George Osborne must liberate business from burdensome red tape if he wants to bolster UK growth March 16, 2016 The rumour mill is churning. Will George Osborne ease up on businesses in today’s Budget? Companies have shouldered a lot of responsibility for his plans so far. The chancellor justified giveaways in the last Autumn Statement with better-than-expected economic growth and, crucially, a series of levies on firms. A raft of new measures have been announced [...]
Budget 2016: It’s time for the Treasury and George Osborne to find elusive cuts, not introduce stealth taxes March 14, 2016 A guaranteed way of keeping someone on your side is to print a bigger number at the bottom of their monthly pay slip – a fact recognised by employers and politicians alike. George Osborne is expected to lift the personal allowance again during Wednesday’s Budget (a commendable continuation of the Liberal Democrats’ longstanding policy) and [...]
EU referendum: Housebuilders, mid-caps, banks and retail will be the sectors worst-hit by a Brexit, says UBS March 11, 2016 The Brexit debate continues apace – and now UBS Wealth Management has waded in on the argument, pointing out some of the sectors most at risk if the UK votes in favour of leaving the European Union. The good news is fears around Brexit have already been priced into the market, said Caroline Simmons, deputy [...]
City A.M. joins the Lord Mayor and finance bosses at Mansion House to plan City Giving Day 2016 March 10, 2016 Leaders from over 60 City businesses joined the Lord Mayor for breakfast at Mansion House to hear why, when and how they should take part in City Giving Day 2016 this September. Lord Mayor Jeffery Evans sat down with senior execs from bank Credit Agricole and City A.M.'s resident grandee Lawson Muncaster in a bid to [...]
FTSE 100 has a muted start as investors await European Central Bank big reveal March 10, 2016 The FTSE 100 made a muted start to trading today, as investors nervously awaited a big reveal from the European Central Bank's Mario Draghi, who is expected to take rates further into negative territory later today. The FTSE 100 edged down 0.1 per cent in early trading, as economists expected Draghi to cut the central bank's deposit rate [...]
Just like Tidjane Thiam’s departure from Prudential for Credit Suisse showed us, chief executives are becoming increasingly important to share prices March 4, 2016 You can't put a price on a life – or so we’re told. A new study, published recently in the Strategic Management Journal, begs to differ. Its authors studied 631 deaths of chief executives between 1950 and 2009, of which 240 were considered to be sudden and unexpected; they then monitored the reaction in the [...]
Cyber security: System glitch responsible for displaying customer details to others on Wal-mart’s online pharmacy in the US over a 72-hour period in February March 2, 2016 Some US customers logging onto Wal-mart's online pharmacy last month may have been left scratching their head at their supposed medical history, after a coding error made other users' information visible. The retail giant confirmed today that just under 5,000 customers may have been able to see the wrong set of customer information during a 72-hour period in [...]
The 21st century liquidity trap: Our only way out is for policy-makers to end their austerity policies and restart QE policies February 24, 2016 The 2008 crisis started with a solvency problem that led on to a liquidity problem, which resulted in an economic slump. Today, we start from a liquidity problem that is causing an economic problem, which may ultimately lead on to a solvency problem. Global liquidity is becoming ‘trapped’, an idea first popularised by John Maynard [...]
EU referendum: Asda, HSBC, Vodafone and nearly 200 sign letter saying Brexit would threaten jobs – but Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s are not on the list February 23, 2016 The bosses of HSBC, BT, Vodafone and Asda are among those to have put their name to an open letter backing the remain camp and Prime Minister David Cameron's reforms in Europe. More than a third of the UK's biggest companies were represented in the letter, which was published in The Times this morning, saying they represented [...]
Four great books to super-charge your brain in 2016 – we review the best from commodities to effective investing and The Big Short February 18, 2016 THE SECRET CLUB THAT RUNS THE WORLD by Katie Kelly Commodity prices have crashed, with everything from oil and metals to grains at multi-year lows. It seems like the end of the “commodity supercycle”, the post-millennium boom when prices of all base goods were soaring. But how did they become so expensive in the first place? [...]