Bank unanimous against rate hikes despite raised growth forecasts October 23, 2013 Turns out the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee was unanimously against rate hikes at their last meeting, with all nine members voting against a change in policy in rates or asset purchases. That's despite the fact that the Bank's own survey data now points to two per cent growth over the second half of [...]
Jonathan King steps down as Homeserve executive October 23, 2013 Jonathan King, CEO of Homeserve Membership is stepping down to pursue a a non-executive career. King has been involved with the emergency repairs business for 13 years. Among his positions held at the firm were six years as CEO of Homeserve USA, following four years as managing director of HomeServe Membership. He will leave the [...]
UK banks benefit from housing upturn as corporate lending remains weak October 23, 2013 Citi Research has released a report concluding that there is an increasing upside to UK banks. Analysts cite several positive indicators leading to a positive assessment of the sector. There was a significant increase in mortgage volumes in July and August, with gross mortgage lending for the eight months to August 2013 amounting to £99bn, [...]
Asos on track to hit £1bn of sales by 2015 as profits beat analyst expectations October 23, 2013 Online retailer Asos has posted a whopping 23 per cent rise in full year pre-tax profit to £54.7m in the year to 31 August. Analysts had expected the company to post a profit of just £44.5 to 54m. That's not stopped Asos shares dropping on the open though. Shares are now trading about 4.7 per [...]
Apple launches a barrage of new hardware products while offering a host of free software updates October 22, 2013 Tech giant Apple is launching a stream of new products and boasts that its users are taking to its recent releases. 64 per cent of customers are now using the latest operating system for mobile devices – iOS7 – and a new update to its desktop software OS X – OS X Mavericks – will [...]
M&S to open 150 new food stores creating over 5,000 new jobs October 22, 2013 Retailer Marks & Spencer has announced plans for 150 new franchise and owned UK Simply Food stores in the next three years in order "to further enhance its specialist food positioning and reduce drive times to access M&S Food". Roughly half of those stores will be of around 2,000 square feet and operated in convenience [...]
Awful jobs data sends US stocks to new records October 22, 2013 Markets are back to interpreting bad news as good, and good news as bad. With expectations that the Federal Reserve won't begin tapering pushed back until sometime in 2014, traders expect that poor economic news will keep Fed policy loose for longer – which is positive for equities. So really bad labour market data is [...]
One chart that shows how the federal shutdown hit the US economy October 22, 2013 Despite having avoided a US government default, the economic damage of the temporary October shutdown can't be so easily undone. We're beginning to see data releases for those weeks now, and they're beginning to reveal a grim economic picture. Betsey Stevenson of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers has pointed to this chart: We'll [...]
Metrobank customer numbers surge as switching made easier October 22, 2013 Metrobank has reported record growth in its third-quarter financial statement. Customer account numbers have increased to 238,000, a rise of 75 per cent since the beginning of the year. The bank also saw total deposits have risen to £1.075bn, an increase of 24 per cent in the quarter, and an annual increase of 157 per [...]
US jobs number misses expectations but unlikely to affect Fed tapering decision October 22, 2013 We've finally seen a nonfarm payrolls (NFP) print after weeks of waiting. Delayed by the shutdown, the newest data shows weak job additions in September, with 148,000 jobs created. Consensus forecasts suggested that we'd see 180,000 jobs added. The unemployment rate falls from 7.3 to 7.2 per cent (the lowest since November 2008), with average [...]
