news

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Markets
Europe
The FTSE-100 finished Friday's session 0.63% lower at 7,443.43, whilst the FTSE AIM All-
Share index was down 0.87% at 1,059.38. In continental Europe, the CAC-40 finished
1.64% lower at 5,364.98 whilst the DAX was down 1.68% at 12,785.16.
Wall Street
Last Friday in New York, the Dow Jones ended the week 665.75 points lower at 25,520.96,
the S&P-500 fell 59.85 points to close at 2,762.13 and Nasdaq finished the session 144.92
points weaker at 7,240.95.
Asia
In Asian markets this morning,the Nikkei 225 was 568.14 points lower at 23,706.39 heading
into the close. Meanwhile, the Hang Seng was down 369.61 points at 32,232.17 but the
Shanghai Composite was up 19.26 points at 3,481.34.
Oil
In early trade today, WTI crude was 0.86% lower at $64.89 per barrel and Brent was down
0.9% at $67.96 per barrel.
Headlines
Lloyds Bank bans Bitcoin purchases on its credit cards
Lloyds Banking Group has banned its customers from buying Bitcoin on their credit cards
following a sharp fall in the value of the digital currency. The ban, starting on Monday,
applies to Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and MBNA customers. It will not apply to
debit cards, only to the banking group's eight million credit card customers. Lloyds fears
people are buying Bitcoin to make a profit if its value rises but face debts if it falls. It is
concerned it could end up footing the bill for unpaid debts should the price continue to fall.
Explaining the ban, a Lloyds spokeswoman said: "We continually review our products and
procedures and this is part of that." Bitcoin ended last week down 30% at $8,291.87 - its
worst week since April 2013 and far below the $19,000 it reached last November. However,
the cryptocurrency is still ahead of the $1,000 it was trading at this time last year. Police
have warned that digital currencies remain popular among criminals as they can use them
to evade traditional money laundering checks and other regulations. Prime Minister Theresa
May recently said that action against digital currencies may be required "precisely because
of the way they are used, particularly by criminals". She told Bloomberg: "In areas like
cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, we should be looking at these very seriously." The Treasury
said that it intends to update regulation to bring virtual currency platforms into anti-money
laundering and counter-terrorist financing regulation. Facebook recently announced it would
block any advertising that promotes cryptocurrency products and services.
Source: BBC News
Company news
Galileo Resources ( LON:GLR ) 1.55p – Speculative Buy
Galileo Resources has announced heads of terms have been signed between its 36%
owned Glenover phosphate rare earth project with an unnamed major phosphate producer
(MPP). The agreement is for the supply of a phosphate flotation concentrate from Glenover
for 15 years. The heads of terms agreement expires end of April and is subject to pilot scale
testing, although bench scale testwork has already proved successful. Note that the rare
earths would go to tailings and remain the property of Galileo and its partner Ferminore.
Also, the South African mining department (DMR) has just accepted Glenover’s mining
license application - submitted in November last year.
Our view: Galileo investors have been waiting some time for a development at Glenover
and this morning’s announcement is very positive news. Although only heads of terms, the
fact that bench scale test work has been successfully completed already bodes well. Pilot
scale testwork will involve processing 30 tonnes of rock and we should know the result
sometime before April 30th.In the meantime, we maintain a speculative buy on the stock.
Beaufort Securities acts as corporate broker to Galileo Resources PLC
N4 Pharma ( LON:N4P ) 27.25p – Speculative Buy
N4 Pharma this morning announced that it has been awarded a grant from Innovate UK to
co-fund a collaborative project with MedImmune UK to explore the manufacturing of a
prototype nanomedicine using N4 Pharma’s Nuvec system. The grant will allow N4 Pharma
to develop manufacturing methods for Nuvec particles loaded with therapeutic pDNA/mRNA
encoding antigens. MedImmune will then conduct in-vitro and in-vivo study to demonstrate
the capability of delivering such antigens to induce immune response. Under the terms of
the agreement, MedImmune UK has the right to license exclusively anytime up to 3 months
after the project conclusion. The project is expected to last for approximately 9 months.
Innovate UK is funded through the UK Government’s £70m Industrial Strategy Challenge