What you need to know before the US open – 12/02 February 12, 2014 Dovish comments from Janet Yellen and a 10.6 per cent increase in Chinese exports in January has buoyed European bourses, and will likely do the same to US counterparts. Over on this side of the pond, Mark Carney had a stab at wriggling out of employment-based guidance – something Yellen did a better job at [...]
The boffins have proved it: Commuting makes you miserable February 12, 2014 Who’d be a commuter? Escalating train fares, Tube strikes, people sneezing without covering their noses. My soul’s getting heavy just thinking about it. And now even the boffins at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are weighing in, performing a complex “regression analysis” – a way of comparing lots of different variables, in this case [...]
Interest rates could go up sooner than you think February 12, 2014 Mark Carney today made it clear the Bank of England will not raise rates just because unemployment is diving and growth is booming. But although markets expect the first rate hike in about two years, it could come even sooner – and a graph buried in the middle of the Inflation Report shows why. Instead [...]
Manchester United Execs: Team must do better February 12, 2014 Manchester United executives have admitted to the team’s frankly dire performance on the pitch this season, in their latest quarterly report – released in New York this morning. Off the pitch, United are doing pretty darn well – the club raked in £122.9m in the final three months of last year, up 11.6 per cent [...]
Carney’s new focus is spare capacity. Here’s what you need to know February 12, 2014 The Bank of England has given a crucial update on spare capacity. Notoriously difficult to measure, the Bank suggests that spare capacity stands at around one to 1.5 per cent of GDP, and that it is "concentrated in the labour market". It's clear that governor Mark Carney is stressing the concept, and says that there [...]
EU industrial production splutters in December February 12, 2014 December’s weak Eurozone production figures, released this morning, show the area’s still struggling to keep a firm grip on recovery. Consensus was for a 0.3 per cent fall in industrial production, but the last month of 2013 actually saw a drop of 0.7 per cent in the euro area and EU28. Growth remained over the [...]
Bank hikes 2014 growth forecast to 3.4pc February 12, 2014 The Bank of England has just hiked growth forecasts, and the jump is huge. The UK's central bank now sees GDP growth at 3.4 per cent in 2014. Last November they forecast growth of just 2.8 per cent. That, and suggestions that rates will stay lower even if unemployment falls further, has seen sterling leap [...]
Bank of England sees unemployment falling below threshold – but sees scope to keep rates on hold February 12, 2014 Mark Carney was always going to have to pull something out of the bag this morning. The Bank of England governor has been wedged between two forces as the Inflation Report is released. Having introduced forward guidance, in an attempt to give direction over the path of future policy, the sudden and unexpected fall in [...]
Lending to first-time buyers rocketed 37pc at end of 2013 February 12, 2014 Better economic conditions and Help to Buy prompted more and more Brits to take steps to become home owners at the end of 2013, according to new data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Lending to first-time buyers jumped 37 per cent in December from a year earlier. Paul Smee, CML director general, said [...]
Toyota pulls 1.9m cars after software bug causes them to stop dead February 12, 2014 Toyota is having to withdraw 1.9m vehicles from the roads due to a nasty software glitch. The bug is causing some Prius hybrids to stop completely, as "the setting of the software could cause higher thermal stress in certain transistors". That overheating will cause "various warning lights" to go on, and "will probably cause the [...]