Eurozone private sector activity makes strong start to 2014 January 23, 2014 It's nice to have a more positive message to start the year. And Christian Schulz, senior economist at Berenberg, says that 2014 is "off to a good start" as Eurozone purchasing managers' index (PMI) data comes in strong for January. The euro area's composite PMI is up from 52.1 to 53.2 in January – with [...]
Investors have a serious case of Icahn fatigue January 22, 2014 Activist investor Carl Icahn has yet again had a go at pumping up the value of Apple stock. Icahn has become fond of Twitter as a platform, but 66 messages in and the attention of market watchers has started to wear thin. Three consecutive updates failed to make much of a dent in the value [...]
London to see bigger property deals this year after City’s record quarter January 22, 2014 Not long ago there used to be a thing as too large a scheme in London, even for overseas investors and risk-takers in the property sector. But size, as demonstrated by Kuwaiti firm St Martins’s £1.7bn acquisition of More London last month, is no longer a hurdle. And this will become an even more apparent [...]
Here’s how Google’s leading a revolution in green technology January 22, 2014 Google today sealed its third green energy deal in the space of three months, agreeing to buy electricity generated by four Swedish wind farms for the next ten years. For companies offering vast online services like Google and Microsoft, the energy requirements of growing numbers of data centers are one of the largest ongoing costs [...]
Forward guidance is crumbling – what comes next? January 22, 2014 Two years ahead of the Bank of England’s original schedule, forward guidance is circling the drain, with unemployment now within 0.1 percentage points of the threshold for reconsidering a rate hike. With productivity and wage growth still much diminished, and without significant improvements to exports or investment, the Bank is expected to alter forward guidance [...]
Collapsed UAE deal talks will not be revived, says BAE’s King January 22, 2014 BAE Systems chief executive Ian King today confirmed that collapsed talks to sell its Eurofighter Typhoon jets to the UAE would not be revived, but insisted the deal’s failure would not impact its ability to sell to other nations. King told reporters at a London event that the defence giant’s aircraft “met the UAE’s very [...]
Everything you thought you knew about the global banking crisis was wrong January 22, 2014 You thought the crisis was global. You thought the problem was banks’ losses on boom-era loans. You were wrong, according to these startling four charts from Oliver Wyman. Banks in Latin America and Asia-Pacific are doing just fine, the consultancy’s numbers show. Drivers of changes in banking returns 2006-12, for the largest banks in Latin [...]
We don’t believe you, Mark Carney January 22, 2014 When dapper Canadian Mark Carney imported the policy of "forward guidance" to the Bank of England last summer, the idea was to reassure investors – and the public – over interest rates. "Fear not for your mortgages!" they may have said, to paraphrase. "We promise that we will not raise rates until unemployment falls to [...]
Vicky Pryce returning as government adviser January 22, 2014 Economist Vicky Pryce is returning to a government job. After being jailed for taking the speeding points of her former husband and then MP Chris Huhne, Pryce is back to her old job on Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) panel. She returns to the role she first worked in over a decade ago. The role [...]
Bankers claim strong demand for Altice flotation – The first test of 2014 January 22, 2014 Bankers have just said that their books have been covered for the upcoming £1bn plus issue of shares in Altice, which owns French and Belgian cable companies and mobile operations in Israel. It is the first Initial Public Offering (IPO) to price in Europe in 2014. Although the issue has a few days of marketing [...]
