UK mortgage approvals fall as Brexit uncertainty bites March 26, 2019 Mortgage approvals in the UK have fallen year-on-year as homebuyers put off their decisions amid political uncertainty, new data has revealed. The number of mortgages approved by the main high street banks in February was 2.2 per cent lower than the same month in 2018, the finance and business services body UK Finance said today. [...]
ETP and gold flows December 4, 2020 Twenty-one percent of all dollars in circulation were printed in 2020 a number that tends to be mentioned a lot by monetary policy doomsayers and Bitcoin maximalists alike; on the other side of the fence, arguments are that inflation is nowhere to be seen, let alone hyperinflation. With interest rates expected to remain near record [...]
DEBATE: Are falling house prices in London a good thing? January 18, 2019 Are falling house prices in London a good thing? Daniel Hegarty, founder and chief executive of digital mortgage broker Habito, says YES. Provided it stops at a pricing correction and doesn’t go further, the drop in house prices is good news. London’s sky-high prices have left the average 34-year-old first-time buyer needing to borrow 13 times [...]
Boohoo set to swoop for bankrupt Oasis and Warehouse June 16, 2020 Online fashion giant Boohoo is set to announce the purchase of high street brands Oasis and Warehouse, which went bankrupt at the end of April. Sky News reported that the deal could be announced tomorrow when Boohoo releases its first quarter results. When the two brands collapsed into administration on 30 April, with 1,803 redundancies, [...]
Lockdown blues: Breakups and divorces support UK house prices July 21, 2020 The property market is currently defying gravity, with asking prices hitting an all-time high in July and spirits buoyant after the chancellor slashed the stamp duty homes tax. But estate agents say a less-publicised factor has been helping the property sector ride out economic turbulence better than most had predicted: A surge in lockdown breakups [...]
New car sales fall in ‘disappointing’ August for market September 4, 2020 New car sales dropped again last month, reversing July’s increase, with just over 87,000 models sold in what is traditionally one of the quietest months for trading. According to new figures from the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders, new car sales fell 5.8 per cent in August. In July, the first full month of [...]
Screenshot: Will Facebook regret going nuclear over Australian news? February 19, 2021 This week **Media Moment of the Week: A jumbo jab mix-up **Will Facebook regret going nuclear in Australia? **Arm’s getting chippy Media Moment of the Week: A jumbo jab mix-up When Liam Thorp received a text inviting him for his first Covid jab he was confused, given the healthy 32-year-old is pretty low down the [...]
Monsoon Accessorize owner buys retailer out of administration, with 545 jobs lost June 10, 2020 Monsoon Accessorize founder Peter Simon has bought the struggling business out of administration, in a move which aims to save both brands but cuts 545 jobs in the process. As a result of the deal, 35 of the company’s stores across the UK will close, resulting in the initial job losses. Simon will try to [...]
Housing minister James Brokenshire ‘concerned’ over Persimmon’s Help to Buy scheme, reports say February 23, 2019 Housing minister James Brokenshire has raised concerns that Persimmon is not operating correctly within the Help-to-Buy scheme, according to reports. Brokenshire is “increasingly concerned” over the behaviour of the UK’s second biggest housebuilder, raising issues over leasehold, build quality and accountability, a source told Reuters. “Leasehold, build quality, their leadership seemingly not getting they’re accountable [...]
Credit card lending fell for the first time in March May 1, 2020 UK consumers’ credit card debt fell for the first time since records began in March, as lockdown measures froze spending. The annual growth rate of credit card lending fell to minus 0.3 per cent, the first negative annual growth since the Bank of England (BoE) started tracking the data. The annual growth rate of other [...]