London Report: UK’s corporate calendar packed in results season July 28, 2013 THE CORPORATE calendar is packed this week, as businesses including ITV, BP, Lloyds, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland update the market amid a swathe of other results. The week begins with figures from Fidessa Group, Hammerson, InterContinental Hotels Group, Intertek Group, JKX Oil & Gas, Keller Group, Senior, Vernalis, Reckitt Benckiser Group, National Grid, [...]
How an ageing Britain can grow old and avoid a looming longevity crisis July 23, 2013 BRITAIN’s future is getting greyer. In its most recent fiscal sustainability report, the Office of Budget Responsibility recognised that we are living longer and need more care. But we haven’t saved enough. The state won’t be able to keep us, and the dependency ratio will only worsen as fewer workers struggle to fund more pensioners. [...]
The retail funding myth – why the investment banks aren’t to blame June 24, 2013 BANKS used retail deposits to gamble on the investment banking casino!” That is the common perception of the cause behind the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The popular belief is that retail deposits, instead of being used to fund “safe” traditional retail lending like mortgages, were used to fund high-risk derivatives trading on the international capital markets. [...]
Funding for Lending isn’t working: Why the Bank is missing the point April 29, 2013 IN THE debate about why Britain’s monetary policy is not working, there has been too much focus on whether the Bank of England should buy more government bonds or move to negative interest rates. Both miss the point. The primary reason monetary policy is not working is that the transmission mechanism is broken. There is [...]
Liberalise planning and housebuilding can revive growth April 27, 2013 THE UK economy has avoided a triple-dip recession, but recovery is proving elusive. GDP is still 2.6 per cent below its pre-crisis peak and only 0.4 per cent greater than in the third quarter of 2011. Some sectors remain very depressed – most obviously construction, where output is 18 per cent down from its peak. [...]
Why Osborne’s housing subsidies feel right out of the 1970s March 24, 2013 IT is all too easy to make comparisons between the behaviour of current politicians and those of their historic predecessors. But basic economic errors seem ingrained in the nature of those in positions of power, and keep happening in almost cyclical fashion, albeit always in superficially very different circumstances. I have previously compared George Osborne [...]
Osborne’s gambled on the wrong policy March 23, 2013 THERE is a striking paradox at the heart of George Osborne’s approach to the economy, as demonstrated yet again in yesterday’s Budget. He was remarkably risk-averse with his tax and spend policies, refusing to embrace the kinds of shock and awe tax reforms many of us wanted, or to cut spending faster, though he did [...]
Bernanke vow on stimulus cheers Wall St February 27, 2013 NEW YORK REPORT US stocks rallied for a second straight day yesterday as Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke reaffirmed his strong support for the Fed’s stimulus efforts, while the euro climbed after solid demand at an auction of Italian government debt. Data on US housing and durable goods added to bullish sentiment in stocks, with [...]
First-time buys up to five year high in London February 26, 2013 FIRST-TIMERS rushed back to the London housing market in 2012, with first-time sales up to their highest since 2007. London housing transactions involving first-time buyers rocketed up 15 per cent between 2011 and 2012, from 32,400 to 37,300, according to Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) figures out yesterday. And the figure continued to rise through to the [...]
Pound plummets as Tucker talks experimental policy February 26, 2013 Monetary Policy Committee member Paul Tucker has been talking foreign exchange during the Treasury Select Committee, remarking that it would be foolish to engage in a currency war. Tucker dismissed activism as foolish, saying that we must avoid slipping back into protectionism, must avoid balkanisation in global finance and beggar-thy-neighbour policies generally. However Tucker has [...]