Consumers win with rise in jobs and earnings – London week ahead January 18, 2015 UNEMPLOYMENT is falling while earnings are rising, figures out this week are expected to show, sending good news for consumers. Data due out on Wednesday is likely to show the labour market continuing to strengthen. Howard Archer, of IHS Global Insight, said: “We expect claimant count to have fallen by 25,000 in December to stand [...]
Inflation has fallen below target: Should the UK be worried? January 13, 2015 Lower price rises are a boost for the UK but something to be feared in Europe. Why target inflation? Inflation is the increase in average prices in the economy over a period of time – normally a year. It is calculated by looking at a typical basket of goods, and seeing how the price [...]
Forget howls of deflation anguish: UK inflation at 0.5 per cent is very welcome January 13, 2015 UK inflation is now more than one percentage point below the official target for the first time since the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was established in 1997. What does this tell us about the outlook for the British economy? If past precedent had been followed, we could have seen the views of the MPC on [...]
Mark Carney says deflation is possible and wouldn’t be a problem, refuses to be tied to date for interest rate hike January 13, 2015 Mark Carney has tonight refused to rule out the UK entering deflation after figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed the Consumer Price Index slowed to just 0.5 per cent in December. Speaking to ITV, the governor of the Bank of England said that deflation was possible “in a given month on a year-on-year [...]
Greggs’ Christmas sales jump, as it anticipates results above previous expectations January 13, 2015 Bakery Greggs has enjoyed strong sales over the Christmas period. Like-for-like own shop sales climbed 8.2 per cent, after it put the "food-on-the-go" customer at the centre of its focus over the holiday season. For the financial year, total sales grew 5.5 per cent, with like-for-like sales up 4.5 per cent. The company's estate improvement [...]
Inflation falling after price wars over Christmas – London week ahead January 11, 2015 CONSUMER price inflation figures for December, due out tomorrow, will shine a light on to what extent falling oil prices and intense retail competition have boosted spending power in the UK. Analysts says the fall in inflation is likely to have been tempered by the fact that there was more retail discounting than usual in [...]
Deflation spiral: Who would be the winners and losers? January 8, 2015 Yesterday it was finally confirmed the embattled eurozone slipped into deflation in the final month of 2014. Consumer prices slid into negative territory with a -0.2 per cent year-on-year inflation rate. This marked a significant fall from November when prices rose by 0.3 per cent according to Eurostat. This has fuelled concern the eurozone could [...]
Falling inflation set to prevent rate hike today January 7, 2015 CITY A.M.’s panel of economists have voted in favour of keeping interest rates at record lows of 0.5 per cent. Bank of England (BoE) officials will announce their latest decision at 12 noon today. The main concerns among our shadow monetary policy committee were inflation, growth and uncertainty. Inflation dropped to one per cent in November [...]
Eurozone deflation: Who are the winners and losers? January 7, 2015 Deflationary death spiral There's good and bad deflation. malign or benign deflation. "Malign deflation, the kind that accompanied the Great Depression, is a consequence of shurnken spending, corproate earnings, and payrolls … prices aren't falling due to abundant goods & services but because there's less money to go around." Benign deflation … results from improvements [...]
Eurozone deflation: Euro area posts negative rate for the first time since 2009 January 7, 2015 There was yet more misery for the Eurozone this morning as it entered deflation for the first time since 2009. Eurozone inflation dropped to -0.2 per cent compared with a year earlier, according to official data released by Eurostat. This was more than the -0.1 per cent economists had forecast for December. It's largely due [...]