Redevelopment makes Croydon a property hotspot August 6, 2009 WITH most parts of the country in the property doldrums at the moment, there are not too many places that look like clever investments. One that is bucking the trend is Croydon, which will be the next UK city to undergo a serious regeneration. There are plans to inject £3.5bn into the city over the [...]
Quantitative easing: time for a break August 5, 2009 IT IS A CASE of two steps forwards, one step backwards for the UK economy. Today’s good news was that house prices are stabilising, with a strong survey from the Halifax; we also had a great purchasing managers index for services, suggesting that crucial sector is growing once more. But there is also plenty of worrying [...]
A drop in stocks and a rise in QE will undermine sterling’s rally August 4, 2009 IN THE face of a ballooning fiscal deficit, quantitative easing and the deepest recession since the Second World War, sterling rose to a nine-month high against the dollar of $1.7005 in Asian trading yesterday morning. And against the euro, it is just shy of the June highs of €0.8426. It’s hard to believe that as [...]
Rock suffers on bad debts August 4, 2009 NATIONALISED mortgage lender Northern Rock posted a £724.2m first-half loss yesterday, as the number of bad debts trebled. The bank, taken into public ownership in February last year, wrote down £602.2m in bad loans, up 214 per cent on the £191.6m in writedowns it took in the first half of 2008. The outlook for the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 4, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES BMW EYES TIE-UP WITH PEUGEOT FOR MINIBMW is examining whether to share platforms with PSA Peugeot Citroën for its Mini small car, it emerged yesterday, as the German premium carmaker returned to profit in the second quarter on the back of cost-cutting. Norbert Reithofer, BMW’s chief executive, said the company was talking to [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 4, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES BMW EYES TIE-UP WITH PEUGEOT FOR MINIBMW is examining whether to share platforms with PSA Peugeot Citroën for its Mini small car, it emerged yesterday, as the German premium carmaker returned to profit in the second quarter on the back of cost-cutting. Norbert Reithofer, BMW’s chief executive, said the company was talking to [...]
Third rise for house prices July 30, 2009 HOUSE prices rose for the third month in a row in July in a further sign of stability for the UK property market, putting the average price of a UK home at £158,871. The Nationwide monthly survey showed a rise of 1.3 per cent on a seasonally-adjusted basis while the smoother quarter-on-quarter measure rose 2.6 [...]
Third rise for house prices July 30, 2009 HOUSE prices rose for the third month in a row in July in a further sign of stability for the UK property market, putting the average price of a UK home at £158,871. The Nationwide monthly survey showed a rise of 1.3 per cent on a seasonally-adjusted basis while the smoother quarter-on-quarter measure rose 2.6 [...]
NOMURA WALL CANDY IMPRESSES ART-LOVING FORMER LEHMANITES July 29, 2009 AND SO it emerges that Lehman Brothers is preparing to sell 650 of its prized modern and contemporary artworks at auction in the States this winter, hoping to raise a total of $1m for its creditors. (Not that the piddling amount will contribute much to levelling its $250bn debt pile, but every little helps, as [...]
US housing market improves but consumer confidence hit July 28, 2009 US HOME sales rose for the first time in almost three years in May but ongoing weakness in the jobs market hit July consumer confidence hard, data showed yesterday. The S&P/Case-Shiller composite-20 index rose 0.5 per cent month-on-month in May, which saw the annual decline moderate to 17.1 per cent. But these figures are not [...]