ECB’s Praet says that further rate cuts remain an option August 6, 2013 The European Central Bank's executive board member Peter Praet has said that further interest rate cuts remain an option, writing in Vox. Praet also said that the central bank's forawrd guidance includes an easing bias. Against the conditions that we see prevailing over a meaningful horizon, our guidance includes an easing bias. This conveys the [...]
Before the open – 06/08 August 6, 2013 Stocks are expected to open down in Europe, following US and Asian markets, on investor profit taking. $FTSE seen dwn 10 points on weaker US & Asia. $ULVR Unilever downgrde @ JPM, $GSK Glaxo downgrde @ Citi. $EMG Man Group Citi upgrade est. MB — IGSquawk (@IGSquawk) August 6, 2013 Morning ftse -20, dow -26, [...]
Greggs profits go cold as sales fall August 6, 2013 Baker Greggs has announced a before tax profit fall from £11.4m to £4.6m in the 26 weeks ended 29 June (release). The firm has seen like-for-like own shop sales down by 2.9 per cent, while total group sales were up by 3.4 per cent in the same period to £362m. Trading in the first five [...]
CNBC Comment: The subtleties of forward guidance August 5, 2013 THERE was little of significance from the Bank of England’s meeting last week, except for a small statement guiding us towards this week’s inflation report. But tomorrow’s quarterly forecast will be overshadowed by a decision about forward guidance. In July, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) said rises in market rate expectations were unwarranted – [...]
Daily FX: Analyst picks August 5, 2013 CURRENCY STRATEGIST CHRIS VECCHIO My pick: Closed (half) short Aussie dollar-dollar Expertise: Fundamental and technical analysis Average time frame of trades: A few hours to a few weeks The swaps market suggests a 91 per cent chance of a 0.25 per cent rate cut; so focus is on the policy statement. Reserve Bank of Australia [...]
Fed’s Fisher says QE taper should begin this Autumn August 5, 2013 Head of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank has said that the Fed is nearly ready to begin tapering off its quantitative easing programme, and that he believes this should begin this autumn. In prepared remarks at a conference of pension fund administrators, Fisher was highly critical of the quantitative easing policy for doing little on [...]
IMF urges France to slow pace of spending reduction amid weak growth forecasts August 5, 2013 The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged the French government to ease the pace of fiscal adjustment next year and find efficiency savings in order to support a recovery. The IMF sees the French economy contracting by 0.2 per cent this year before returning to 0.8 per cent growth in 2014. Unemployment is forecast to [...]
EU signs off $11bn US airline merger conditional on efforts to boost competition August 5, 2013 The EU has approved an $11bn (£7bn) merger between US Airways and AMR Corporation (including its American Airlines subsidiary) conditional on a number of key concessions. To avert a monopoly on the London-Philadelphia route, the commercial airliners would need to give up a daily slot pair at London Heathrow airport, the European Commission said today. [...]
Lib Dems propose sticking with existing university fees system and bringing back mansion tax August 5, 2013 The agenda has been released for the Lib Dem's autumn conference in Glasgow. Compared to the other party conferences it at least pretends to involve ordinary members, as loyal Lib Dems are given endless opportunities to vote on potential policies. Some conference motions are politically unrealistic pet projects of members (eg legalising cannabis) but others [...]
BP will defend against fines of £18.9m over alleged market manipulation August 5, 2013 BP has denied allegations made by US regulators of natural gas market manipulation, and has said that it will "vigorously defend against" them. US regulators – the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – are currently investigating several BP entitites. The FERC bases its allegations on a recorded two-minute [...]