Pound jumps against dollar as Bank of England minutes reveal interest rate vote dissent August 20, 2014 Two members of the Bank of England's rate-setting monetary policy committee (MPC) voted in favour of raising interest rates by 25 basis points to 0.75 per cent during the August meeting, minutes published today showed. This is the first time since 2011 the committee has been split on interest rates. The vote took economists by [...]
“I bleed Microsoft”: Steve Ballmer’s Microsoft resignation letter August 20, 2014 Former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has resigned from its board to focus on his new hobby, running US basketball team the LA Clippers. After 14 years on Microsoft's board, it is unlikely the decision came lightly. Here is his resignation letter to new chief executive Satya Nadella, explaining he had "not spent any time [...]
Swing Copters: The new game by Flappy Bird’s creator comes out on Thursday August 19, 2014 Deep breath: Dong Nguyen, the man behind Flappy Bird, says he is in the process of creating a new game. This version is called Swing Copters, and it will be available to download on Thursday. The previews released by Nguyen feel eerily familiar: whereas Flappy Bird players touched the screen to keep their feathered friend [...]
Former London Lehman Brothers workers will be paid their pensions in full August 19, 2014 Former employees of Lehman Brothers have won a battle to have their pensions paid in full, after The Pensions Regulator brokered a deal worth £184m with the remaining parts of the collapsed US investment bank. Under the deal, the scheme's 2,400 members, will receive £75,000 each. Back in 2010, two years after the bank's collapse, [...]
Pound plummets to four-month low against the dollar on disappointing inflation figure August 19, 2014 Sterling dropped to a four-month low against the dollar in morning trading, after figures by the Office for National Statistics showed UK inflation slid to 1.6 per cent in July. The pound dipped 0.61 per cent against the dollar to below $1.663, its lowest level since April. Against the euro, it fell 0.32 per cent, [...]
No more bubble? UK house price growth falls to 10.2 per cent August 19, 2014 House price hysteria has calmed slightly with prices rising by a marginally more modest 10.2 per cent in the year to June, compared with 10.4 per cent in May, official figures showed today. According to the Office for National Statistics' House Price Index, London and the South East continued to drive growth, with prices [...]
BHP Billiton share price drops as it pushes ahead with $14bn spin-off August 19, 2014 BHP Billiton, the world’s second-largest miner, has confirmed plans to spin off some of its assets into a new metals and mining company worth $14bn (£8.38bn), effectively undoing the 2001 merger that created it. Among the assets to be demerged are aluminium, coal, manganese, nickel and silver mines, including the Cannington silver and lead [...]
Inflation drops to 1. 6 per cent as summer sales drive prices down August 19, 2014 Official figures published this morning showed the consumer prices index, the government's pet measure of inflation, fell to 1.6 per cent in the year to July, down from 1.9 per cent in June and way below the 1.8 per cent expected by analysts. The fall was mainly down to clothing prices, which dropped 5.7 per [...]
Bitcoin crashes to below $500 August 18, 2014 Bitcoin has crashed to below $500 for the first time since May, dipping as low as $309 on BTC-e, the world’s third-largest Bitcoin exchange. The “flash crash” put an end to a relatively stable period for Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency has been the subject of big sell-offs since last week. Cryptocurrency site CoinDesk reckons it has shed [...]
London rental prices grow at slowest pace in the UK August 18, 2014 London’s rental market has inflated at record speed in recent years as high house prices prevented swathes of potential first-time buyers from taking the leap. In fact last June average rent in the capital stood at £1,295 per month, just over £500 more than prices in the South West, the next-most expensive region. But [...]
