New Zealand stock exchange targeted by hacker in fourth day of cyber attacks August 28, 2020 New Zealand’s stock exchange, the NZX, has resumed trading, after outages for four consecutive days in the wake of cyber attacks this week. It’s prompted the government to activate national security systems to support the bourse. The NZX halted trading for around three hours on Friday, after crashing due to network connectivity issues, marking the [...]
Fed to tolerate higher inflation in major policy shift August 27, 2020 The US Federal Reserve has announced a new approach to monetary policy that will tolerate periods of higher inflation, paving the way for it to leave interest rates near record lows for the foreseeable future. Fed chair Jay Powell announced the central bank would try to achieve inflation averaging two per cent over the longer [...]
Bumper summer for IPOs with fastest start to second half since 2007 August 27, 2020 Companies are pressing on with plans to go public even amid second wave fears, with the fastest start to the second half of the year since 2007. A global total of 241 initial public offerings (IPOs) have been recorded during the second half of the year so far, according to data from Refinitiv. Listings inevitably [...]
British Gas pays out £1.7m after prepayment supplier error August 27, 2020 British Gas will pay out £1.7m after the energy supplier failed to inform hundreds of thousands of customers that it had changed prepayment supplier. On 1 January, the Centrica-owned firm changed top-up provider from Paypoint to Payzone, but failed to notify 270,000 customers. Ofgem, the energy regulator, said some British Gas customers had suffered as [...]
Staff at ETF provider Tabula call time on home working as it moves to Strand August 27, 2020 London headquartered fixed income ETF provider Tabula Investment Management is luring employees back to work with an expanded office to support social distancing. Tabula’s move to 55 Strand will double its office footprint from 1,300 square feet to more than 3,000 sq ft. The fund manager says more than 90% of London-based staff have agreed to [...]
UK economy: Retail footfall grows but job vacancies flatline August 27, 2020 The UK economy has continued its mixed recovery, with the number of Britons venturing out to the shops rising again but online job adverts staying flat for the third week in a row. Some areas remained in much worse shape than others, with 51 per cent of workers in the art and entertainment sector furloughed, [...]
Struggling economies can learn from Cyprus how to deal with the Covid-19 crisis August 27, 2020 International businesses and investors are right now wondering whether governments are really up to the task of handling the fallout from the global shutdown. With real GDP in the EU predicted to shrink by 9.3 per cent in 2020, the message from the European Commission is that the speed at which countries will recover depends [...]
Service sector employment fell sharply in last quarter as UK entered recession August 27, 2020 Employment fell sharply across the UK services sector in the three months up to August as the coronavirus pandemic sent the country into the deepest recession on record. The service sector dominates the business landscape in this country, making up nearly 80 per cent of the economy. According to a survey conducted by the CBI, [...]
Wall Street and FTSE 100 push higher on US inflation shift August 27, 2020 Wall Street opened higher and the FTSE 100 reversed losses this afternoon as investors digested the Jackson Hole central banking symposium, where US Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell spoke. Powell punchy update on the Fed’s monetary policy review buoyed investors and drove gains for US stocks. Read more: Jackson Hole symposium: All eyes on Fed [...]
FTSE 100 drops as investors turn to Jackson Hole August 26, 2020 The UK’s FTSE 100 stock index was flat this afternoon as investors awaited a speech by US Federal Reserve chief Jay Powell tomorrow. It was down 0.01 per cent 6,035 points mid-afternoon. The FTSE 250 index of smaller companies rose 0.6 per cent, however. Read more: Jackson Hole symposium: All eyes on Fed chair Powell [...]