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 [...]
End of relief on stamp duty hits UK house prices March 29, 2012 HOUSE prices fell sharply in March, data from Nationwide showed yesterday, as the stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers came to an end. Lending figures from the Bank of England also showed mortgage approvals plunged in February, suggesting the market has slowed further. Prices fell one per cent in March, the first decline in six [...]
House prices in biggest monthly fall for two years March 29, 2012 House prices suffered their sharpest monthly fall in more than two years in March, as first-time homebuyers braced for the removal of stamp duty exemption, mortgage lender Nationwide said. Nationwide reported one per cent seasonally adjusted fall in house prices on the month, the biggest since February 2010, and a sharp contrast to the 0.3 [...]
Save like a superhero – what to do to protect your children’s future March 28, 2012 COLUMN inches are being racked up, extolling the virtues of getting your child a Junior Isa. And surely nobody could decry a tax wrapper that aims to build a stash of cash for the next generation? However, there is a potential problem – and it’s not the abolition of the £250 cheque the government handed [...]
Economic woe in euro area will hit banks March 25, 2012 ECONOMIC woes in the Eurozone are hitting the financial services industry, a new report claims this morning, despite political measures that have calmed the markets. Loans approaching or at the point of default are set to hit an all time high, according to economists at Ernst & Young. Non-performing loans “will rise above six per [...]
50P tax rate goes at last March 22, 2012 GEORGE Osborne yesterday announced he was scrapping the 50p rate as he unveiled a raft of tax cuts for individuals and businesses – but he decided to stage a raid on pensioners, banks, buyers of £2m properties and other groups to fund his headline grabbing measures. In what he described as a Budget that “unashamedly [...]
Green shoots for retailers and the housing industry March 21, 2012 CONSUMER spending has been “a little more resilient than expected” in the opening months of the year, a survey from the Bank of England revealed yesterday. While consumer demand was only growing “at a gradual pace”, the summary of business conditions offers a glimmer of hope for the economic recovery. “Annual growth of spending on [...]