Now that banks are rationing loans, time to scrap Help to Buy May 20, 2014 SO the great crackdown on mortgages has started. With the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee uninterested in hiking interest rates, the only solution to contain house prices, sadly, is to ration credit. In theory, that is the job of the financial policy committee and its new-fangled macroprudential tools; but it has yet to act. [...]
Austerity is working – but we must continue to challenge its diehard critics | City A.M. May 15, 2014 THE “BACKFIRE effect” is a term coined by the US political scientist Brendan Nyhan to describe how a person’s deeply-held convictions may actually get stronger when presented with contradictory evidence. In one recent study, Nyhan and his colleagues presented a group with information confirming the safety of vaccines. Faced with the facts, those who already [...]
Austerity is working – but we must continue to challenge its diehard critics May 15, 2014 THE “BACKFIRE effect” is a term coined by the US political scientist Brendan Nyhan to describe how a person’s deeply-held convictions may actually get stronger when presented with contradictory evidence. In one recent study, Nyhan and his colleagues presented a group with information confirming the safety of vaccines. Faced with the facts, those who already [...]
Bank of England inaction threatens house price bubble, warns analyst May 8, 2014 April saw a rare fall in house prices, according to the latest data from Halifax. They dropped by 0.2 per cent, a small monthly decline. But on an annual basis, UK house prices are now up by 8.5 per cent in the three months to April. House prices are driven by supply and demand, and [...]
Business lending falls at sharper rate despite continuing recovery May 1, 2014 THE BANK of England announced yesterday that business lending is still declining, and more quickly than in earlier months. Net lending to the UK’s non-financial firms dropped by £2.3bn between February and March, the fastest fall since November. The continued decline in lending to companies comes despite solid economic growth in the first quarter of [...]
What you need to know before the open May 1, 2014 A flat open is expected this morning after a further taper from the Fed yesterday. Investors didn’t seem to focus too much on the weather-induced shock drop in first quarter growth in the US – to just 0.1 per cent, looking instead at the more confident Fed statement, strong ADP employment report and Chicago manufacturing [...]
London Report: British economy in fifth straight growth quarter April 27, 2014 BRITAIN’S economy is expected to show its continued return to form this week, with official data likely to show a fifth consecutive quarter of expansion. Figures due from the Office for National Statistics tomorrow are expected to reveal the economy grew by 0.8 per cent in the first quarter, despite worries that February flooding would [...]
How much does a house in the UK really cost? April 15, 2014 Buying a home in the UK will set you back £235,000 on average, according to the latest figures published this morning by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). “But hold on a minute,” I hear the news-hounds among you say. “Yesterday I read that it was much higher than that.” And indeed you may have. [...]
How much does a house in the UK really cost? April 15, 2014 Buying a home in the UK will set you back £235,000 on average, according to the latest figures published this morning by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). “But hold on a minute,” I hear the news-hounds among you say. “Yesterday I read that it was much higher than that.” And indeed you may have. [...]
House prices see third drop in 15 months April 4, 2014 House prices fell 1.1 per cent in March, according to the Halifax House Price Index. The fall marks only the third monthly drop in 15 months. Halifax pointed out that the monthly movements can be volatile and cited the three month-on-three month measure as a more reliable guide for underlying trends. House prices in the [...]