UK is becoming more equal – as incomes fall June 7, 2012 MALE and female pensioners are becoming more equal, while poverty rates as a whole are declining, industry and official data showed today – but only because incomes are falling, cutting inequalities. Men retiring this year only expect an income of £18,000 – down to a five-year low from £19,400 last year and £20,313 in 2009. [...]
Top MP wants state to rethink rushed regulatory reform bill June 7, 2012 THE GOVERNMENT risks missing a key chance to make the Bank of England fit for purpose unless it makes drastic changes to the financial services bill going through parliament, an influential backbench MP warned today. The governing Court of the Bank of England must be brought up to date with best practice in corporate leadership, [...]
City confidence in GDP is down June 7, 2012 INVESTOR confidence in the state of the economy fell sharply into the second quarter, a major survey of fund managers shows today, as the hopes of recovery that emerged at the start of the year were stamped out by the resurgent Eurozone crisis. The study from Capital Spreads also shows that only a minority believe [...]
Cameron told he needs vision June 7, 2012 THE GOVERNMENT’S deficit reduction programme will not work unless politicians create a popular ideological vision to gain public support, researchers at a top City brokerage warned today. Tim Morgan from Tullett Prebon believes that urgent steps must be taken to fill the centre-right ideological gap if the government wants to achieve long-lasting reforms like those [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 7, 2012 Marsh & McLennan Mark Weil has joined the insurance broker and risk adviser as chief executive. He will oversee Marsh’s UK and Ireland operations. Weil graduated from the University of Cambridge with an engineering degree and has 15 years of consulting experience with Marsh’s sister company Oliver Wyman. Eruma Nicolas Marks has joined the specialist [...]
BEST of the BROKERS June 7, 2012 HALFORDS UBS has upgraded the DIY retailer from “sell” to “neutral” but has trimmed its target price from 260p to 240p. The broker has lowered its 2013 forecasts after a grim outlook took the shine off Halfords’ recent results, but believes cost cutting measures will cushion the firm from further earnings downgrades. UBS sees some [...]
FTSE jumps as Chinese rate cut and UK services stats hearten traders June 7, 2012 BRITAIN’S top shares hit a three-week high yesterday as China’s surprise move to cut interest rates and firm UK services sector data boosted investors’ appetite for risk, although charts signalled strong resistance on the way up. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s comments that her country stood ready to use the existing instruments already created in the [...]
Investors find no sign of QE3 from Bernanke June 7, 2012 THE S&P 500 ended barely changed yesterday as optimism about China’s interest-rate cut was offset by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments that dimmed hopes for more US stimulus. Both the Dow industrials and the Nasdaq ended off session highs, with the Dow rising modestly for the day and the Nasdaq slipping. Stocks lost ground [...]
The subprime mortgage crisis isn’t over – UK taxpayers remain liable June 7, 2012 THE subprime mortgage crisis isn’t over. On the back of misguided government policies, taxpayers in the US and UK remain on the hook for huge sums. The ideology of affordable housing must end. It took just 13 years to destroy the American mortgage market with devastating effects for the rest of the world. The process began [...]
London’s contemporary design lustre is a reflection of its inspiring heritage June 7, 2012 THE Barbican’s new Bauhaus exhibition is full of ghosts. These early twentieth-century disciples of modernism are renowned for furniture as coolly perfect as an equation, but it is the human messiness of achievement that haunts every room. A chair that takes the breath away is posed between half-finished student exercises, invitations to parties and dozens [...]
