Friday, February 19th, 2010
For once we may not get a cold from an American sneeze; but they yesterday raised their "Base Rate" as the Discount Rate has just risen from 0.5% to 0.75%. It is not expected to feed through to consumers as - like...
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
The Bank of England's quarterly inflation forecast out today suggests an RPI peak over 3.5% in the next quarter, but then a rapid fall to below 1% in 12 month's time. What I found quite telling was its prediction of...
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
A survey of 55 analysts from UK financiers suggests a rise in base rate to 1% in Q4 this year, followed by 0.5% increases each subsequent quarter; seeing 2.5% by Q3 2011. The survey was conducted by Reuters on 7th January...
Friday, January 29th, 2010
Companies must get used to higher borrowing margins as Standard & Poors' (S&P) downgrade the UK banking system to be on a par with Chile and Portugal. That's worse than Italy (!!) and Belgium and a far cry from our former...
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Banks are continuing to significantly increase margins. The Bank of England reported yesterday that the effective interest rate on all new or refinanced corporate lending has risen from 2 per cent in August to 2.4 per cent in November, even...
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Inflation is back with a bang. Now the question is what will happen to UK interest rates as prices rise at their fastest ever month-on-month pace? The Office for National Statistics announced today that Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose 1% last month, taking...
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Will borrowing costs go up this year? The Bank of England has started signalling that base rate may rise in the coming months. The unequivocal warning comes from one of the bank's policymakers, Andrew Sentance, in an interview in today's Guardian. Controlling...