26/06/2014 World Business Report

Chiellini on Tuesday, a decision is expected today. Those are the latest

headlines from BBC News. Now for the latest financial news, Alice Baxter

and World Business Report. A dark pool full of predators.

Barclays is charged with fraud. 1 billion users can't be wrong. And

now Google wants to bring Android to a wristwatch near you. A warm

welcome to you, this is World Business Report with me, Alice

Baxter. Also coming up: The worst quarter for the US economy in five

years, but markets are taking it fairly well. We will have an update

from Asia. But first we start with Barclays and yet another in what has

been a string of blows to the reputation of the global banking

giant. Late on Wednesday the New York Attorney General filed fraud

charges against the bank, claiming it lied to customers about a

sharetrading system it operates. It all centres around something called

a dark pool, sounds a bit murky, doesn't it? The stock market in the

US is worth 23 trillion US dollars, but these days some 40% of trading

in US shares is actually done away from the public markets that most of

us know, like the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ, and there's

been a huge growth area in private trading venues, known as dark pools.

Investors here can trade shares anonymously. There are at least 40

of these and Barclays runs one of the biggest. These markets are

rigged in favour of high`frequency traders, and they use massive

computing power to buy and sell in fractions of a second as soon as

news is released. They profit at the expense of big institutions like

pension funds that can't keep up. Barclays told investors they were

diving into safe waters, according to the lawsuit, when the dark pool

was" Full of predators there at Barclays' invitation" .

In the lawsuit filed on Wednesday in New York, the state Attorney General

alleges that Barclays misled its clients and investors by telling

them that their private trading platforms, so`called dark pools, had

safeguards within them to protect against predatory and aggressive

types of high`frequency traders. But the investigation by US regulators

has uncovered that Barclays not only favoured high`frequency traders, but

they actively courted them by giving them systemically advantage is over

others. The lawsuit also alleges that although Barclays told its

clients, they didn't favour their private trading platforms over other

trading venues, the exact opposite was found to be true `` systematic

advantages. Dark pools and high`frequency trading have both

come under scrutiny by US regulators. The private exchanges

operate outside the public realm, and many would like to see them have

to disclose more information than they already do. As US markets have

become more water make it, high`frequency trading now makes up

more than half of all the US's overall trading volume. Google has

kicked off its annual conference for software developers. They say 1

billion people are using android. In the future it hopes it won't just be

smart phones and tabloids using Android, but watches, TVs and even

cars. Richard Taylor is at the event, where he has been getting a

preview of Android Tim Mack one. They say they will make the android

system easy for people to make apps `` Android wear. David, take me

through what the smart watch is that you're wearing. This is a Samsung.

It has a display that shows me what I need to know right now. What about

the battery? It lasts all day. It combines information from Google

Now. Your predictive service? Absolutely. Applications running on

my phone and the step counter running on the wearable itself. The

market for smart watches hasn't been proven until now, there's a lot of

excitement but so far the only watches that have done well have

been the fitness tracker watches, not the all`encompassing

notification engine. That's got to be a bit of a worry? One thing I'm

excited about is today we've made a software capability kit available

for developers and there are hundreds of thousands of developers

working with android on phones and tablets, and they will be able to

use the same expertise they already have two develop services for this

new form. The thing is, a two inch screen is not as compelling as a

five inch screen a few feet away in your pocket for a lot of things. For

a lot of services, just being able to capture your attention for a

second and give you what unique at a glance is much more compelling.

Since I've been using this device and others like it there are kinds

of times during the day where I might have missed a message,

sometimes my phone would ring in my pocket and I wouldn't know a call

was coming in. But having my wrist buzz, to say who it is, has been

transformative and I have really enjoy using it. You showed today the

synchronisation between phone and watch, but all the technologies have

got to work well, the sinking didn't in the keynote, and the voice

recognition has to work really well because if it's not compelling

people will turn to their smart phones. The synchronisation works

incredibly well. We showed demos during the keynote of applications

from a developer where I was able to keep the recipe on my phone in sync

with the directions I was seeing on my wrist. We also know that voice

recognition is extremely convenient in your car or when you're on your

own, but we have the ability to do things by touch. If I want to set an

alarm I can do it by touching 1's. Thanks very much. The various

watches sporting Android go on sale this week, let's see what they do in

the market `` once. Let's go to Asia where markets are digestive and the

worst quarter for the US economy in five years and it seems they are

putting a positive spin on it. Lets talk to Sharanjit Leyl in

Singapore. Is that a fair assessment? It is, Alice. It's

interesting, we were just hearing about technology there and those

technology shares are pushing Asian shares higher. Also, believe it or

not, something of a positive spin on the US date because there is

optimism that interest rates will continue to stay low after the US

posted that bigger contraction than first reported for its first quarter

growth data `` US data because. Part if it is due to the possibility of

mergers and tieups pushing stocks higher. In Japan Yahoo isn't rising

after it acquired the credit and financial operations of a credit

card firm. A Japanese on online retailer has risen 3% after it was

in talks to invest in a discount airline with Malaysia's Air Asia.

And in Taipei, in a luxe, the maker of monitors, those shares are

jumping as leading games. Shares are higher across the region. In China

you have three Chinese firms soaring in their shins and stock exchange

debuts today, they were the first mainland listings in over three

months and they showed healthy investor appetite. That poor reading

on the US economy for the first quarter is also pushing down the US

dollar, while giving a lift to most commodities and resource related

currencies. Asian shares remaining buoyant. Sharanjit, thanks very

much. A bit of other news now in brief

this Thursday: The Bank of England publishes its twice yearly financial

stability report later and the focus will be on any moves to cut soaring

UK house prices after Governor Mark Carney warned the housing market is

the biggest domestic threat to financial stability. US drugmaker

AbbVie has urged Shire Pharmaceuticals to enter takeover

talks, saying it is willing to move quickly and cooperatively to get a

deal. The Irish firm, whose shares are listed in London, has repeatedly

rejected AbbVie's bid, now worth $46 billion. Both company bosses will

meet US investors over the next two days. A quick look to see how those

Asian markets are doing as Sharanjit was saying. They are climbing,

boosted by bargain hunter and up positively from Wall Street, despite

that worse than expected US contraction. `` bargain`hunting.

From me and the team, that's all for now is our. `` that's all for now

this our. How much does the monarchy cost?

Buckingham Palace's accounts show it is 56p for every person in