 14-274½p despite a push of the Deutsche Bank.Le broker reiterated its "buy" rating on man and named the company as one of its top picks.

Fresnillo, pinworm Mexican metal precious, topped by a leader miserably short-Board, with 21% to £ 14.25, such as price or climbed as anxious investors of turned to more tangible.

Bundled counterpart, Petropavlovsk, was also minor hausse.Le Russian gold ticked up to 23 per cent to £ 10.66 as coverage of Bank of America - Merrill Lynch resumed with a prize "buy" rating and £ 17.00 cible.Analystes said that the stock was less than his peers because of disappointing production in recent quarters.

TalkTalk has also received a note from courtier.Elle acquired 0.7 to 154½p after Credit Switzerland has increased its rating of "outperform" of "neutral" said .Analystes shift in position reflects the new strategic orientation of TalkTalk on medium-term growth margin expansion rather than Subscriber. ""

Lower market Cineworld gained ½ 208½p evolution securities pointed out that Harry Potter and the relics of death: part 1 had shattered five records from ticket sales, according to Warner Bros..'This is excellent news for Cineworld,' said the dealer, maintain its "buy" rating.

AIM-listed ASOS was scheduled after Goldman Sachs raised his price target on online retailer to £ 20.00 to £ 17.00.

ASOS rose from 52% to £ 13.12.

GW Pharma spur profits climb

Shares of GW Pharmaceuticals shot up to 9½ 109½p after drug manufacturer has seen a surge in profits after the launch of its medicines derived from cannabis, Sativex British Columbia Colombia.

Medicine, dealing with spasms muscular sclerosis (MS) patients, launched in the United Kingdom revenue earlier this year, which helped throughout the year to GW Pharmaceuticals at £ 30.7 £ 24 m.12 m last year.

Thus the increase in sales of Sativex, GW also received a payment step 10 million pounds of Bayer, for approval of Sativex the UK.

Profit before tax was £ 4.6 m to £ 1.15 m last time.

GW has also announced that final phase, tests had begun with partner Otsuka, of Sativex for treating cancer pain.

Justin Gover, CEO of GW, said this potentially represented a greater chance than MS and could also allow to enter the u.s. market Sativex.

KBC Peel Hunt analysts reiterated their "buy" rating on GW, saying: the launch of the United Kingdom Sativex showed a viable route to market for medicines derived from cannabis.

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Germany must choose EMU fusion or fission

All that has occurred so far is that Irish and Greek taxpayers have taken on fresh debt so that creditors do not crystallise losses. It remains a disguised rescue for North European banks and insurers. As the Left always warned, monetary union is a “bankers’ ramp”.

Perhaps this bank rescue is necessary to buy time for a fragile financial system. We saw instant contagion through half of Europe when Mrs Merkel called for bondholder haircuts in October. It was she who clumsily set off the final Irish crisis. But if EU banks are so vulnerable, how did so many pass their stress tests in July?

Ireland perhaps has a theoretical chance of surviving Merkel’s penal rates. How its democracy will react to this is an open question. A Fine Gael-led government may be elected this week. We will find out how long Ireland is willing to suffer debt servitude to pay German, British, and Belgian banks.

Greece has no theoretical chance. Nobody other than those paid to apologise for this travesty of a policy believes Greece can escape a compound interest spiral under an EU-IMF regime that will push public debt to 150pc of GDP.

The inspectors know this, hence pressure on Athens to sell €50bn of assets, including water and land. This too is becoming neuralgic. “Unacceptable behaviour,” said premier George Papandreou. Greece will not bargain away its “birthright and dignity”.

Nor do I believe that Portugal can regain its footing in EMU with combined public and private debt at 330pc of GDP and a current account deficit stuck near 9pc. Whether or not Portugal accepts a formal rescue has become irrelevant. It is already on life-support from the European Central Bank, which had to intervene yet again last week after Portugal’s five-year yields hit a post-EMU record. A rescue merely switches that support to a different EU body, the Stability Facility (EFSF).

A few months ago, capital flight might have spread instantly from Portugal to Spain. Events have since moved on. Spain’s industrial orders and exports are recovering. Its fiscal deficit is narrowing fast. Its bond spreads no longer move in rhythm with Lisbon’s troubles.

Global growth has alleviated the liquidity crisis. I share the view of Albert Edwards at Societe Generale that this is a deformed economic recovery built on extreme levels of government debt across the West and highly-questionable use of monetary policy to inflate stock markets, but it may take some time for the chickens to come home to roost.

What continues, regardless, is a chronic crisis of varying degrees in peripheral EMU nations that have lost competitiveness and are stuck in a slowly-tightening debt trap. High-interest loans are no help for insolvent countries. They need debt forgiveness and years of subsidies, if they are to muddle through in EMU. Is this forthcoming?

Werner Hoyer, Germany’s Europe minister, said last week that EU federal bonds would be "politically unrealistic and legally impossible", fearing the wrath of Germany’s constitutional court.

Mrs Merkel appears ready to back a boost in the EFSF’s lending power to €500bn, so long as other states swallow her “Competitiveness Pact”. This Diktat requires non-Germans to reshape their societies in Germany’s mould. They have told her to go to Hell. Even Belgium’s premier said the German demarche was outrageous.

She has not agreed to reduce the EFSF’s penal rates, or allow it to help crippled states buy back their own bonds on the open market at a discount. This may change. It has not happened yet.

She has certainly not agreed to any form of transfers and cannot do so given the fierce mood of her Free Democrats (FDP) and Bavarian allies. She would not dream of accepting that Germany should do for Club Med and Ireland what it has already done for its own kin in the Eastern Lander.

Western Germany has shelled out €1.7 trillion to the East since reunification 20 years ago. It is still paying €60bn annually, and has not yet achieved viable convergence. Transfer costs are docked from the pay of each German worker under 'Solidaritätszuschlag’, which rises to 5.5pc of income tax.

There may be some sort of “breakthrough” at next month’s EU summit – perhaps on EFSF bond purchases - but Mrs Merkel is deeply constrained at home. Comments by Bundesbank chief Axel Weber that he could not serve as ECB chief because the institution had strayed from orthodoxy and left him in a “minority” were frankly calamitous.

There can no longer be any doubt that Germany has lost control of the ECB, that the implicit contract under which the German people agreed to give up the D-Mark has been breached.

The eight judges of the Verfassungsgericht ruled on the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 that EMU failure to ensure monetary stability in Germany would violate the Grundgesetz and either force Germany to change its constitution (very hard) or leave the euro. Is Dr Weber inviting the court to plunge the dagger when it rules, perhaps soon?

The Weber debacle comes at a bad moment. Germany is already in full cyclical upswing and needs higher rates, even as the South languishes in a slump. Jim O’Neill from Goldman Sachs said Germany had decoupled from Europe, becoming the first “developed BRIC” as supplier in chief to China’s industrial revolution. “The Germans are going to have to accept 3pc inflation, even if they don’t know it yet,” he said.

Or 4pc, or 5pc. Germany’s producer price inflation reached 5.7pc in January. The country is hitting capacity limits. Yet ECB rates are still 1pc. This has the makings of an almighty punch-up.

Global recovery does not end the North-South rift that lies at the root of the eurozone crisis. It merely changes the features of it, and shifts the focus of stress.

EMU travails will goes on, and on, until Germany – and the others – understands that it has been lured into a Monet trap: it cannot both be a member of monetary union and remain a self-governing sovereign nation. In politics as in life, you must choose.

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Oil shock fears as Libya erupts

 US oil contracts jumped more than $7 a barrel on Tuesday morning to over $93. Photo: REUTERS

"This is potentially worse for oil than the Iran crisis in 1979," said Paul Horsnell, head of oil research at Barclays Capital. "That was a revolution in one country, here there are so many countries at once. The world has only 4.5m barrels-per-day (bpd) of spare capacity, which is not comfortable."

US oil contracts jumped more than $9 a barrel in a matter of hours on Tuesday to touch $98, chasing Brent crude at a 30-month high of $109 as the whole global oil system is drawn into the vortex.

While Egypt is a minor oil player, Libya's Sirte Basin holds Africa's largest reserves and supplies 1.4m bpd in exports, mostly to Italy, Germany and Spain.

BP, Statoil, Total and ENI have begun evacuating families and non-essential staff from Libya. BP chief Bob Dudley told Sky News that the company has only limited exploration in Libya but "remains committed to doing business" there.

Germans oil explorer Wintershall said it was winding down its Libyan operations, but Italy's ENI has most to lose from its pipeline to Libya. ENI's stock tumbled 5pc in Milan on Monday, leading a 3.6pc fall in the MIB index.

Global oil inventories are higher than before the 2008 price spike, and OPEC can raise output if needed. It has refused to act so far despite pleas from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that the supply picture is already "alarming".

A Saudi official said global oil ministers meeting tomorrow in Riyadh will examine market "volatility", but dashed hopes of OPEC action, saying world markets are "sufficiently supplied".

Though Libya's oil fields are big enough to influence global supply, producing 2.3pc of world output, investors have broader concerns. The lighting speed of events in a country that was stable just days ago has caused markets to doubt assurances about Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. The Gulf region ships a third of global oil output.

Credit default swaps on Saudi Arabia's debt jumped to 140 basis points on Monday, while Bahrain rose to 305 despite an olive branch from the Sunni royal family to Shi'ite protestors. The island's Grand Prix in March has been cancelled.

Fitch Ratings downgraded Libya on Monday on political risk although the 6m-strong country has foreign assets of $139bn (£85.7bn) or 190pc of GDP, no foreign debt, and a better balance sheet than Saudi Arabia.

Michael Lewis, commodities chief at Deutsche Bank, said oil markets are bracing for trouble. December "call options" with a strike price of $120 on US crude have doubled suddenly, indicating fears of a nasty escalation. "Libya raises the stakes," he said.

Mr Lewis said oil prices tend to cause economic damage at a $95 to $100 for US crude. As a rule of thumb, a sustained $10 rise in price lops 0.5pc off US growth over two years, and worse if it reaches a self-feeding tipping point. "It's like a $50bn tax," he said.

Mr Horsnell said the global energy crunch is haunting us again after a brief respite during the financial crisis. "In just two years, the world has grown so fast as to consume additional volume equal to the output of Iraq and Kuwait combined," he said.

While oil is likely to keep flowing from Mid-East states whatever the political colour of the regimes, it is less clear that global oil companies will continue to explore or invest in regions where nobody knows the rules of the game. "It matters a lot what the investment climate is for long-term fixed capital projects," he said.

The IEA has called for $30 trillion of investment in energy projects over the next 20 years to keep global growth on track and meet explosive demand from China. The task may soon be harder.

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Saudi ruler offers $36bn to stave off uprising amid warning oil price could double

The growing turmoil in the region led experts to warn last night that Brent crude oil prices may double from the $111 a barrel mark it peaked at yesterday if the crisis continues to spread to other Middle Eastern countries.

Nomura's commodity team said oil prices risk vaulting to uncharted highs over coming weeks if chaos hits Algeria as well, reducing global spare capacity to the wafer-thin margins seen just before the first Gulf War.

On Wednesday, Brent crude rose more than 5pc to almost $112 a barrel, threatening levels that could derail the global economy. It closed at $111.25.

"We could see $220 a barrel should both Libya and Algeria halt oil production. We could be underestimating this as speculative activiites were largely not present in 1990-1991," said Michael Lo, the bank's oil strategist.

The warning came as Italy's ENI announced a suspension of supplies through Libya's gas pipeline, and a string of foreign companies evacuated staff and shut production. Libya holds Africa's biggest oil reserves and produces 1.6m barrels a day (b/d), mostly for export to Europe.

The German driller Winthershall halted its 100,000 b/d production in Libya, while ENI stopped at a string of sites, vastly reducing its flow of 550,000 b/d. A number of producers have declared "force majeure".

Barclays Capital said 1m b/d of Libyan output is "shut in", with the other 0.6m at risk. While Saudi Arabia can step in by raising output, this takes time and its oil is not a substitute for Libya's "sweet crude".

The escalating crisis set off further falls on global bourses. Wall Street was down 1pc in early trading and the FTSE 100 fell 1.2pc. The Dow has shed more than 300 points over the past three days to 12,075.

Nomura said a shut-down in both Libya and Algeria would cut global supply by 2.9m b/d and reduce OPEC spare capacity to 2.1m b/d, comparable with levels at the onset of the Gulf War and worse than during the 2008 spike, when prices hit $147.

Both price shocks preceeded – or triggered – a recession in Europe and the US. Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency, said the latest price rise had already become a "serious risk" for the fragile economies of the OECD bloc.

Some analysts fear the underlying picture is worse that officially recognised, doubting Saudi claims of ample spare capacity. A Wikileaks cable cited comments by a geologist for the Saudi oil giant Aramco that the kingdom's reserves had been overstated by 40pc. A second cable cited US diplomats asking whether the Saudis "any longer have the power to drive prices down for a prolonged period".

Nomura's report, which does not examine the catastrophic scenario of a full-blown Gulf crisis, said past oil shocks have shown a three-stage pattern, with a final blow-off in prices in the final phase. The current crisis is at stage one.

Surging oil prices create a nasty dilemma for central banks since they are inflationary if caused by robust global growth, but deflationary if caused by a supply crunch that acts as a tax on consuming nations. The big oil exporters tend to save extra revenues from price spikes at first, so the initial effect is to drain global demand.

The current picture contains elements of both, with an added twist of liquidity created by the US Federal Reserve that is leaking into the global system and playing havoc with commodity pricing.

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said on Wednesday that the world economy is stong enough to "handle" the oil shock, insisting that central banks "have a lot of experience in managing these things".

The European Central Bank (ECB) responded to the oil spike in July 2008 by raising rates even though Germany and Italy were in recession by then. Nout Wellink, the ECB's Dutch governor, said this had been a policy error.

Circumstances are different this time yet also murky. ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet signalled last month that the bank will "look through" the short-term price hump, but ECB rhetoric has since turned more hawkish. Fed doves will undoubtedly give more weight to the deflationary risks.

Jeremy Leggett, a leader of the UK industry task force on peak oil and energy security, said the Mid-East crisis "shows the extreme fragility of the global system. People don't realise how close we are to a potential precipice if this unrest reaches critical mass in enough OPEC countries. Governments need to draw up emergency plans and get cracking on proactive measures while we still have time," he said.

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Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium

“If it begins to overheat, a little plug melts and the salts drain into a pan. There is no need for computers, or the sort of electrical pumps that were crippled by the tsunami. The reactor saves itself,” he said.

“They operate at atmospheric pressure so you don’t have the sort of hydrogen explosions we’ve seen in Japan. One of these reactors would have come through the tsunami just fine. There would have been no radiation release.”

Thorium is a silvery metal named after the Norse god of thunder. The metal has its own “issues” but no thorium reactor could easily spin out of control in the manner of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or now Fukushima.

Professor Robert Cywinksi from Huddersfield University said thorium must be bombarded with neutrons to drive the fission process. “There is no chain reaction. Fission dies the moment you switch off the photon beam. There are not enough neutrons for it continue of its own accord,” he said.

Dr Cywinski, who anchors a UK-wide thorium team, said the residual heat left behind in a crisis would be “orders of magnitude less” than in a uranium reactor.

The earth’s crust holds 80 years of uranium at expected usage rates, he said. Thorium is as common as lead. America has buried tons as a by-product of rare earth metals mining. Norway has so much that Oslo is planning a post-oil era where thorium might drive the country’s next great phase of wealth. Even Britain has seams in Wales and in the granite cliffs of Cornwall. Almost all the mineral is usable as fuel, compared to 0.7pc of uranium. There is enough to power civilization for thousands of years.

I write before knowing the outcome of the Fukushima drama, but as yet none of 15,000 deaths are linked to nuclear failure. Indeed, there has never been a verified death from nuclear power in the West in half a century. Perspective is in order.

We cannot avoid the fact that two to three billion extra people now expect – and will obtain – a western lifestyle. China alone plans to produce 100m cars and buses every year by 2020.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the world currently has 442 nuclear reactors. They generate 372 gigawatts of power, providing 14pc of global electricity. Nuclear output must double over twenty years just to keep pace with the rise of the China and India.

If a string of countries cancel or cut back future reactors, let alone follow Germany’s Angela Merkel in shutting some down, they shift the strain onto gas, oil, and coal. Since the West is also cutting solar subsidies, they can hardly expect the solar industry to plug the gap.

BP’s disaster at Macondo should teach us not to expect too much from oil reserves deep below the oceans, beneath layers of blinding salt. Meanwhile, we rely uneasily on Wahabi repression to crush dissent in the Gulf and keep Arabian crude flowing our way. So where can we turn, unless we revert to coal and give up on the ice caps altogether? That would be courting fate.

US physicists in the late 1940s explored thorium fuel for power. It has a higher neutron yield than uranium, a better fission rating, longer fuel cycles, and does not require the extra cost of isotope separation.

The plans were shelved because thorium does not produce plutonium for bombs. As a happy bonus, it can burn up plutonium and toxic waste from old reactors, reducing radio-toxicity and acting as an eco-cleaner.

Dr Cywinski is developing an accelerator driven sub-critical reactor for thorium, a cutting-edge project worldwide. It needs to £300m of public money for the next phase, and £1.5bn of commercial investment to produce the first working plant. Thereafter, economies of scale kick in fast. The idea is to make pint-size 600MW reactors.

Yet any hope of state support seems to have died with the Coalition budget cuts, and with it hopes that Britain could take a lead in the energy revolution. It is understandable, of course. Funds are scarce. The UK has already put its efforts into the next generation of uranium reactors. Yet critics say vested interests with sunk costs in uranium technology succeeded in chilling enthusiasm.

The same happened a decade ago to a parallel project by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). France’s nuclear industry killed proposals for funding from Brussels, though a French group is now working on thorium in Grenoble.

Norway’s Aker Solution has bought Professor Rubbia’s patent. It had hoped to build the first sub-critical reactor in the UK, but seems to be giving up on Britain and locking up a deal to build it in China instead, where minds and wallets are more open.

So the Chinese will soon lead on this thorium technology as well as molten-salts. Good luck to them. They are doing Mankind a favour. We may get through the century without tearing each other apart over scarce energy and wrecking the planet.

This is my last column for a while. I am withdrawing to the Mayan uplands.

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The German market hit shares to fall as the insurers,

Traders on the Frankfurt stock exchange watch events take place in the Japan Monday, March 14, 2001. Germany shares fell 1. 5pc at a given time. Photo: Reuters

The DAX index fell 1. 5pc sometime as reinsurance group shares more of the world, Munich Re fell 4. 43pc, while the general insurer Allianz lost 3. 4pc. The two companies lose respectively 4 28pc and 2 14pc Friday.

Insurance groups are subject to massive costs by the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Friday Japan, eventually killing more than 10,000 people according to the Chief of police in Miyagi Prefecture.

Sunday, an analysis of risk by AIR Worldwide said that the only earthquake could require an economic balance up to more than $34 (£ 30bn).

However, a statement of Munich Re said that the crisis from a Japanese nuclear power plant "will probably not significantly affect private insurers."

German electricity companies were affected as well. Stocks in the two largest, EON and RWE, collapsed in morning trading Monday as fears about nuclear energy grew. EON fell 3 36pc and number two RWE showed a loss of 4 FP6.

EON and RWE control most of the Germany nuclear reactors, while the Swedish group Vattenfall is also active in the sector.

Germany has been debating whether to continue the use of nuclear energy and a central crisis devastated the Japan will make probably more difficult for energy-producing companies overcome public opinion.

German operators comes to obtain permissions to extend the life of their plant operations, even if the general public is opposed to rely more on nuclear power.

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