UK borrowed record £16.7bn for February but Jeremy Hunt handed interest bill boost March 21, 2023 The UK borrowed a higher than expected £16.7bn in February, a record for that specific month due to the government spending billions on helping families with the cost of energy bills, official figures out today reveal. Office for National Statistics (ONS) numbers indicate Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s decision to cap typical household energy bills at £2,500 [...]
Credit Suisse and Silicon Valley Bank chaos are symptoms of fragile banking system March 21, 2023 City folk around in 2007 must have been getting very twitchy over the last week. Some of the market moves were reminiscent of the early stages of the financial crisis once people clocked on to just how bad banks had messed up. Credit Suisse tumbled more than 30 per cent at one point. Its peers [...]
Fed set to hike rates by 25 basis points despite turmoil in US banking sector March 20, 2023 The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates for the ninth time in a row later this week despite widespread instability in the US banking sector. According to Fedwatch there is a 62 per cent chance that the Fed will opt for a 25 basis point hike and 38 per cent chance that it [...]
Banks, bonds, inflation, recession and energy: Five lessons the markets taught us this week March 17, 2023 The third week of March proved to be a rollercoaster for the world’s investors, with a rout on banks and the spectre of inflation, recession and the growing cost of living making their presence felt. These themes may indeed play on in future, so here are the five lessons we’ve learned from the markets this [...]
FTSE 100 close: Credit Suisse share price shoots up 30 per cent as HSBC and Lloyds climb in London March 16, 2023 London’s FTSE 100 today partly clawed back yesterday’s losses that saw it clock its worst day in over a year as the index was ensnared by global markets sweating over the health of the European banking system. The capital’s premier index jumped 0.89 per cent to 7,410.04 points, while the domestically-focused mid-cap FTSE 250 index, [...]
‘No trade off between price stability and financial stability,’ ECB president Christine Lagarde says after rate rise March 16, 2023 The recovery in European banking stocks slowed slightly on Thursday afternoon as the European Central Bank (ECB) stuck to its guns and raised interest rates by 50 basis points. With the meeting taking place amidst a nervous backdrop in the banking sector, ECB President Christine Lagarde said “there is no trade off between price stability [...]
ECB hikes interest rates to highest level since financial crisis, ignoring market turmoil centred on Credit Suisse and European banks March 16, 2023 The European Central Bank (ECB) today hiked interest rates 50 basis points despite concerns about Credit Suisse’s finances sparking turmoil in the bloc’s banking market. President Christine Lagarde and co’s move was in line with expectations and takes Euro borrowing costs to three per cent, the highest level since the financial crisis in 2008. Markets [...]
Jeremy Hunt tax hikes and weak economy to swipe £10k from Britons while wealthy reap pension rewards March 16, 2023 Britons are poised to miss out on £10,000 of income over the coming years after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt lifted taxes to their highest sustained level in history, experts have predicted. When combined with sluggish economic growth , the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated that the tax take means real incomes will be at [...]
Blackrock boss Larry Fink: SVB collapse may signal ‘dominoes are starting to fall’ March 15, 2023 The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank could signal the “dominoes are starting to fall” after an abrupt end to the era of low interest rates and cheap money, the boss of the world’s biggest asset manager BlackRock has warned. In his annual letter to investors today, Larry Fink said a series of aggressive rate hikes [...]
Budget: OBR says UK to avoid recession and is on course to grow every year after short blip in boost for Jeremy Hunt March 15, 2023 Britain will avoid a much-tipped recession this year and will grow every year until 2027 after a short blip, a massive reversal from economists warning of the longest contraction in a century just a few months ago, the country’s spending watchdog said today. UK GDP is on course to suffer a mild slump in 2023 [...]