Q&A: BUYING November 5, 2009 Camilla DellMANAGING PARTNER AT BLACK BRICKQ. Dear Camilla, I am in the process of buying a house and my surveyor has found some structural problems. Should I be worried? Can I negotiate the price down in order to pay for these faults? At what point should I pull out? A. You should talk to your [...]
Bubblenomics is back with a vengeance November 4, 2009 IT is time to worry about the next bubble – not just in the UK, but in markets all over the world. Earlier this year, I wrote a column in this space arguing that the housing market in the UK was no longer over-valued, based on historic price to earnings ratios and a range of [...]
Wimpey set to hike house prices in 2010 November 4, 2009 HOUSEBUILDER Taylor Wimpey is set to hike its house prices next year after yesterday reporting it had sold all the homes it targeted for 2009. The group said the average selling price for private homes has already jumped nine per cent higher in the 12 weeks to 4 November than the £177,670 it reported in [...]
UBS unveils another loss amid reshape November 3, 2009 SWISS bank UBS has reported a third quarter loss of SFr564.4m (£337m) after being hit by a hike in accounting charges. The result means the bank has now suffered four successive quarters of losses as it restructures in the face of the credit crunch. UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, has been particularly badly hit by the [...]
Rock gets go-ahead to split October 28, 2009 CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling ruled out the prospect of a quick sale of Northern Rock yesterday, despite winning backing from the European Union to split the troubled lender into a “good” and “bad” bank ahead of a sell-off. EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes approved the government’s proposals to split the Newcastle-based bank, led by chairman Ron [...]
We need to shake up consumer banking October 28, 2009 YESTERDAY was the 80th anniversary of the Great Crash of 1929. Like the present crisis, which has fortunately turned out to be much less severe, the bubble of the 1920s was caused primarily by errors in monetary policy and a misunderstanding of the way the economy works. There was too much cheap money sloshing around [...]
Weak banks and miners pull FTSEdown by one per cent October 26, 2009 THE FTSE 100 share index ended 1 per cent lower yesterday, with mining and energy stocks suffering as the US dollar rose and commodity prices fell, while a sharp decline in ING put pressure on financials. The index ended down 50.83 points at 5,191.74, having risen as high as 5,281.12 earlier in the session. It [...]
Play the Bank’s QE decision with a punt on gilts October 25, 2009 THIS year we have witnessed the Bank of England take the unprecedented step of buying billions of pounds worth of assets – mostly government bonds – in order to loosen monetary policy further than can be achieved through interest rate cuts alone. It goes without saying that this policy of quantitative easing (QE) has had [...]
Number of US banking failures surges through the 100 mark October 25, 2009 THE number of US banks going bust has passed 100 this year, the highest rate of failure in 17 years. The subprime crisis continues to wreak havoc, with US regulators shutting seven more banks over the weekend. Three banks in Florida alone were wound up bringing the total of failed lenders to 106 in 2009, [...]
Availability of credit improving but lending remains subdued October 22, 2009 THE flow of lending to UK businesses improved markedly in August but still remained in negative territory, the Bank of England said yesterday. Its monthly Trends in Lending report also showed that, following robust capital market issuance over recent months, net funds raised by UK businesses weakened in August. The report said repayments outstripped new [...]