Mortgage lending jumps to highest in five years July 18, 2013 LENDING for property purchases leapt to its highest level since the end of 2008 in the second quarter, according to figures released yesterday by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Gross lending between April and June reached £42bn, up nearly a quarter on the previous three months. In June alone, £15bn was lent, rising two [...]
We must urgently fix Britain’s horribly broken housing market July 18, 2013 IT’S called the law of supply and demand, a basic concept that Labour and coalition politicians sometimes find difficult to grasp. If you try to mess with it, it ends up biting you, and hard. Take residential property. In a free market, if the price for something goes up, people tend to produce more of [...]
German finance boss tells Greeks to keep cutting July 18, 2013 GERMAN finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble encouraged Greece’s leaders to carry on with its austerity measures and reforms yesterday, warning that they must not seek further writedowns of the country’s mass debts. Schaeuble held a joint press conference with Greek finance minister Yannis Stournaras during his controversial visit to Athens, as protesters were kept away by [...]
Chance to trade on Royal Mail July 18, 2013 Investors now have their first chance to make money on the privatisation of the Royal Mail by trading on the expected value of the company, before it floats. ETX Capital launched spread-betting on the UK’s postal service late yesterday and is expecting interest today. The financial services firm’s spread for the firm’s valuation is between [...]
£10bn boost from Olympics July 18, 2013 The Olympic and Paralympic Games’ presence in London generated £9.9bn in trade and investment, according to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The government also reports that the total benefits to the UK from having hosted the games could reach £41bn by 2020. BIS also claimed that 70,000 unemployed Londoners moved into jobs [...]
Cause of Boeing fire identified July 18, 2013 British aviation investigators have identified an emergency beacon made by Honeywell International as a likely source of last week’s blaze on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and called for it to be turned off, spurring a rally in Boeing shares by relieved investors. Boeing said the beacon could be removed in about an hour from its [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 19 July 2013 July 18, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Sheikh in Barclays rescue sells stake The Abu Dhabi sheikh who came to the rescue of Barclays Bank with a £3.5bn capital injection at the height of the financial crisis, has sold his stake in the UK bank. The sale of the seven per cent stake – which took place three weeks ago [...]
Morgan Stanley profits soar as economy grows July 18, 2013 PROFITS grew in all of Morgan Stanley’s business lines in the last three months, the US investment bank said yesterday. Trading volumes increased in equities and bonds, wealth management returns improved and underwriting profits improved. The bank reported a profit of $802m (£527m) in the second quarter, up 42 per cent on the same period [...]
US tech giants Microsoft and Google both miss estimates July 18, 2013 TECH behemoths Google and Microsoft disappointed investors with their quarterly earnings last night, sending boths stocks down five per cent in after-hours trading. Google fell short of Wall Street’s forecasts as weakening prices for the company’s adverts and mounting losses from its recent acquisition Motorola weighed on earnings. The world’s biggest search engine said net [...]
Universal Music put into play by a £5.6bn offer July 18, 2013 THE FUTURE of the world’s largest music group, Universal Music, was thrown into uncertainty last night after it emerged that the Japanese telecoms group Softbank had made an $8.5bn (£5.6bn) offer for the firm. Universal’s parent company Vivendi, which is trying to sell telecoms assets, declined to comment yesterday and therefore did not explain why [...]
