Bellway profits jump on robust London growth March 27, 2012 HOUSEBUILDER Bellway has said profits before tax more than doubled in the first half of the year as higher selling prices and a strong demand for homes in the south continued to underpin growth. The company, which operates from over 200 sales outlets in the UK, reported a 69 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to [...]
Research: Low interest rates caused crisis March 25, 2012 BANKS were pushed into risky lending by low interest rates, creating the sub-prime bubble and causing the global financial crash, new research out claims – and low rates could again be failing to help the economy in the long run. Low rates in the US and other western economies in the 2000s led banks to [...]
Osborne’s middle class tax bombshell March 22, 2012 THERE was a time when the 40p income tax rate was paid only by a tiny minority. No longer. Next year, 5m taxpayers – 15 per cent of the total – will pay this higher rate, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, compared with only 3.7m a year ago. For a chancellor supposedly committed [...]
WHAT DOES THE CHANCELLOR’S BUDGET MEAN FOR YOU? March 21, 2012 CATHERINE GANNON, 50,MANAGING DIRECTOR OF LAW FIRM GANNON Catherine lives with her children, aged nine and 11, in a home she owns with a mortgage. She set up her firm nine years ago and worries about red tape and taxes. When travelling to meet clients, she uses the tube. She earns over £100,000, and has [...]
Cuts to deficit will calm Moody’s nerves March 21, 2012 CHIEF GLOBAL STRATEGIST, CITY INDEX THE UK Budget has the basic requirements to keep credit agencies at bay – for now. The plan is to enact a 7 per cent stamp duty on property worth more than £2m, slash the main corporate tax rate to 24 per cent, lift the personal allowance by £1,100 to [...]
George Osborne’s plans for government-backed credit will be a terrible mistake March 20, 2012 TODAY is Budget day and I fear the chancellor is about to announce some really bad proposals to offer extra credit to house-buyers, small business owners and school-leavers. These are based on ideas spawned from the financial crisis’s original sin: the fallacy that what ails the economy is too much free-market capitalism, rather than too [...]
FX MARKETS FOLLOWING THE BOND MARKETS RATHER THAN EQUITIES March 19, 2012 DIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT OVER the past several weeks, the FX market has undergone a monumental change. Bonds not stocks have become the primary driver of trade for currencies and that one dynamic has been able to explain most of the movement in the dollar both up and down. Instead of the old mantra [...]
Rating blow must act as wake-up call March 14, 2012 FIRST it was Moody’s, now it is Fitch’s turn. Ahead of next week’s Budget, the decision by the credit rating agency to put the UK on negative credit watch last night is another blow to George Osborne, the chancellor, who had made retaining Britain’s AAA-rating a key priority. Fitch’s decision puts the chance of a [...]
Dollar boosted by Fed QE3 stimulus restraint March 14, 2012 THE Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) followed expectations by holding rates yesterday, and at the same time dispelled the possibility of an immediate third round of quantitative easing (QE3). Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke pointed to “an improving economic situation”, though checked any untoward optimism by acknowledging that economic growth would be moderate. The central [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 12, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES EARNINGS FORECASTS TAKE A BULLISH TURN Analysts last week upgraded more companies’ earnings forecasts globally than they downgraded for the first time since May last year. After 41 weeks of consecutive downgrades, net earnings per share revisions for next year turned positive powered by a surge in upgrades of Japanese companies and industrial [...]