Letters to the Editor – 16/10 – Rational markets, EU relationship, Best of Twitter October 15, 2013 Rational markets [Re: What the latest Nobel Prize winners in economics can teach us, yesterday] Of course rational market theory assumes investors use all information in a detached and continuous way, and completely ignores behavioural finance. And the idea of mean reversion is correct in theory, but in practice often there are new informational disturbances [...]
Construction increases in July on new work, repair and maintenance September 13, 2013 Results for UK construction output show a 2.2 per cent increase in July, following 0.7 per cent growth in June. This is up 2.0 per cent from July 2012 . This rise in new work is in contrast to the estimated 3.6% fall in repair & maintenance during the same period. The result covers both the [...]
Letters to the Editor – 03/10 – Help to Buy solution, Best of Twitter October 2, 2013 Help to Buy solution [Re: Help to Buy, yesterday] As a former chairman and chief executive of Alliance & Leicester, I welcome the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme. The decision to solicit the assistance of the Bank of England Financial Policy Committee recognises the need to manage the scheme’s potential risk – a task that [...]
Letters to the Editor – 01/11 – Regional growth, National security, Best of Twitter October 31, 2013 Regional growth [Re: Why the rest of the UK is failing to keep up with London’s explosive growth, Wednesday] Paul Ormerod is spot on – rigid pay structures outside of London have surely played a role in decreasing competitiveness in the rest of the country. National wage rates in the public sector don’t help. There’s [...]
Nuclear deal brings Iran in from the cold November 25, 2013 OIL PRICES fell sharply overnight after Iran agreed to give up some of its nuclear ambitions and key world powers pledged to suspend certain sanctions. Brent crude oil shed $2.29 to $108.69 (£66.94) a barrel, its biggest daily drop in a month, while US oil dived $1.09 to $93.75 a barrel after the deal, which [...]
London Report: FTSE rises again on talk of £1bn bid for G4S arm October 21, 2013 BRITAIN’S top share index rose for the eighth straight session yesterday, led by G4S on talk of a bid for one of its businesses in a market supported by the prospects of US monetary policy remaining ultra-loose for longer. G4S rose 3.5 per cent, a top riser, after a report that British private equity group [...]
Letters to the Editor – 04/10 – Business growth, Stamp duty, Best of Twitter October 3, 2013 Business growth [Re: Cameron needs growth gazelles to bring life to his land of opportunity, yesterday] The Prime Minister’s gazelles will find it difficult to leap with elephants in the room. Indeed, our recent research looked in depth at certain features of over 250 companies – around 54 per cent with no serious financial issues and [...]
Artificially limiting rises in house prices will do more harm than good September 15, 2013 ECONOMISTS should be humbled by Friedrich Hayek’s famous plea: “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” If only government and central banks – and those who lobby them – realised how little good came from their proposed interventions, and how [...]
Help to Buy isn’t the answer to the Conservative predicament September 29, 2013 WITH just 20 months to go before the general election, the Tories need to get their skates on. While many London-centric, private sector employed middle class professionals see Ed Miliband as an unelectable joke, the rest of the country disagrees. YouGov puts Labour 11 points ahead, suggesting a 100 seat majority for Miliband’s party, partly [...]
Letters to the Editor – 23/10 – Nuclear costs, Best of Twitter October 22, 2013 Nuclear costs [Re: Nuclear deal to cost £1bn, yesterday] The proposed cost of Hinkley nuclear plant, and the fact it will not be in working order until 2023, shows that Ed Davey’s plans have failed to address our short-term energy crisis and the issue of power running out by 2015. There should be a focus on [...]