Senior Bank official hits out at pension funds’ gilt complaints May 23, 2012 QUANTITATIVE easing (QE) has not hurt pension funds nearly as much as they claim, the Bank of England’s Charlie Bean said yesterday – and complaining about the impact of the policy may be distracting trustees from genuine long-term threats. Although QE is designed to push down gilt yields, which reduces returns for pension funds investing [...]
OECD urges more open trade as way to boost economic growth May 23, 2012 COUNTRIES that are struggling to boost growth should consider opening up their economies more to global trade, according to the OECD. Measures to seal off national industries, while politically popular, “only sustain or exacerbate the sub-optimal status quo”, claims the paper on international trade. Since 1970, manufacturing workers in open economies enjoyed pay rates that [...]
April showers dampen retail sector recovery May 23, 2012 RETAIL sales dropped sharply in April, and recorded almost no growth on the year as bad weather kept shoppers off the high street, official data showed yesterday. By value, sales dropped 2.8 per cent on the month to £25.9bn after a relatively healthy March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated, while sales were up [...]
Manufacturers hit by weak UK and European demand growth May 23, 2012 WEAK domestic and Eurozone demand is dragging down output expectations in the UK’s manufacturing sector, industry data showed yesterday, hitting hopes that the economy will bounce back in the next quarter. Nineteen per cent of manufacturers saw order books above normal in May, the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) industrial trends survey showed, while 36 [...]
Bank of Japan resists more QE but says it still supports easing May 23, 2012 THE BANK of Japan maintained its ultra-loose monetary policy yesterday, yet did not signal a move towards even greater stimulus. After its policy meeting it decided to keep interest rates between zero and 0.1 per cent, with the size of its asset-buying programme also unchanged. “There remains a high degree of uncertainty about the European [...]
Japanese oil imports jump May 23, 2012 JAPAN’S current account deficit widened again in April, official data showed yesterday, as rising oil and gas imports outstripped increased exports. Exports rose 7.9 per cent in April from a year earlier, the biggest gain in more than a year, Ministry of Finance data showed, helped by a recovery in overseas demand. Exports to Asia, [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS May 23, 2012 Freshfields Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, the law firm, has appointed Silvia Paternain as head of its global tax practice. She succeeds Colin Hargreaves, who is returning to focus on client work full time. Paternain joined the firm in 1998 and was elected to the partnership in 2004. She specialises in corporate cross-border transactions. Sirius Minerals The [...]
BEST of the BROKERS May 23, 2012 BP Canaccord Genuity has raised its rating on the oil giant from “hold” to “buy’ and has a target price of 485p. While the broker is not yet confident BP can recover from its 2010 spill in the long run, it sees a strong bounce coming in 2013-14 once various US court cases are resolved. [...]
Eurozone fear hammers FTSE May 23, 2012 BRITAIN’S top shares fell sharply yesterday, wiping out their gains from the start of the week on mounting fears Greece will leave the Eurozone. The FTSE 100 slid 2.5 per cent to 5,266.41, its biggest one-day percentage drop since 21 November and its lowest close since 25 November, when markets were similarly beset with worries [...]
Stocks boosted in late day rally May 23, 2012 US stocks staged a late-day reversal yesterday, rallying into the close in another volatile session as a sharp rise in materials shares boosted the S&P 500 and gains in Apple helped lift the Nasdaq. The action shortly before the market’s close was a mirror image of Tuesday when stocks gave up gains in the last [...]
