FTSE up on Fed boost February 27, 2013 THE blue chip index rallied this morning, gaining around 0.3 per cent in early deals, as strong sentiment from the US Fed boosted trading. Last night US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke leapt to the defence of its unprecedented QE programme. A slew of positive earnings updates from large-cap companies also lifted investor sentiment. In [...]
UK failing to rebalance exports to growth markets, says HSBC February 26, 2013 BRITAIN is failing to rebalance its exports, an HSBC report warns today, with the top destinations for UK goods and services set to stay exactly the same throughout the coming decades. Germany, the USA and France will still be the top three buyers of UK exports in 2030, despite politicians’ insistence that the country needs [...]
City Moves for 27 February 2013 | Who’s switching jobs February 26, 2013 Lloyds The bank has announced the appointment of David Weatherhead as regional trade director for London and the south east. He will focus on medium-sized businesses with turnovers of up to £500m. Weatherhead has over 24 years’ banking experience, and joins Lloyds from RBS. He sits on the London Chamber of Commerce’s Security and Defence [...]
Italian deadlock weighs on FTSE February 26, 2013 The leading share index sank this morning as Italy voted for a hung parliament, which spooked stock markets. Italy faced political deadlock after a protest vote left no party or no likely coalition with enough seats to form a majority. In early trading, the FTSE 100 was down almost 1.3 per cent, with financial shares [...]
Chinese factory recovery stalls in February on export order dip February 25, 2013 A TURNAROUND in export orders put the brakes on the Chinese manufacturing recovery during February, according to a prominent business survey released yesterday. The health of China’s manufacturing sector was improving in the second month of 2013, according to Markit and HSBC’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the Asian giant, but at a substantially reduced pace compared [...]
FTSE shrugs off downgrade February 25, 2013 THE blue chip index rose this morning – led by headline mining and banking shares – on signs that the US and Japan would continue loose monetary policy for some time. The FTSE 100 was up 0.7 per cent in early deals, as the market brushed off Moody’s downgrade of the UK’s AAA credit rating, [...]
Sterling slides to 16-month low February 25, 2013 Following Moody's action on Friday, downgrading the UK's AAA-rating, sterling has fallen to a 16-month low against the dollar this morning. (Source: Yahoo!Finance) From the Editor's column: The real problem, as HSBC’s currency team, led by David Bloom, noted last night, is that markets “expected [Osborne’s] plan to succeed and sterling [...]
Loss of UK’s AAA-rating will intensify the pressure on sterling February 25, 2013 GIVEN George Osborne’s failure to cut spending enough, his wrong-headed decision to rely primarily on tax hikes during the first years of his austerity plan and his inability to push through growth-enhancing reforms, the UK’s loss of its AAA rating had long become inevitable. The rating agencies have made lots of silly calls in the [...]
Mortgage rates fall to new low with state aid February 21, 2013 MORTGAGE interest rates dropped to their lowest level ever in February, new figures showed yesterday, six months after the Bank of England started offering banks cheap funding in an effort to boost lending to the private sector. The average five-year fixed mortgage costs just 4.14 per cent, according to finance research site MoneyFacts. That is [...]
Our pensions time bomb is the worst in the world February 19, 2013 UK WORKERS are worryingly under-prepared for retirement, data out this morning has revealed, with many predicted to run out of savings just seven years after leaving work. The UK came at the top of a table of the world’s worst savers, with the average Briton facing a financial shortfall of 63 per cent over the [...]