Wages left far behind as house prices rocket February 10, 2014 THE AVERAGE salary in England would have grown by £29,000 in the past decade and a half if wages kept up with house price inflation, according to shocking new figures. Research by housing charity Shelter shows that average earnings would have been over £55,000, rather than just below £26,000, if pay had risen at the [...]
Deflation can be good or bad but the Eurozone isn’t facing the bad sort yet February 6, 2014 AT THE European Central Bank (ECB) press conference yesterday, Mario Draghi was asked whether the Eurozone is tipping into deflation and whether the ECB has the tools needed to respond if it does. “Deflation” has become a bogeyman, the thing economists normally agree to fear most. But is that right? That deflation might be a [...]
Best of the Brokers for 4 February 2014 February 3, 2014 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com SUPERGROUP Cantor Fitzgerald has raised its target price for the owner of the Superdry fashion label to 1,650p from 1,400p and kepts its “buy” recommendation. The broker expects the retailer to report third quarter like-for-like sales growth of three per cent and retail [...]
Lloyds: 40pc of our top managers will be women in 2020 February 3, 2014 LLOYDS will hire 600 more female managers over the next six years, the bank’s chief will promise in a speech tomorrow. Antonio Horta Osorio will commit to ensuring 40 per cent of senior staff are female by 2020. Currently 28 per cent of the bank’s 5,000 senior staff are female, equating to 1,400 employees. The [...]
Britain’s consumers still have dangerously high levels of debt February 3, 2014 BRITAIN’S economic debate has moved on. A year ago, commentators were obsessed with whether austerity was good or bad for growth; today, with GDP roaring ahead, the big divide is between those who believe that the UK’s economic recovery is unbalanced and those who believe it will eventually turn out to be just fine. One [...]
Rate hike fear drives up cost of mortgages January 30, 2014 BANKS are already starting to hike the rates on five-year fixed mortgages, new data has revealed, following hints from Bank of England governor Mark Carney that rates will rise in the coming years. Figures seen by City A.M. show the five-year swap rate, used to calculate the loans, hit 1.7 per cent this month, up [...]
Inflation since 2008 crash has hit low-paid hardest January 30, 2014 THE SQUEEZE on UK pay has meant much bigger wage cuts for high earners, but new figures now reveal that above-target inflation has hit households on low incomes most severely of all. On average, the highest incomes tracked by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have dropped by over eight per cent in real terms since 2007-8. [...]
Growth is back – but here are five challenges still facing the UK January 30, 2014 THERE can be no doubt that the UK’s economic picture has improved dramatically. Growth is back, employment is buoyant and optimism is returning. But the economy remains horribly scarred by the downturn, with many issues still needing to be tackled. Here are five especially pressing challenges. 1) Median incomes remain six per cent lower in [...]
Savers are getting crushed – despite rising mortgage rates January 30, 2014 Mortgage interest rates are going up – but Britain’s savers are being crushed again by plunging rates on their accounts. This is not the recovery you wanted if you thought you were doing the right thing by saving up for the future. The justification for loose monetary policy has always been that low interest rates [...]
Mortgages lead lending pickup but firms see less from banks January 30, 2014 The UK saw mortgage approvals hit a six-year high of 71,638 in December, up 29.3 per cent year-on-year, according to the Bank of England (BoE). Lending for mortgages led the marginal pickup in bank lending, which was up 1.3 per cent year-on-year in December. Home lending rose by £1.7bn in December, higher than the £1.05bn [...]