Primark’s “excellent” Christmas bolsters AB Foods January 16, 2014 Primark has come in, as expected, as a winner over Christmas – proof that cheaper products can keep value in bricks and mortar. The budget high street store saw "excellent Christmas trading" as consumers continued to flock to its stores. Sales jumped 14 per cent at actual rates (12 per cent at constant rates) [...]
Bovis Homes average sale price jumps 14pc January 16, 2014 British housebuilder Bovis Homes has reported impressive results in its trading update for the year ended 31 December 2013. In line with other competitors Bovis has reported a hefty increase in its average sales price. The company announced that its average sales price jumped 14 per cent to £195,100 up from £170,700 in 2012. The [...]
Firms say skills gap keeping EU youth workless January 16, 2014 DESPITE crushing levels of youth unemployment, many European businesses say they struggle to find appropriately skilled young workers for vacant places, raising questions about educational systems in the EU. A report released today by management firm McKinsey shows that some of the countries with the most significant youth unemployment crises also have major skill shortages [...]
One chart that shows how Wolf of Wall Street might be the strongest bear signal yet January 15, 2014 No, it's not because it's a bad film. It's because of this chart from Howard Linzon, or rather, the relationship between public interest in investing and market levels that it hints at. Markets seem to peak around the time that finance flicks are released. Maybe the release of Wolf of Wall Street means that we've [...]
The global economy is now at serious risk and investors aren’t prepared, says SocGen’s uber-bear January 15, 2014 If you've heard of Societe Generale's bear king Albert Edwards then you probably know that he thinks that loose monetary policy will result in uncontrollable inflation. Or as he puts it in a note published today, we will ultimately see inflation "spill like a tidal wave from the financial markets into goods, services and wages". [...]
This share surged 1,900 per cent for all the wrong reasons January 15, 2014 Penny stock Nestor saw its share price soar nearly 1,900 per cent yesterday after investors mistook it for Nest, the home automation firm acquired by Google for £3.2bn on Monday. Share price for Nestor, a US-listed company that sells automated traffic enforcement systems, closed yesterday at $0.03 a share following the dramatic spike. (Google) Confusion [...]
Fix your mortgage rate right now, says Bank of England’s Sharp January 15, 2014 Deciding between a fixed or floating rate mortgage is always a tough decision and a bit of a gamble either way. But in the clearest sign yet that interest rates are on the way up, the Bank of England’s Richard Sharp has just told MPs he would be tempted to fix right now. “We have [...]
Shoppers set to spend 17 per cent more in 2014 January 15, 2014 Online retail sales for 2013 have thumped expectations – as spending jumped by 16 per cent to £91bn compared with the previous year and now accounting for almost a quarter (21 per cent) of the total retail market. Those are from the latest online retail findings ofIMRG and Capgemini, which were revealed today at a [...]
This is the most important global bellwether that no-one sees – And it just collapsed January 15, 2014 Someone somewhere once joked that if you had to produce an economic report but wanted no one to read it, you’d probably call it something like “The Beige Book”. Appropriately, this regular update of US economic activity – the latest of which is published at 7pm tonight (GMT) – is usually about as tedious as [...]
Here are 4 myths about fracking that need dispelling January 15, 2014 As the debate over shale gas intensifies David Cameron has called for an end to myths surrounding the process of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. Here are four you might be thinking of. 1. Your water can be set on fire In a scene from the anti-fracking film Gasland, one of the participants who [...]