LAURA SLATTERYlooks back at the week in business
Court date
Danielle Chiesi, a former Bear Stearns trader, has been given a 2½-year sentence for her part in the Galleon hedge fund insider trading case, a role that involved playing her inside source “like a finely tuned piano” – or so she claimed in a recorded phone call. The former beauty queen is one of dozens of traders caught up in the Galleon case, which will see the convicted boss of the firm, Raj Rajaratnam, sentenced in September. On the wiretap used to detect her crimes, Chiesi was overheard worrying she might be caught and convicted: “Ill be like Martha f***ing Stewart,” she says. Chiesi is destined for a minimum security prison in West Virginia, former inmates of which include . . . Martha Stewart. With forecasting abilities like this, who needs insider tips?
Product watch: LCD TVs
Liquid-crystal display televisions overtook the traditional cathode ray tube around four years ago – enough time for sales of LCD screens to have reached saturation point, with the result that South Korean flatscreen maker LG Display posted its third consecutive quarterly loss this week and also declined to provide an outlook on future earnings. While sales of LCD panels to tablet computer and e-book makers have jumped, sales of TV panels have dropped to less than half of LG’s business. Essentially, almost every household in developed countries has traded up already, while even in China, growth was around half what had been expected. “The TV market is simply stalled,” says LG’s chief financial officer James Jeong.
460
Number of Airbus and Boeing aircraft ordered by American Airlines – the largest aircraft order in history.
"I can assure the house I've never held a slumber party or seen her in her pyjamas"
David Cameron clarifies his relationship with Rebekah Brooks. (It’s a reference to a sleepover event held at Chequers by Sarah Brown in 2008.)
STATUS UPDATE
Snap poll:Digestives are the most popular biscuit in Britain, according to Sainsbury's. "The jam ring in third spot was more of a surprise to us," said trade magazine Biscuit World.
One payment received: Making payments and conducting banking via mobile phones will be a widespread consumer practice within four years, according to a study by KPMG.
Royal movie flop: BA has given the duke and duchess of Cambridge £200 in duty-free vouchers after their first-class in-flight entertainment systems failed on a trip home from the US.
THE QUESTION
What do Intel's bumper revenue forecasts mean for the future of the PC?
The PC market failed to meet the forecasts of two tech research firms in the second quarter. Last week, IDC said shipments rose 2.6 per cent compared to its projection of a 2.9 per cent gain, while Gartner calculated that sales grew only 2.3 per cent – substantially less than its projection of 6.7 per cent growth. On Wednesday, however, chipmaker Intel’s second-quarter earnings beat estimates, having recorded a surprise double-digit growth in its PC division. Its outlook for the third quarter was optimistic.
Intel’s processors run more than 80 per cent of the world’s PCs, which should make it hard for it not to be affected by global trends. So are the rumours of the PC’s death (by tablet) greatly exaggerated? The real problem for the PC market is undoubtedly in the US, where shipments have gone into reverse. But Intel says a greater proportion of its business now comes from emerging markets, which it claims are harder for analysts to track when tallying the sales.
