Tuesday, June 29, 2021

House Price Rate Rise Highest Since 2004

Houses prices rose at the fastest pace in more than 16 years in June, jumping 13.4pc year-on-year as buyers rushed to snap up homes before the end of the stamp duty holiday. 

Nationwide said the average house price increased to £245,432 from £216,403 in June 2020.

Nationwide chief economist Robert Gardner said prices were "close to a record high" in relation to average incomes, which he added "makes it even harder" for first-time buyers.

He told the BBC the pandemic had "stimulated" the housing market.

Mr Gardner said lots of people had "reassessed what they want from home" in terms of space and where they live as a result of the coronavirus lockdowns.

"The pandemic is an unusual kind of shock - it has stimulated housing market activity rather than the shock holding back the market which is normally what happens."

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Thursday, June 24, 2021

Bank of England Leaves Monetary Policy Unchanged

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Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Government Borrowing Falling

UK Public Sector Net Borrowing (May) act: £23.6bn, exp: £24.3bn, prev: £31bn.

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Bermuda Sticks Two Fingers Up To Global Tax Reform

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

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The Trans Pacific Trade Deal - Giant Oaks from Little Acorns Grow!

 

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Monday, June 21, 2021

Government To Raid Pensions

The government are drawing up plans to raid pensions, in order to pay for Covid.

Three reforms are being considered 

- Slashing the £1M lifetime allowance to £800K

- Bringing in a single tax relief rate

 - Taxing employer contributions

Nigel Green, chief executive and founder of deVere Group, warns that savers to should take action now to offset the raid.

He is quoted by London Loves Business:

“Successive governments have a long history of seeing pensions as easy targets when they need to bolster their coffers.

I would suggest that if this option of slashing the pensions lifetime allowance has been leaked in advance to the media, there’s a very good chance that it will happen.

This reported move by the Treasury would be a stinging, stealthy raid on pension savings.

It would be a slap in the face for those who have worked hard and saved hard, prudently putting money aside in order to be able to enjoy their retirement with loved ones.”

There’s a much, much bigger cohort of people who should be taking action now to mitigate the financial hit of the possible slashing of the lifetime allowance.

It’s not just those who already have a pension over £1m. Others need to look ahead and assess if future contributions and investment growth could drag them into a position in which they’ll be above the threshold.

But many savers are simply unaware of the impact of these reported moves by the Treasury on their retirement income.

There are various measures that can be put in place to avoid the LTA reduction fallout.

This move would serve as a disincentive to save as much as possible for retirement– and therefore it could be harmful to Britain’s long-term economic success,” affirms Mr Green.

I believe the reports on the potential plunder of pensions have merit. The pandemic has provided the government with a reason to do so.

Many more people than you might think would be affected by such a move.

There are steps to be taken to mitigate the hit. I would suggest people seek advice sooner rather than later.”

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The Lazarus Heist - How North Korea Almost Stole $1BN from The Bank of Bangladesh

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Thursday, June 17, 2021

Interent Outages Briefly Hit Global Businesses

AP reports that a wave of brief internet outages hit the websites and apps of dozens of financial institutions, airlines and other companies across the globe Thursday.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange said in a post on Twitter Thursday afternoon Hong Kong time that its site was facing technical issues and that it was investigating. It said in another post 17 minutes later that its websites were back to normal.

Internet monitoring websites including ThousandEyes, Downdetector.com and fing.com showed dozens of disruptions, including to U.S.-based airlines.

Many of the outages were reported by people in Australia trying to do banking, book flights and access postal services.

Australia Post, the country’s postal service, said on Twitter that an “external outage” had impacted a number of its services, and that while most services had come back online, they were continuing to monitor and investigate.

Many services were up and running after an hour or so but the affected companies said they were working overtime to prevent further problems.

Banking services were severely disrupted, with Westpac, the Commonwealth, ANZ and St George all down, along with the website of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the country’s central bank. The Reserve Bank cancelled a bond-buying operation due to technical difficulties facing several banks that were to participate.

Services have mostly been restored.

Virgin Australia said flights were largely operating as scheduled after it restored access to its website and guest contact center.

“Virgin Australia was one of many organizations to experience an outage with the Akamai content delivery system today,” it said. “We are working with them to ensure that necessary measures are taken to prevent these outages from reoccurring.”

Akamai, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, counts some of the world’s biggest companies and banks as customers. The company said in a statement Thursday that it was aware of the issue and working to restore services as soon as possible.

The disruptions came just days after many of the world’s top websites went offline briefly due to a problem with software at Fastly, another major web services company. The company blamed the problem on a software bug that was triggered when a customer changed a setting.

Brief internet service outages are not uncommon and are only rarely the result of hacking or other mischief. But the outages have underscored how vital a small number of behind-the-scenes companies have become to running the internet.

 

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Wednesday, June 16, 2021

CPI 2.1% Blip

A jump in fuel costs and rising clothes prices as the economy reopened pushed the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) benchmark to 2.1pc, higher than the 1.8pc expected and the highest since July 2019.

The inflation up from 1.5pc in April, was also partly fuelled by rising restaurant and pub prices as diners and drinkers returned, the Office for National Statistics said.

The ONS's chief economist, Grant Fitzner, said: 

“This month’s rise was led by fuel prices which fell this time last year, but have jumped this year thanks to rising crude prices. Clothing prices also added upward pressure as the amount of discounting fell in May.”

This is but a blip, and even though it is above the Bank of England's 2pc target, it is not the precursor to higher rates yet.

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Kopparberg, Grolsch, Nivea and IKEA Have Been Played for Suckers!

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Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Australia and UK Agree Free Trade Deal


Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson agreed to a post-Brexit free trade deal between Australia and the UK over dinner at Downing Street on Monday night. 

The deal is set to give Australian exporters the opportunity to move away from the Chinese market and is a victory for Johnson as he looks to set up post-Brexit relationships with new trading partners.

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Monday, June 14, 2021

Markets Relaxed About Lockdown Extension

The FTSE 100 shrugged off worries about the lockdown extension, and has risen by 35 points this morning. 

The extension has already been priced in, what matters now is no reversal or a return to start/stop restrictions.

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Wednesday, June 09, 2021

Metro Bank Reduces Interest Rates From "Pathetic" To "Insulting"

Metro Bank reduces its in interest rates from "pathetic" to "insulting".

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Friday, June 04, 2021

The G7's Two Pillars of Idiocy

G7 finance ministers meet in London today.

One item on the agenda that has excited Biden is the concept of a global minimum corporation tax, to try to stop global corporations "offshoring" their profits.

In order to achieve this alleged halcyon dream, the G7 are considering a two "pillars" approach to confront the issue. 

The first is to reform the way taxes are calculated, using sales figures in each country to attempt to calculate a "fairer" apportionment of tax revenues around the world. 

The second pillar is to ensure countries stop competing in a race to the bottom on tax rates. A global minimum corporate tax rate: if everyone commits not to cut rates below a certain level that makes it far harder for companies to avoid taxes. 

Here's why these pillars are bollocks:

1 Sales are not profits, corporation tax is not a tax on turnover. 

2 Countries have the sovereign right to set their own rates of taxation, to allow a global body to set the rate undermines sovereignty and will end in tears.

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Tuesday, June 01, 2021

House Prices Rise 10.9%

UK house prices have risen by 10.9% in the year to May, the highest level in seven years, according to the Nationwide.

The average house price has risen to £242,832, up £23,930 over the past twelve months.

Nationwide are of the view that buyers are in a "race for space" as they seek larger homes and properties with gardens.

Robert Gardner, Nationwide's chief economist said:

"The market has seen a complete turnaround over the past twelve months

But activity surged towards the end of last year and into 2021, reaching a record high of 183,000 in March.

It is shifting housing preferences which is continuing to drive activity, with people reassessing their needs in the wake of the pandemic.

The majority of people are looking to move to less urban areas." 

The rise in prices will underpin the UK's economic recovery, with growth now forecast by the OECD to be 7.2%.

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