The Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has said that he expects a bailout agreement to be reached in the coming days or weeks during a speech in Brussels. Mr Varoufakis said the country needs a bad bank to unclog the financial system and a development bank funded by the proceeds of privatisation. The European Central…
An Opinion Worth Millions Whoever thought Ben Bernanke’s golden age was terminated on 1st February, 2014, with the end of his tenure as chairman of the US Federal Reserve, was just plain wrong. The ex-chairman has been on a tight and busy schedule for the past year, travelling from town to town, disseminating his wisdom…
It has been a somewhat surreal lead up to the General Election, with the FTSE 100 holding near 7,000, and Sterling holding above $1.50 despite all the uncertainties. Presumably most of us are in denial regarding how much turbulence there could be in the wake of the most hung of hung parliaments. Presumably, things could…
The Greek Government has avoided default for the time being after making a €200 million (£148.8 million) interest payment to the International Monetary Fund. However, a further €750 million (£550 million) is scheduled to be paid on the 12th May and it remains to be seen if this obligation will be met. Talks between Greece…
Capital exodus from the UK – Investors have withdrawn an unprecedented $365 billion from the UK over the past 15 months. There are widespread concerns that the domestic political climate will turn sour in the aftermath of the General Election. During the month of March, outflows accelerated to $24 billion. The financial markets clearly anticipate…
New mortgage approvals dropped slightly to 61,341 during March, according to the latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders. This disappointed analysts who had forecast a rise to 62,500. Net mortgage lending was flat at £1.8 billion and consumer credit grew to £1.2 billion as effective interest rates dropped. The CML’s Chief Economist Bob…
While central bankers look tranquil and trustworthy on their television appearances, giving investors reassurances that a brighter future is just around the corner and praising their timely and bold policy actions, there is a growing number of other professionals that still raise questions about the real effectiveness of such action and that are not at…
One of the best rules around and the most long-lasting is the way that HM Government and the City simply do not mix. The best example of this at the moment is the announcement that Royal Bank Of Scotland (RBS) has lost £50 billion since it was bailed out to the tune of £46 billion…
The Eurozone exited deflation in April after four months of negative price movement, with Eurostat saying that despite continuing cuts in energy costs, inflation rose to 0% for the month. March unemployment data for the Euro area were also published and showed that seasonally adjusted jobless rates were steady at 11.3%. Jonathan Loynes, Chief European…
The problem with central banks is that they initially wanted to be independent from us but now they want us to be dependent on them. Many years ago, there was a time when economic policy was part of a government’s list of affairs, with both fiscal and monetary policy being part of it. But, for…
