Wareing’s next stop: St Pancras February 23, 2011 MARCUS Wareing appears, sleek in dark clothes, at the building site that is soon to be the Gilbert Scott, his first restaurant since his flagship at the Berkeley. With his silky-looking clothes, graceful step and searing blue eyes, he looks like what he is: the sort of man who understands and presides over Michelin stars [...]
Three year high for US morale February 22, 2011 AMERICAN consumers are the most upbeat they have been since February 2008 as the US economy continues to rebound, official data showed yesterday. “Rising equity prices, falling unemployment and the boost to disposable incomes from the payroll tax cut are more than offsetting the effects of higher gasoline prices and lower house prices,” commented Paul [...]
Worst Wall Street drop since August February 22, 2011 WALL Street suffered its worst day since August yesterday as investors dumped stocks on turmoil in oil exporter Libya, in what could be the start of a long-anticipated pullback after a lengthy rally. Rising volatility and heavy volume added heft to the possibility of a larger pullback. With 9.76bn shares traded on the New York [...]
Why I don’t believe rates should be going up February 20, 2011 The Bank of England releases its latest minutes this week and so the great rate debate continues. Will anybody have joined Andrew Sentance and Martin Weale in voting to hike? Many argue raising domestic rates can’t curb imported inflation but Sentance points out it might strengthen sterling, which would help. In practice, every currency analyst [...]
New regulator draws on old hands for external members February 17, 2011 THE government yesterday appointed four external members to the board of a new regulator that is meant to replace the FSA and prevent future financial crashes – the Financial Policy Committee (FPC). It also released a new consultation paper on the committee that some said showed it had scaled down its ambitions for the regulator and [...]
Core price pressures grow for US February 17, 2011 AMERICA’S recovery was boosted yesterday, with several data releases boding well for the world’s largest economy. However, the Federal Reserve faces more criticism after core inflation rose at its highest rate for over a year. Consumer price inflation for January came in higher than expected, at 0.4 per cent month-on-month. Core prices – excluding food [...]
REVERSE QE2, SAYS FED’S RICHARD FISHER February 17, 2011 AS THE American economy improves, the Federal Reserve should consider reversing its controversial asset purchasing scheme (QE2), senior Fed official Richard Fisher said yesterday. When the time comes to tighten policy, “one could make an argument that the most logical thing to do is to undo what you did last,” he told Bloomberg News. Yesterday [...]
Fed boost for US recovery February 16, 2011 POSITIVE data from the US has caused the Federal Reserve to raise its forecasts for economic growth, it was revealed last night. “Participants generally expressed greater confidence that the economic recovery would be sustained,” the Fed revealed in minutes of its last rate setting meeting in January. The GDP growth forecast was increased to a [...]
US input costs rising but housebuilding up February 16, 2011 US core producer prices rose to their highest rate in more than two years in January, hinting at a potentially troubling build-up in inflationary pressures. A separate dataset from the Commerce Department showed new housing starts jumped 14.6 per cent in January from December to their highest level since September, beating economists’ forecasts but still [...]
US lawmakers oppose bank dividend plans February 15, 2011 Seven US Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern that big banks, some of which are still benefiting from government financial support, plan to boost their dividends and reduce capital. “It seems hard to justify reducing the capital of banks without considering the continued government support that banks with outstanding guarantees enjoy,” the House of Representatives members [...]