Bank of England drops mortgage market affordability test after less than a decade June 20, 2022 The Bank of England said this morning that its Financial Policy Committee will withdraw the so-called mortgage market affordability test. “Following its latest review of the mortgage market, the Financial Policy Committee has confirmed that it will withdraw its affordability test Recommendation,” the BoE said in a statement. This will come into effect from 1 [...]
UK inflation to bump above 40-year high on soaring food and energy prices June 20, 2022 The cost of living in the UK bumped above an already 40-year high last month driven higher by soaring energy and food prices. That’s according to the City’s consensus prediction of Wednesday’s new inflation figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Analysts expect prices to have climbed 9.1 per cent over the year to [...]
Recession concerns growing rapidly as central banks struggle to put inflation genie back in its bottle June 20, 2022 Despite attempts at a modest rebound on Friday, European markets still finished lower for the second week in succession, posting their lowest weekly closes since March. US markets also finished the week similarly mixed, but also sharply lower, with the S&P500 posting its worst week since March 2020, ahead of the Juneteenth long weekend. “As [...]
Interest rate hikes are a hard lesson for investors who relied on central banks bailouts June 20, 2022 In May last year, I wrote in this newspaper about the risks of moral hazard and the pandemic, with a generation of investors who had developed a skewed sense of risk. After the unprecedented level of central bank intervention, many believed policymakers would always ride to their rescue, providing portfolio safety nets with cheap money [...]
Money Spotlight: The reasons your real pay is dropping like never before June 19, 2022 Britons saw their basic pay fall at the fastest pace on record in April due to soaring prices. More pain is in store for UK households as inflation is set to hit further eye-watering peaks later this year. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said yesterday that regular wages excluding bonuses plunged by 4.5 per [...]
US Federal Reserve official warns investors to brace for more steep rate rises June 19, 2022 The US Federal Reserve will push through more steep rate hikes if inflation shows little sign of letting up, a top stateside central banker said over the weekend. Fed governor Christopher Waller said at a Society for Computational Economics conference in Dallas that “if the data comes in as I expect, I will support a [...]
Asda chair calls for business tax relief amid historic inflation levels June 19, 2022 Retail grandee Stuart Rose has said the government was too slow to move on the cost of living crisis and historic levels of inflation. The Asda chair and former Marks & Spencer boss has urged ministers to help struggling households amid the “tough times.” Speaking on Aquis Exchange’s Full & Frank podcast, Rose said Asda [...]
Central banks face tough journey to ‘Goldilocks’ policy setting June 19, 2022 Goldilocks found the perfect bowl of porridge through trial and error. The US Federal Reserve, Bank of England and the rest of the central banking elite are following a similar rationale right now. They are grasping for that “just-right” policy setting which allows an economy to reach its full potential without knowing what that setting [...]
Gordon Brown predicts government will ditch tax rises June 19, 2022 Gordon Brown has predicted Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak will ditch a series of planned tax rises in the face of the UK’s poor economic outlook. The former PM also hit out at the government for having “no plan” and lurching from “crisis to crisis”. The Bank of England this week moved to raise interest [...]
Week ahead: City braces for further inflation surge June 19, 2022 Investors are bracing for fresh data this week to point to a further surge in UK inflation, sending the rate of price rises beyond an already 40-year high. London’s FTSE 100 last week was caught up in one of the most volatile weeks for global stock markets since the early days of the pandemic. It [...]