Borrowing blues adds to concern on fiscal targets August 21, 2014 Government borrowing fell during July, according to figures released yesterday, but questions about whether the government would meet its current fiscal targets still remained. Public borrowing fell to £0.8m in July this year, cut from £1.6bn in the same month last year, when one-off interventions were removed. However, in the first four months of the [...]
Divergence looms for Eurozone and US in Jackson Hole speeches August 21, 2014 WORLD-famous economists arrived at Jackson Hole yesterday, as the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s annual conference on monetary policy begins. Speeches today will come from Fed chair Janet Yellen and European Central Bank (ECB) boss Mario Draghi, the world’s two most important monetary policymakers. Analysts suspect that the speeches will display an emerging division between the [...]
City Moves for 22 August 2014 | Who’s switching jobs August 21, 2014 RBC Global Asset Management The asset management arm of Royal Bank of Canada has appointed Clive Brown as chief executive and managing director of RBC Global Asset Management International. He joins from JP Morgan Asset Management, where he was global chief operating officer and chairman of Asia. Brown has also previously worked as chief executive [...]
MPC vote split: What does that mean for future interest rate rises? August 20, 2014 Today it was revealed that the monetary policy committee's (MPC) vote on whether to raise interest rates last month was split for the first time in three years, with two dissenters in the ranks arguing a "rapid fall in unemployment alongside survey evidence of tightening in the labour market created a prospect that wage growth [...]
UK pound vs US dollar: Sterling stumbles as markets take dovish signal from Carney August 13, 2014 The pound dropped sharply against the dollar yesterday, as markets took a dovish message from the Bank of England’s update on the economic climate. Sterling plunged to its lowest level in two months as governor Mark Carney spoke, with analysts suggesting that the Bank’s latest inflation report was backtracking from the governor’s more hawkish tones [...]
City Moves for 08 August 2014 | Who’s switching jobs August 8, 2014 Marriott Harrison Daniel Jacob has been appointed corporate partner at the law firm. He joins from Pitmans, where he was head of the London corporate group. Jacob specialises in investment, M&A, and restructuring work, with a particular focus on the hotel, leisure and technology sectors. Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International The investment banking arm of the [...]
UK industrial production misses expectations August 6, 2014 After the service sector beat expectations, UK industrial production reported some remarkably underwhelming numbers for June. Industrial production dribbled up 0.3 per cent between May and June, falling well short of expectations. As if that wasn't inspiring enough, manufacturing grew by only 0.3 as well, according to Office of National Statistics figures. Together the figures couldn't [...]
Inflation slips to lowest since 2009 for Eurozone July 31, 2014 Inflation weakened even further in the Eurozone during July, dropping to just 0.4 per cent, the lowest level since the aftermath of the financial crisis. The consumer price index (CPI) has been growing increasingly slowly since the middle of 2012, and was last above the European Central Bank (ECB) target level of two per cent [...]
Analyst Views: How did you rate Aberdeen Asset Management’s latest set of results? July 28, 2014 HALEY TAM | CITI Fund flows were worse than anticipated from the Swip post-deal, and a one-off institutional equity outflow, which while previously flagged was bigger in scale than expected. Aberdeen has indicated that Swip attrition is partly seasonal. We see share price weakness as an opportunity to buy. PETER LENARDOS | RBC CAPITAL [...]
New Premier Oil boss poaches finance chief from rival Ophir July 27, 2014 PREMIER Oil, the FTSE 250-listed energy explorer, will today announce that it has hired Richard Rose from Ophir Energy to be its finance director, just three months after rejecting a takeover bid from the rival firm. Premier’s chief executive Tony Durrant was promoted from finance director last month, leaving a vacancy. He replaced Simon Lockett [...]