Business Diary: Double-entry crew head for the exit

Thursday 17 February 2011 01:00 GMT
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Accountancy may be boring, but at least its safe and secure – once people are in they tend to have jobs for life. Why then, in this uncertain climate, are the employees of the big four accountancy firms so miserable? They want to leave their jobs more than any other City workers according to escapethecity.com. It's a website featuring alternatives to City jobs and it staff can see whose employees are looking at it most often: the top four are PWC, KPMG, Ernst & Young and Deloitte. Maybe security isn't attractive as people think.

Who's sleeping in Travelodge's bed?

One of its rivals may have Lenny Henry fronting its advertising, but Travelodge likes to do things a bit differently. Its latest TV campaign, which begins tonight, stars two teddy bears – christened Mr Sleep and Big Ted – who travel the country staying in Travelodge hotels. They're presumably cheaper than a human actor – and probably no less wooden than Lenny Henry in those awful Premier Inn ad spots.

Russian model is naked sell signal

Investment alert: pull your money out of US equities now. That's the subliminal message from Sports Illustrated magazine, which famously has a swimwear issue every year. This year's edition has just come out and it features Russian model Irina Shayk on the front cover: that ought to spook investors since the history books show that the US stock market almost always performs better in years when the magazine puts an American on the cover rather than a foreigner. The stats date back to 1978 by the way. You have been warned.

The curious affair of the odd prices

The London Stock Exchange's switch to its new Millennium technology on Monday seemed have gone without a hitch, much to the relief of all concernedgiven problems with IT at the bourse in the past. Over the last couple of days, however, problems have emerged with price feeds from the likes of Thomson Reuters,which provides traders, as well as newspapers, with crucial data. So is this another blunder from the LSE? Absolutely not, insiders say, pointing the finger at data providers. But they are reluctant to accept the blame.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk

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