The importance of separating politics and currency markets April 17, 2012 AS THE European turmoil continues, why isn’t the euro falling to pieces before our eyes? With Eurozone policy makers blundering from one crisis to the next – at best covering up the cracks in the fiscal superstructure, at worst knocking out a supporting wall – you might be forgiven for expecting the euro to have [...]
UK inflation rises April 17, 2012 British inflation ticked up in March, driven by higher food and clothing prices and reinforcing expectations the Bank of England will not inject more stimulus into the economy next month. The Bank of England and the government have been hoping that falling price pressures will ease the squeeze on Britons’ budgets and boost consumer spending. [...]
Tax dash boosts home buying April 16, 2012 February saw a sharp rise in the number of first-time buyers, according to figures out yesterday from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), as the stamp duty holiday’s end date in March drew closer. A total of 14,100 loans worth £1.7bn were taken out by first-time buyers in the month, up eight per cent by [...]
Vickers report morphs from a fudge to a whitewash April 12, 2012 JUST six months after the publication of the Independent Commission on Banking’s final report, Sir John Vickers’ recommendations on boosting competitiveness are falling on deaf ears. Initially, Vickers recommended in his interim report that Lloyds be made to sell “substantially” more than the 632 branches it is being forced to put on the block to [...]
House buyers suffer as credit conditions batter mortgages April 12, 2012 TIGHTER credit conditions are starting to impact on lending to home-buyers, according to chartered surveyors’ figures published today. Loans for home purchase dropped to 43,450 in March – an 11 per cent drop on February and the lowest since December 2010, e.serv’s mortgage monitor revealed. First-time buyers particularly suffered, with loans for homes under £125,000 [...]
The pain in Spain has put its banks back on the rack April 12, 2012 WITH a sense of inevitability the spotlight has landed on Spain. Though the headlines proclaimed that the Eurozone crisis has returned with a vengeance, the truth is it never left. Spain is not Greece, but, many of the market fears surrounding the economy are still both well-founded and expected. There are three major causes of [...]
A Spice Girls revival is more likely than a Nokia one April 11, 2012 CAST your mind back to 1997. Tony Blair’s New Labour had won a landslide election, Britannia was cool and Channel 5 was going to save the television industry. For some, it is a Spice Girls song that best evokes the era or, for those with better taste, a Radiohead tune. For me, it has to [...]
House prices struggle despite duty incentive April 9, 2012 HOUSE prices fell again in March, despite higher buying activity ahead of the expiry of the stamp duty holiday, industry figures showed today. Ten per cent more surveyors reported prices falling than rising in the three months to March, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ (RICS) survey. The fall represents a slowdown from [...]
End of tax break prompts house price jump April 4, 2012 HOUSE prices sprang upwards last month as first time buyers rushed to beat the expiry of a temporary break on stamp duty, yet the market as a whole remains sluggish. Prices jumped by 2.2 per cent in March, the Halifax reported yesterday, bouncing back from February’s 0.4 per cent monthly decline. Yet the average cost [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 4, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES BRAZIL’S BTG BANK TO CEMENT RAPID RISE WITH $15BN FLOAT BTG Pactual is set to float later this month in a deal that will value the rapidly growing Brazilian investment bank’s equity at up to $15bn and the shareholdings of a swathe of executives at more than $150m each. BSE HEAD APPOINTED TO [...]