Archive: 2014

  1. What Does The Future Hold?

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    The good news is most analysts expect economic growth in the United States to continue. The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Federal Reserve, and the International Monetary Fund all have forecast gross domestic product growth in the United States at 2.5 to 3.0 percent for 2015. That’s not quite as good as the 7 percent growth forecast for China or the 6.5 percent growth estimated for India, but it’s decent for a developed nation with a mature economy. In the UK, The British Chamber of Commerce (BBC) is forecasting a moderate slowdown in growth from 2015 at 2.8%. (more…)

  2. The Markets

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    Ouch!

    It was no fun to be an investor last week. The week prior, a commentary in The Wall Street Journal’s blog, MoneyBeat, offered this insight:

    “Falling oil prices are thought to be good for stocks because they stimulate consumer spending and hold down inflation. The lower costs support economic growth, boost corporate earnings, and lessen pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. The stock market loves that mix.” (more…)

  3. Government To Pay Off WW1 Debt

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    Chancellor George Osborne is to pay off the UK government’s remaining debt from World War One, the Treasury has announced.

    The government will repay the outstanding £1.9bn of debt from a 3.5% War Loan on 9 March 2015. (more…)

  4. The Markets

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    Why have markets been rising?

    Well this is always a conundrum, and explanations from the great and the good abound everywhere. However, there is one aspect that is often ignored, as most seem to follow what the institutions and private investors do as they chase their fashion fads into various asset classes of the day. They often overlooked issue is what the companies actually do themselves. It seems that in the US there has been a growing propensity just for companies to buy their own shares back. With the cost of debt being pretty cheap there is a logic for companies to buy some of their own stock back, reducing the number of shares in issue and thus increase earnings per share for investors – oh yes and improve the value of the executive stock options as well!

    (more…)

  5. The Markets

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    For the UK economy I think the phrase was spot on from the chief economist of the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, when he described it as being in a position of both agony and ecstasy. For the ecstasy we now have an economy that is currently growing faster than any other developed economy on the globe. A rate of 3.1% for this year is expected and that for the UK is quite a pace, although obviously nowhere near the dynamic rates of the developing nations. In fact for the UK’s it could be described as running quite hot – especially when you consider not just the QE money pumped into it but the £22.2bn plus set aside for consumers’ claims from the PPI scandals. Whilst growth next year will likely ease to 2.4% according to the EY Item Club, this is hardly agony, although ecstasy would not be a sensible description either. Reasonable is more truthful, although sustainable would be better. (more…)

  6. Sandwich News….Yummy!

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    You may have seen the story about the food manufacturer who said he had been forced to recruit sandwich makers in Hungary (where else for food?) as they could not find enough Brits who were willing to work at their new sandwich making plant in Northamptonshire. On the back of this I discovered some fascinating data from the British Sandwich Association. Apparently there are 300,000 people involved in the sandwich market in the UK. And they supply 1.69 billion sandwiches at an average cost of £1.66 each. (more…)

  7. China And The USA – Does Size Matter?

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    The World Bank recently stated that the US economy will soon be surpassed by the Chinese however, such measures are quite illusory. They work on the basis of ‘purchasing power parity’ which is not a wildly efficient measure. However strongly China’s GDP is growing and even if it does surpass that of the US, the two economies are very different in structure and economic sophistication. For example, China’s per capita income, which is a much more accurate measure of economic development, comes out as only 20% of America’s and probably only slightly ahead of that of, say, Jamaica. That is a huge difference and it will take many decades to close that chasm. (more…)

  8. The Markets

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    A 1964 Morris Traveller is entitled to have the occasional flashing light on her vintage dashboard. Sometimes it will quite rightly be a warning of some potential mechanical failing in this wonderfully mature motorcar, but equally with an ageing electrical system she also has the habit of producing some odd signals from time to time. So it takes some experience to work out whether it really is an electrical problem or whether she is having a hissy fit. (more…)

  9. ‘The New Hire’

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    ‘THE NEW HIRE’ is the name of a September survey published by Pricewaterhouse Cooper (PwC). It’s not about how to make newly-hired people more comfortable and productive. It’s about how the R generation – the latest iteration of industrial robots – is transforming manufacturing. More than one-half of the 120 manufacturing firms surveyed already have adopted robotics technologies. Auto manufacturers employ robots, as do food; consumer goods; life sciences, pharmaceutical, and biomedical; and metals companies. (more…)