Christmas countdown: The best shopping destinations in London, from Tiffany’s on Old Bond St to the Hyper Japan market at Olympia November 11, 2014 London is renowned as one of the great shopping centres of the world, a constantly evolving playground for anyone with money to spend and time to spend it. Whether you’re looking for hip new openings – like those from Bally, Richard James and Hackett – or stalwarts that are guaranteed to come up with [...]
A second look at portfolio risk: Are you really playing it safe? October 28, 2014 I’VE NEVER been a fan of the “best buy” lists published by the major fund platforms. But I always find it interesting to see what is attracting the hard-earned savings of private investors. The best-selling funds lists for September reveal the usual suspects: UK equity income, emerging markets and a couple of specific sector funds [...]
Is Ed Miliband a rational economic person? Or is it all about narrative? November 11, 2014 THE LEADER of the Labour party has provided us with a very effective piece of forward guidance. Ed Miliband’s statement that he would bring in a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2m has already had a dramatic impact. The market for expensive properties in London has more or less ground to a halt, [...]
Housing boom is nationwide September 16, 2014 HOUSE prices boomed at record rates across the UK in the year to July, according to official data released yesterday, despite separate and more recent figures showing growth rates levelling off. Prices rose 11.7 per cent in the year to July with London leading the way at 19.1 per cent. Prices paid by first-time buyers [...]
Balfour Beatty share price climbs after it rejects a £1bn bid from JLIF for its PFI contracts December 5, 2014 Balfour Beatty has rejected a £1bn bid for its lucrative portfolio of infrastructure contracts from John Laing Infrastructure Fund (JLIF), saying it’s not enough. Shares in the UK’s largest construction firm climbed more than three per cent after it said the bid falls “significantly short” of its value. The firm said its value stood at [...]
Our housing crisis will become a catastrophe without a national crusade to fix it September 24, 2014 HOUSING is a basic human right, and we are denying it to our children. If current house price rises continue, babies born today will pay £6.3m in 2048 for a one bedroom London flat. Already, at around £428,000, the average London house price is over 16 times the average national salary. There is a vast [...]
In pictures: Here’s what the UK’s most expensive garage will look like once it’s redeveloped October 30, 2014 A garage off the King's Road in Chelsea has sold for a staggering £550,000, it has been reported, having been on sale for a mere two weeks. The garage, which even by outbuilding standards is pretty ramshackle, is 11ft by 7ft – that's enough space for one car. Source: Google Maps The plan had originally [...]
London Stock Exchange share price rises as boss Xavier Rolet pursues his American dream November 13, 2014 The US is set for a “golden decade”, London Stock Exchange (LSE) boss Xavier Rolet said yesterday, praising the shift to business-friendly policies in American politics. Rolet is boosting the group’s American revenues in a bid to make the most of what he predicts will be a boom in the US. After other exchanges tried [...]
Policy makers are set to delay first rate hike October 22, 2014 A COOLING housing market, low inflation, and a troubled Eurozone made for more dovish tones at this months meeting of the monetary policy committee. The meeting was held on the 7 and 8 October but the minutes were made available yesterday. As in the previous three meetings the vote to hold rates was won by [...]
Construction in London dodged recession’s bite October 8, 2014 CONSTRUCTION in the capital has been invulnerable to the financial crisis and the following recession with growth now predicted to surpass its trend level. The last three months will have seen activity soar above its pre-crisis trend, according to data from Scape, a government owned construction company. The remaining figures are from the Office of [...]