Everything you thought you knew about the global banking crisis was wrong January 22, 2014 You thought the crisis was global. You thought the problem was banks’ losses on boom-era loans. You were wrong, according to these startling four charts from Oliver Wyman. Banks in Latin America and Asia-Pacific are doing just fine, the consultancy’s numbers show. Drivers of changes in banking returns 2006-12, for the largest banks in Latin [...]
British manufacturing’s long decline could be about to end March 11, 2014 ROSS Perot, as a US presidential candidate in 1992, infamously decried “the giant sucking sound” of jobs being exported abroad as a result of free trade. It was populist nonsense, of course. Trade creates far more jobs than it destroys – and London’s high value added economy wouldn’t exist without it. That so many low [...]
Wall St The Week Ahead: US companies lowering latest profit forecasts December 8, 2013 US companies are sounding the alarm on fourth-quarter earnings, lowering profit estimates just as the stock market is poised to end its best year since 1998. The ratio of profit warnings to positive outlooks for the current quarter is shaping up to be the worst since at least 1996, based on Thomson Reuters data. More [...]
Letters to the Editor – 19/12 – Airport debate, Best of Twitter December 18, 2013 Airport debate [Re: It’s time to kick politicians out of the crucial debate on airport expansion, Tuesday] The CBI recently noted that direct flights open doors to new trade. We must act on airports, and Heathrow is the best option. It would be quicker to build, and be cheaper than a new Thames Estuary hub. It [...]
Funding for Lending use triples but businesses see much less than households December 2, 2013 Use of the Bank of England's Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) tripled in the third quarter. Net lending jumped to £5.8bn, against £1.6bn in the second quarter – the biggest quarterly net lending flow since the scheme was introduced last summer. The Bank's latest data show that 21 banks and building societies took out £5.5bn [...]
Co-op execs face watchdog probe January 6, 2014 THE BOSSES who oversaw the Co-op Bank’s near collapse last summer are facing enforcement probes from the City’s regulators, the watchdogs said yesterday. Former senior staff at the bank could face fines or bans from the financial sector if they are found to have behaved wrongly in the run up to the lender’s capital crisis. [...]
The government owns far too much land. It must sell a lot off January 7, 2014 SELL, sell, sell – or so we must hope. With a bit of luck, the government is finally about to kick-start a massive and long-overdue sell-off of its vast estate. All of central government’s land and property holdings – worth £330bn – will soon be available for perusal on a Rightmove-style website. Individuals and companies [...]
UK banking regulator sets out capital standards November 29, 2013 The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) announced on Friday that major banks and building societies will be required to have a core capital buffer equivalent to seven per cent of their risk weighted assets from January 2014, as well as comply with a leverage ratio of three per cent. The PRA said in a statement: The [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 17 February 2014 February 17, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Merkel backs EU internet services Momentum for a radical response to the National Security Agency spy scandal is building after Germany’s chancellor backed calls for European internet services that are walled off from the US. Angela Merkel said she would press François Hollande, the French president, to back a push for EU-based alternatives [...]
Recruitment spike for City of London as economy recovers December 1, 2013 THE NUMBER of jobs created in the City of London spiked last month, up by over a third from November 2012, according to a report released this morning. Recruitment firm Astbury Marsden reports that there were 38 per cent more new City jobs in November than 12 months earlier, suggesting that two quarters of economic [...]