The unravelling of China’s exceptionalism October 9, 2012 MARKETS across the world were given a boost yesterday when the Chinese central bank pumped tonnes of liquidity into the country’s banking system for the second time in a fortnight. The People’s Bank of China injected 265bn yuan (£26bn) into the money market via reverse purchase agreements, adding to the 2.418 trillion yuan offered since [...]
Brazil lures private sector in bid to boost economy August 15, 2012 BRAZIL’S President yesterday announced that up to 133bn real (£42bn) will be put into boosting infrastructure work across the country, in a bid to kick-start the supposedly emerging economy back to life. President Dilma Rousseff’s plan will utilise the private sector in building roads and railways, while delivering other supply side reforms. The reforms include [...]
Building firms going under June 17, 2012 BUILDING firms are more than twice as likely to go into liquidation as those in other sectors, according to Graydon UK’s insolvency predictor for this quarter. “Construction firms are being hit hard as many long term capital expenditure projects, particularly those funded by the government, are coming to an end,” said Graydon UK’s Gordon Skaljak.
More public spending is unlikely to multiply into stronger economic growth September 4, 2012 THE debate rages on about whether the chancellor should implement a Plan B, or C or D, or even Z. There’s a plethora of alternatives for George Osborne to choose from, but many of them share a key common theme: that an increase in public spending will boost overall output in the economy. This was [...]
Big business could be more engaged August 5, 2012 BARCLAYS and Vodafone have recently announced investments in London’s Tech City. No doubt some good will come out of this, but if collaborations between big businesses and start-ups are going to make a real difference, leaders of companies should look across the pond to Silicon Valley for best practice. In the Valley, the culture of [...]
We need supply-side reforms not more off-balance sheet spending July 18, 2012 THE government has announced more schemes to “stimulate” investment. We can now add Credit Enhancement and Export Finance Guarantees to previous measures like Funding for Lending, Credit Easing and the National Loans Guarantee Scheme. Against the backdrop of a further growth forecast downgrade from the International Monetary Fund, the need to be seen to “do [...]
Relax liquidity rules to boost lending – CBI July 19, 2012 RULES forcing banks to build up their liquidity buffers should be relaxed to allow lenders to boost lending, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said yesterday. The business group called on the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to urgently loosen the regulations as part of a growth strategy to help the UK escape its economic slump. “The Treasury [...]
WALL ST THE WEEK AHEAD July 22, 2012 THE trend of better-than-expected earnings will be put to the test this week when investors hope Apple can exceed already high expectations and Facebook reports its first quarterly earnings. Apple accounts for a significant proportion of the overall earnings of Standard & Poor’s 500 components. S&P 500 earnings are expected to show a rise of [...]
Co-op boss Peter Marks to leave the firm in May August 7, 2012 CO-OPERATIVE Group chief executive Peter Marks, who rose from the shop floor to lead the supermarket group, yesterday announced he would retire from the business next May after six years at the helm. Marks, who led a deal in June to buy over 600 bank branches from Lloyds Banking Group, said it was “time to [...]
HSBC sets aside $2bn for US investigation and mis-selling July 30, 2012 HSBC’s chief executive has apologised for the embarrassing mistakes made on anti-money laundering controls as the bank set aside $2bn (£1.27bn) to cover the cost of US investigations and compensate UK customers for mis-selling. Europe’s biggest bank reported a 3 per cent dip in underlying profit and said it had made a provision of $700m [...]