£50bn more QE now would give shock boost to Britain, says business group December 4, 2011 PRINTING more money would boost the economy just when a stimulus is most needed, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) argued yesterday, calling on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to announce more quantitative easing (QE) at Thursday’s meeting. Low economic growth and further fiscal austerity mean monetary policy is the most important [...]
Week ahead’s industrial data likely to be gloomy December 4, 2011 MANUFACTURING figures across Europe are released this week, and economists expect a gloomy outlook. October’s figures are expected to show an oncoming recession in the Eurozone and weakness in the surrounding economies. Barclays Capital predicts Italian industrial output – data out on Thursday – will be flat in the month to October, “consistent with a [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS December 4, 2011 Tenemos The banking software provider has appointed former SAP executive Dr Bernd-Michael Rumpf as global head of the company’s customer services group, reporting to chief executive Guy Dubois. Bernd-Michael previously spent 12 years at SAP, where his executive roles included head of field services and support. Prior to that, he was chief executive of SAP [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS December 4, 2011 COMPASS GROUP Goldman Sachs rates the food and support services group as a “buy” and increases its target price from 695p to 705p, as well as updating its estimates. The broker expects earnings per share of 43.74p in 2012, rising to 48.99p in 2013, but sees several downside risks to both its view and price [...]
EU summit the new focus as investors waver over the euro December 4, 2011 LAST week saw an extraordinary turnaround in equity markets. The index bounced off 5,100 and shot higher with barely a backward glance. The FTSE 100 tacked on more than eight per cent over the period and on Friday it tested significant resistance at 5,600. This marks the 61.8 per cent Fibonacci retracement of the sell-off [...]
WALL STREET WEEK AHEAD December 4, 2011 THE Eurozone will once again serve as the source of Wall Street’s angst, as investors look to a summit of the region’s political leaders for decisive solutions for the ballooning debt crisis. Stocks posted their best week in more than two years last week, driven by central bank efforts to provide cheaper dollar loans to [...]
The coalition’s pension plan is an insult to private sector workers, not to the unions December 4, 2011 THE recent concessions by the coalition, in respect of the public sector pension negotiations, verge on an unconditional surrender to the unions, perhaps on a scale unprecedented in the history of public sector labour negotiations. The price will be paid by those who are not at the negotiating table: the private sector and the young. [...]
A warning from the future: Don’t bank on old ways December 4, 2011 FOR banks, the path of lowest possible risk is to continue doing what they’ve always done; however this would be a grave mistake, as Alan Hughes wrote in the Forum last week [The challenge to banks: Who will lead on service, Wednesday]. Not only is service important, as Hughes argues, but with technology shifting the [...]
Keep a new Heathrow runway on the table December 4, 2011 GRIDLOCK is often the outcome of public sector walkouts so we can be grateful that last week’s strikes did not, as feared, severely impact upon Heathrow. Civil servants and others stepped in to prevent the lengthy queues and angry scenes that would have damaged our international reputation with both tourists and businesses. As a world-leading [...]
RAPID RESPONSES December 4, 2011 UnCommons sense As a tax-and-spend liberal who believes in big government I am confounded to find myself agreeing with Dr Tim Morgan [There’s one economic policy the coalition has yet to try, last Tuesday]. He points to some truths that have been forgotten by all parties in this debate: growth is unlikely to come from [...]
