WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 8, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES MOVE TO SYNTHETIC US JUNK BONDS Demand is growing for “synthetic” financial instruments that enable investors to take positions in the US junk bond market without owning the underlying securities. The instruments, created by using credit derivatives on junk bond or high-yield indices, resemble transactions linked to US mortgages that proliferated before the [...]
Why the consumer is no longer king March 7, 2011 WHY are so many people still in denial? The era of debt-fuelled spending, from the private and the public sector, is over. A crisis caused by excessive and underpriced debt cannot be resolved by borrowing even more. It is a simple proposition. Virtually all companies, many individuals and some governments now understand this – but [...]
Fixed mortgage rates increase March 7, 2011 The average rate of interest on a two-year fixed rate mortgage has increased to 4.59 per cent, its highest level in ten months, according to the Moneyfacts website. Yet tracker rates have dropped to 3.4 per cent, as lenders look to tempt mortgage holders onto deals that follow the central Bank rate of interest.
ABN AMRO profit seven times higher March 4, 2011 Dutch state-owned bank ABN AMRO, which is being readied for a stock market listing in 2014, said operating profit surged sevenfold in 2010 after loan losses fell. The Dutch state nationalised the local ABN AMRO and Fortis entities in 2008 after the dramatic failure of a three-pronged hostile takeover of ABN AMRO by Royal Bank [...]
Taylor Wimpey returns to profit March 3, 2011 Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey swung to an underlying annual profit, ahead of expectations, and said it was evaluating proposals for its North American business. The builder is in the process of selling its Taylor Morrison operations to pay down debt and focus on its domestic market, with a growing list of potential buyers, including Canada’s privately-held [...]
CITY VIEWS: IS THIS THE RIGHT TIME TO START SAVING? March 2, 2011 Save or Borrow peer to peer at RateSetter.com HARRY DUNNE | INSURANCE BROKER “There’s no point in saving money. Interest rates are not appealing at the minute and the best thing you can do is pay off your mortgage.” WILLIAM LEWIS | HAMPDEN CAPITAL “This is not the right moment to start saving. Interest rates [...]
House sales rise in February March 1, 2011 House prices rose unexpectedly in February after a small fall at the start of the year, according to figures from the Nationwide. Prices climbed by a seasonally adjusted 0.3 per cent month-on-month, defying economists’ forecasts for a fall of 0.3 per cent following January’s 0.1 per cent drop. The annual rate of house price inflation [...]
What the other papers say this morning February 28, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES NORTHERN ROCK TO OFFER 90 PER CENT MORTGAGES Northern Rock is poised to launch a range of mortgages offering up to 90 per cent of a property’s value, marking the nationalised bank’s return to riskier lending three years after its collapse and government bail-out. The lossmaking lender could make the new high loan-to-value [...]
Appetite for borrowing stays low as mortgage market remains in slump February 23, 2011 BRITAIN’S slump in mortgage lending continued in January, the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) revealed yesterday. Mortgage approvals for house purchases stuck at 28,932 for the month – virtually unchanged from December’s figure of 28,907, which was close to a two-year low. Mortgage approvals tumbled 20.9 per cent year-on-year, to less than half the average monthly [...]
US home sales rise 2.7 per cent February 23, 2011 Sales of previously-owned US homes rose unexpectedly in January, but prices tumbled to the lowest in nearly nine years, a US industry group has said. The National Association of Realtors said sales climbed 2.7 per cent month on month to an annual rate of 5.36 million units from a downwardly revised 5.22 million pace. Compared [...]