Unemployment down across US December 20, 2011 American joblessness fell to 8.6 per cent in November, and the decline was very broadly based, figures out yesterday from the US Department of Labor revealed. Unemployment rose in three states last month and declined in 43 – the largest number to record declines in a single month for eight years. North Dakota continues to [...]
American housing market jumps December 20, 2011 US housing starts soared 9.3 per cent in the month to November to hit an 18-month high, according to figures out yesterday from the Commerce Department. New residential building permits rose to an annualised level of 681,000 in the month, up from 644,000 in October. Multifamily starts reached an annualised rate of 190,000, their highest [...]
Increase in UK empty homes December 20, 2011 The number of empty homes in England increased by 1.8 per cent in 2011, according to data published today by Halifax. The total jumped from 650,127 in April 2010 to 662,105 in the same period of this year. Forty-four per cent of those have been empty for more than six months, accounting for 1.6 per [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS December 20, 2011 Barclays Wealth Wellian Wiranto has been appointed as Asia economist at Barclays Wealth’s Singapore office. As a member of the Barclays Wealth global investment strategy group, Wiranto will also focus on interpreting market economics for private banking clients in the region. Prior to joining Barclays Wealth, Wiranto worked at HSBC Bank in Singapore as its [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS December 20, 2011 AGGREKO After yesterday’s trading statement and a meeting with management, JP Morgan rates the temporary power provider as “neutral” with a target price of 1850p. The broker says trading seems to be strong, and upgrades its estimates from 2012 by two per cent to account for lower tax. It expects a reasonable margin on work [...]
Festive cheer gives Wall Street a boost December 20, 2011 US stocks rallied nearly three per cent yesterday as investors bought surging banks, homebuilders and networking companies, though low volume was seen as amplifying the market’s move. Investors jumped on a banking sector that was already riding high, extending gains after the US Federal Reserve released new capital proposals that turned out to be less [...]
German data and Spain auction lift FTSE December 20, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index hit a one-week closing high yesterday, after a drop in Spain’s borrowing costs and encouraging data from Germany overshadowed fears over Europe’s debt crisis. Short-term financing costs for Spain more than halved as banks lapped up debt at an auction, with much of the purchasing power said to have come from [...]
This Christmas, let’s all lift a glass to mark the birth of Homo sapiens urbanus December 20, 2011 MORE than half the world’s population now lives in cities. And with 1m people every week migrating to emerging cities, all developing regions, including Africa, are expected to have more people living in urban than rural areas by 2030. Across the planet, Homo sapiens will have become Homo sapiens urbanus. In this, the largest migration [...]
Plan to ringfence banks will leave us all in the dark December 20, 2011 THE government has announced it will implement the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB). The two headline proposals are to “ring fence” the retail banking parts of universal banks from their supposedly riskier investment banking parts, and to roughly double banks’ regulatory minimum equity ratios. Many bankers are complaining. They claim the ICB [...]
RAPID RESPONSES December 20, 2011 Europe’s agenda Roland Rudd is a respected enthusiast for the European project [The City of London needs a Europe strategy that does not lead to it being sidelined, Monday]. But he is mistaken in our relationship with Europe and it is time for fundamental review. Rudd highlights Margaret Thatcher’s acceptance of qualified majority voting, driven [...]
