Eurozone consumer confidence hits July 2011 high August 23, 2013 Eurozone consumer confidence has risen from -17.4 to -15.6 in August. That's a July 2011 high. Economists had forecast an improvement to just -16.5. Christian Schulz, senior economist, Berenberg: The drop in confidence after the fateful July 2011 decision to impose losses on private holders of Greek bonds has still not fully been recovered. Confidence [...]
Steve Ballmer’s net worth up $1bn as Microsoft announces that he will retire August 23, 2013 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is to retire within the next 12 months upon completion of the process to find successor, the tech giant has announced (release). Now Bill Gates and a special committee will undertake that process to find the right guy for the job. Stock in the company has been pretty stagnant since Gates' [...]
Fed’s Bullard says no to rate hikes while inflation is below 1.5 per cent August 23, 2013 The Federal Reserve's James Bullard has said that "we don't have to be in any hurry" to make changes to policy and that he'd prefer to be "cautious" and for the central bank to "take our time". Bullard has said that a 1.5 per cent inflation floor before a rate increase would should the the [...]
Ex-Cyprus central bank chief says euro crisis will flare up after German elections August 23, 2013 Athanasios Orphanides, former chief at Cyprus' central bank, has said that the island economy was destroyed by delays in finalising the bailout package it received. Cyprus has seen its biggest industry – banking – wiped out with capital controls overstaying their welcome. While introduced as a temporary measure months ago, they have not yet been [...]
Worker pay sees biggest quarterly growth in 13 years August 23, 2013 Growth in UK incomes, including wages, salaries and pension contributions, was up 2.4 per cent in the second quarter of this year. That's the biggest quarterly increase in compensation in 13 years. The Office for National Statistics' second estimate of these figures showed that those in employment aged 16 or over reached a record high [...]
Second quarter growth was higher than thought at 0.7 per cent August 23, 2013 UK GDP growth has been confirmed at 0.7 per cent for the second quarter, beating economist estimates and an increase on the previous estimate of 0.6 per cent. It's not all good news though – as government spending is also up by 0.9 per cent. This second estimate of GDP growth by the Office for [...]
Before the open – 23/08 August 23, 2013 The FTSE is expected to open slightly up after avoiding a fourth consecutive day of losses yesterday. Kit Juckes, Societe Generale on today's session: There's a bit of TGIF feel to all this: The overnight session is quieter, with equity markets and EM currencies bouncing, nominally on the back of yesterday’s crop of stronger economic [...]
Regulator finds six carpet and furniture retailers misleading consumers with false price cuts August 23, 2013 The Office of Fair trading has found that six high street carpet and furniture retailers are misleading customers by artificially inflating prices to promote sales and price cuts. The OFT found systematic examples of reference pricing amongst, where the price is artificially inflated, within the industry. During the period that the OFT monitored these six [...]
German finance minister Schaeuble repeats warning that Greece will need fresh rescue August 23, 2013 German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has repeated his warning that the Greek economy will need another aid program, and that this won't involve a further haircut. Previously Schaeuble said that the initial haircut was "unique" and there is speculation that this third bailout will be much smaller than those before. The minister said that it [...]
Trading on Nasdaq securities stopped due to technical issues August 22, 2013 US stock exchanges today stopped trading in all securities listed on the Nasdaq due to a technical issue in the data feed providing market data for Nasdaq-listed securities. Nasdaq-listed stocks represent about 28 per cent of all shares traded so far this month, according to BATS Global Markets. Companies listed on the Nasdaq include Apple, [...]