Scotsman: Insurers fear tax rule could send jobs to India OFFSHORING jobs to India may become more widespread among insurance companies next year unless the government acts to prevent a new tax rule, the industry body has warned.The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has urged the government to delay the introduction of VAT on outsourced insurance services, which it says could increase the industry's tax burden by more than £200 million a year. The ruling will only apply to outsourcing within Europe, meaning insurance companies will have more incentive to explore low-cost economies such as India. "It is not good news for UK plc," the ABI said. "It is more likely that outsourced services will move outside Europe."
ManchesterOnline: Cheshire to axe HQ jobs CHESHIRE Building Society is to axe up to 70 head office posts and close four branches in a drive to save more than £2m a year. Chief executive Karen McCormick announced the changes following a review launched when she took over the role on a permanent basis last month.
Icliverpool: 500 jobs at risk in glass fight A LEGAL challenge that could put 500 new glass factory jobs in Ellesmere Port in jeopardy began yesterday in the High Court. Irish-based Quinn Glass this year completed the construction of Europe's largest glass making factory at the former Ince Power Station.
Just-Auto.com: Pressings plant axes 70 Welsh workers Up to 70 jobs will go within a month at Krupp Camford Pressings in Llanelli, Wales, after it lost a major order from Volkswagen. Around 165 staff remain at the plant and virtually all production is now for Land Rover, with some additional work for Bentley, another VW Group company.
Ananova: Chocolate Factory Broken Up The famous home of Terry's chocolates has been closed. More than 300 jobs are to go at the plant in York, which is now owned by Kraft Foods International. The site on Bishopthorpe Road has been making chocolate confectionery since 1926 and recently produced 20,000 tonnes of chocolate each year for the domestic and international market.
Reuters: ADC says to cut jobs in England, Scotland Communications equipment maker ADC Telecommunications Inc. (ADCT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday it would cut about 150 jobs in England and Scotland as part of a move to lower manufacturing costs.
PRW.com: Symphony to cut jobs due to low margins Degradable plastics company Symphony Plastic Technologies is to cut jobs and review directors’ salaries in response to low sales and margins. The planned cuts follow a review of the firm’s strategy, it said this morning when launching its first half figures
ThisisMoney: BA job cuts 'in the thousands' A STAFF cull at British Airways, likely to run to the loss of thousands of jobs under new chief executive Willie Walsh, is to kick off with secret plans to axe 500 baggage handlers and cargo loaders - workers who played a major role in this summer's Gate Gourmet fiasco.
Scotsman: Uniq to axe up to 90 jobs as overhaul continues UNIQ, the convenience food giant, today revealed that up to 90 jobs in Britain will be cut as it shakes its business in the midst of difficult trading conditions. The overhaul comes in the wake of the arrival last month of new chief executive Geoff Eaton and the loss of 100 UK jobs in May after the firm saw annual losses widen to £70.6 million, from £15.6m.
BBC NEWS | RAC call centre staff cut by half Two hundred jobs are to go from the RAC's call centres in Bristol by the end of the year. The work is being transferred to India as part of the company's rationalisation plans which were announced earlier this year.
TheBusinessEDP24: More jobs to go at Bernard Matthews Turkey producer Bernard Matthews yesterday announced a restructuring of the company with the loss of up to 110 jobs. The Norfolk-based company faces increasing competition from low-cost food producers based in the Far East and South America. At the same time, profit margins are being squeezed by major supermarkets and other outlets, which aim to pay less for its products.
Reuters: Consumer confidence falls unexpectedly Consumer confidence unexpectedly fell further in September to its lowest level in almost a year, pulled down by an increasingly pessimistic outlook for the economy, a report showed on Friday. Consultancy GfK Martin Hamblin said its confidence barometer fell to -5 from -4 in August. That was the lowest reading since October 2004, when it was -6. Analysts had predicted the index would remain at -4.
ThisisMoney: First timers get raw deals FIRST-TIME home buyers who cannot stump up a large deposit are being hit with a double blow of huge fees and higher interest rates by some leading lenders.
ThisisMoney: Sipps will 'hit first-time buyers' A NEW tax break will allow Britons to spend billions on second homes as part of their pension. The change effectively gives investors 51% off the price of a property. But it could send the prices of holiday homes and buy-to-let properties soaring, making it even harder for first-time buyers to afford a home.
Independent: Ford to ditch half its suppliers in massive cost-cutting plan Ford Motor unveiled a sweeping shake-up of its relationship with its business partners yesterday, saying it would cut its number of suppliers in half and sign long-term contracts with the rest to try to shave billions from its costs.
Guardian: Labour's £10bn nuclear sell-off Operations at Sellafield and other major nuclear plants such as Sizewell and Dungeness are to be sold off to the private sector for more than £10bn under plans drawn up yesterday by the board of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL).
TimesOnline: Poor growth 'due to public sector' INEFFICIENCY in the public sector was blamed by City economists yesterday for a drop in a key measure of Britain’s productivity growth to its lowest since present records began in the early 1990s. Official data gave a mixed picture of Britain’s productivity performance. But critics of the Government’s economic record seized on a new low for productivity growth measured by output per hour worked.
BBC News: Minimum wage increasing to £5.05 The minimum wage will rise on 1 October, benefiting more than one million workers. Adults must be paid at least £5.05 an hour, up from £4.85, while 18 to 21 year olds will get 15p more at £4.25.
The Australian: RBA warning of 'meltdown' Further rises in oil prices, the collapse of a major bank or an unexpected jump in inflation could be all it takes to send the increasingly fragile global financial system into meltdown.
Washington Bureau: Forecasters thinking recession could be coming Economic forecasters and Wall Street analysts are quietly hedging their bets after months of rosy reports about a vibrant U.S. economic outlook. They're now mentioning the growing possibility of recession ahead.
Washingtonpost.com: Pop Goes the Bubble The difference between America and Australia: In America everybody’s talking the possibility of a real estate bubble. In Australia, they’re living it.
International Herald Tribune: House-rich or poorhouse? Anyone concerned about recent signs that red-hot real estate markets may be cooling off - a group that would include Alan Greenspan, the Bank of England and many homeowners on both sides of the Atlantic - might want to review the cautionary tale of the Three Little Pigs.
MotleyFool: A Recipe For A Housing Crash! First of all, let me start by saying that I'm not an economist and, indeed, I've never been formally taught this subject. However, after eighteen years in financial services, I'm confident that I have a good understanding of what makes consumers tick when it comes to money matters. Sadly, all the information that I've collected leaves me worried about our nation's finances as a whole.
Here are eleven warning signs which suggest a bleak outlook for many households:
EN24: Virgin Money jobs at risk Scores of staff could lose their jobs at Virgin Money as the company is now planning on outsourcing jobs elsewhere in the UK. Bosses at the Richard Branson-owned company have revealed the company intends to restructure. The Whiting Road-based company said it planned to outsource all its back-office administration work and other jobs were being reviewed to meet a new organisational structure.
Scotsman: Shake-up fails to halt profits slide at Jenners JENNERS, the historic Edinburgh department store, has suffered a further slide in profits amid falling consumer sales - but new owner, House of Fraser, has promised that its back-office shake-up involving more than 100 job cuts will deliver annual savings of more than £3m.
BBC NEWS | England | Devon | Firm closes with loss of 100 jobs A Plymouth-based telesales company has laid off its 100-strong workforce. Staff at the city's Market Reach say they were told on Thursday morning that the company had gone into liquidation and they would not be paid.
BBC NEWS | Jobs will go at tobacco factory The loss of 134 jobs has been announced at a cigarette rolling papers factory in south Wales. The Imperial Tobacco Group blamed a cost cutting exercise for the closure of the plant at Treforest near Pontypridd.
SkyNews: BOOTS GLOOMY OVER XMAS Boots has reported a new fall in sales. And it says it does not see the chances of a major rise in consumer confidence this Christmas. Comparable sales fell by 1.6% in the second quarter - twice as fast as over the previous three months. But the firm said the first-half fall of 1.3% was distorted by cheaper medicines due to regulatory price changes, insisting that sales of its health and beauty ranges and toiletries had been encouraging.
ThisisMoney: House prices continue to fall HOUSE prices are still falling despite a healthy pick-up in sales, Britain's biggest building society revealed today. Nationwide said the average price of a home slipped 0.2% to £156,517 in September following a similar fall the previous month. That pushed the year-on-year rate of increase down to 1.8% - the weakest since May.
Telegraph: Brown 'still too optimistic' over growth Gordon Brown could be forced to revise his economic growth forecast even lower than 2pc after new official figures showed the economy is growing at its slowest pace for 12 years.
Independent: Economy: Things can only get tougher Retail sales hit 22-year low. Growth at 12-year low. Inflation at nine-year high. Unemployment rising. Gordon Brown has suffered a body blow to his political reputation - just days after his confident speech to Labour conference - with the release of official figures showing the economy at its weakest level for 12 years.
Guardian: Struggling GCap threatens 100 job cuts GCap Media announced up to 100 job cuts and tripled its cost savings target yesterday as it sought to regain the confidence of the stock market after making a stuttering debut as the UK's largest commercial radio broadcaster.
Guardian: Blood on the shop floor as retailers report sales falling at the fastest rate since records began The fragile state of consumer spending was underlined yesterday as the CBI's latest survey of the retail sector showed sales volumes falling at their fastest rate in the report's 22-year history. The survey will worry the Bank of England, which cut interest rates last month and has said it expects consumer spending - which accounts for two-thirds of the economy and has been its main driver for several years - to recover in the second half of the year
Scotsman: Scotmid axes jobs on first loss in 20 years SCOTMID hit its 250,000-plus members with a triple whammy of bad news yesterday - store closures, job cuts and a first loss in 20 years - and admitted a rapid expansion over the past couple of years has dramatically backfired.The Edinburgh-based Advertisement supermarket-to- funeral parlour group has expanded aggressively in recent years, spending an estimated £40 million-plus on a range of acquisitions, including Dundee-based retail chain Morning, Noon & Night (MN&N) last August for £30 million.
ManchesterOnline: Co-op staff told to change or face the sack MORE than 2,000 financial advisers at Co-operative Insurance Society have been warned to accept new contracts or face the sack. The staff received a letter from the Manchester giant stating they had been dismissed from their current job, however they would be offered a new role at the company. But union leaders at Usdaw believe the contracts offer less favourable conditions and that some staff stand to lose around 20 per cent of their salary because of unachievable sales targets.
TimesOnline: Yet more blood on the high street Britain's embattled retailers know all about slowing economic growth - and so do their shareholders. Many will have lost count of the number of trading statements and interim results they have seen littered with references to the "difficult", "challenging", "tough" or "deteriorating" high street conditions.
BBC NEWS | Business | House price 'slowdown continues' Annual house price growth is continuing to slow, according to the Nationwide. Prices rose by just 1.8% during the 12 months to September - the lowest increase since May 1996, and a further decline on the August's 2.3% growth. But the Nationwide said August's 0.25% drop in interest rates to 4.5% may now be helping to boost the housing market.
ThisisMoney: Consumer CCJs rocket THE number of lenders turning to the courts to help claw back debts from consumers is rising at the fastest rate since the last major recession in 1991.
Reuters: Personal debts of 100,000 pounds become more common The consumer boom has come on the back of plastic spending to such an extent that some people are now carrying unsecured debts of 100,000 pounds, a leading personal finance expert said.
Motley Fool: Beware Of Property As A Pension! Currently, investors in self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) can invest in land, property funds, property-company shares or a single commercial property.
Reuters: Kesa H1 earnings fall sharply Kesa Electricals Plc, Europe's third-biggest electrical retailer, said on Wednesday its first-half retail profits fell 27 percent and ruled out a market upturn in France and the UK in the near future. The owner of the Comet chain in the UK and Darty in France said retail earnings fell to 36.3 million pounds for the six months to July 31, on a 0.8 percent drop in like-for-like sales.
ThisisMoney: The OAPs still paying mortgages HALF a million homeowners are still paying off their mortgages after retiring from work, research revealed yesterday. Dreams of a debt-free retirement are disappearing, with the monthly repayments often remaining a burden long after working days end.
Guardian: Labour has £1bn defence float in its sights The government is expected to press ahead with a full privatisation of QinetiQ, the technology firm spun out of the Ministry of Defence, despite political opposition and City scepticism. Three top investment banks are working flat out on preparations for a controversial £1bn stock market debut, hoping to take advantage of the upturn in defence spending after 9/11.
TimesOnline: Oil becomes Brown's handy scapegoat AN OIL shock as bad as that of the Seventies. This was how Gordon Brown depicted the troubles facing the global economy as he explained on Friday why he is about to stage an embarrassing climbdown over his rose-tinted economic forecasts.
TimesOnline: Well-off get bigger tax breaks for buy-to-lets THE dispute over tax breaks for the wealthy intensified yesterday as it emerged that betteroff taxpayers will be able to buy holiday homes and buy-to-let properties through their personal pension funds and get back 51 per cent of the purchase price from the taxman.
TimesOnline: Britain 'less competitive' for business Whatever message Chancellor Gordon Brown may have been trying to impart about Britain's economic well-being this week, he will not have welcomed the findings of a global survey which says that Britain has become a markedly less favourable location for business in the past year.
ThisisMoney: Remortgagers boost property outlook BORROWERS piled in to remortgage in August, taking advantage of cheap deals. New figures from the British Bankers' Association showed gross mortgage lending exceeded the same period a year earlier for the first time in 12 months at £16.8bn.
ThisisMoney: Barratt warns of 'challenging' market THE boss of Britain's biggest housebuilder, Barratt Developments, today warned of another full year ahead of 'challenging' housing markets. But Barratt chief executive David Pretty said his firm is in a good position yet again to outperform the sector in terms of profit growth after delivering another year of forecast-beating figures.
This Is Money: Pension fund property warning INSURER Norwich Union today expressed concern that people may invest their pension fund in property without fully understanding the implications of this.
LewRockwell: Panic Now and Beat the Rush An estimated $1.4 trillion in adjustable-rate mortgage debt will be reset in the next two years at considerably higher rates, adding to already swelling unsold home inventories. In short, the marginal U.S. consumer and his charitable lender are facing a financial version of the perfect storm.
Reuters: Mortgage approvals rise in August-BBA Mortgage approvals for home purchases showed their first annual rise in more than a year in August, adding to mounting evidence that Britain's cooling property market is stabilising, according to data on Tuesday.
FT: US consumer confidence hits two-year low Consumer Consumer confidence dropped to its lowest level in two years after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent rise in petrol prices.
FT: Rita causes record damage to oil rigs Hurricane Rita has caused more damage to oil rigs than any other storm in history and will force companies to delay drilling for oil in the US and as far away as the Middle East, initial damage assessments show.
SunOnline: Plot to keep Brown down TONY Blair’s allies are counting on an economic downturn to derail Gordon Brown’s bid for the Labour crown, a former minister claimed yesterday. The warning by ex-pensions chief Frank Field came amid signs the Chancellor’s eight-year run of luck at the Treasury may be running out.
BBC NEWS | Job cuts fear at steel producer Talks aimed at avoiding job losses at the last remaining big stainless steel producer in Sheffield are taking place. Outokumpu, the world's second-largest stainless steel producer is planning to move new orders from Coil Products in the city to Finland, hitting UK jobs.
BBC NEWS | Business | Allsports enters administration About 1,700 jobs are on the line after the sportswear retailer Allsports called in the administrators Tuesday. Many of the chain's 267 stores must close after a harsh price war, administrator BDO Stoy Hayward said.
ThisisMoney: Chancellor set for a £10bn cash grab NATIONAL Insurance, VAT and a windfall tax on oil companies and banks are the most likely targets of a cash grab by Gordon Brown. Experts warn the Chancellor needs to raise at least £10bn to ensure his arithmetic adds up.
Guardian: We can do this the nice way ... or the nasty way The International Monetary Fund made it clear last week that it saw the world's largest economy as an accident waiting to happen. The US could not continue to live beyond its means indefinitely, and there were only two ways to deal with the unsustainable imbalances in the global economy: the nice way or the nasty way.
BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | Job fears at Vodafone call centre Union officials have criticised mobile telephone company Vodafone following reports that its Birmingham call centre is to close with the loss of 600 jobs. Managers have asked all staff at the base in Brindleyplace, including those on sick and maternity leave, to attend a meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
ThisisMoney: Mortgage fees under scrutiny MORTGAGE lenders that bumped up administration fees could be forced to scrap them after coming under the scrutiny of the financial watchdog.
Independent: Alexon sees no end to slump in sales Shares in Alexon fell 7 per cent yesterday after the Dolcis-to-Bay Trading clothing group admitted it was "impossible" to predict how long its sales slump would last.
icWales: Watch out for 'stealth taxes'A leading business group yesterday warned Gordon Brown may have to push up taxes after he indicated economic growth would not be as strong as previously thought.
Haaretz.com: Fischer raises interest rate to 3.75% Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer announced his monetary policy for October yesterday, kicking up central bank rates by 0.25 percentage points to 3.75 percent.
Reuters.co.uk: No need for tax rises on current plans-Brown Current spending plans are affordable and there is no need for tax rises to pay for them, Chancellor Gordon Brown said on Monday, despite being set to slash his growth forecasts.
Times Online: Brown will need to go beyond rhetoric After a succession of trade unionists had invoked memories of the bad old days of labour relations, the Chancellor was destined to sound like the embodiment of new Labour, even if he had to mention the extra tax that he would be needing to collect in order to balance his books.
FT: Greenspan warns on mortgages The booming US housing market has led to a worrying decline in standards in the mortgage lending industry, Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, has warned.
FT: Germany's inflation at highest for 4 years Eurozone inflation is expected to rise steeply this month on the back of soaring energy costs after German data on Monday showed prices increasing at the fastest pace for four years.
Money Week: UK Taxes Are Set To Rise Chancellor Gordon Brown leaked the announcement that he was downgrading his forecasts for UK economic growth to coincide with Hurricane Rita and on a Saturday, when the financial markets were closed, in the hope that he could get away with the minimum of adverse publicity.
Money Week: The Bubble In The US Housing Sector Significantly, Mr Greenspan has drawn an important linkage in his analysis of the situation. He states not only that the ongoing process of monetary tightening could throw the escalating housing market into reverse, but...
Money Week: Stalemate For UK Interest Rates Rate expectations in the UK have been volatile so far this year. At the start of 2005 markets began to price in a rise in UK interest rates as likely, reflecting concerns of a re-acceleration of domestic growth and inflationary pressures...
FT: Bush tries to reassure public on high petrol prices President George W. Bush on Monday made a rare public appeal for Americans to share cars and curb non-essential driving as part of an effort to reduce high petrol prices following the two hurricanes that have struck the Gulf of Mexico coast.
FT: Oil rebounds despite less Rita damage than feared Oil prices closed strongly on Monday despite emerging evidence that the damage to US production and refining facilities caused by Hurricane Rita was less severe than feared.
ThisisMoney: Gordon Brown outlines his vision A SUPER-CONFIDENT Gordon Brown appeared to rule out emergency tax rises today. The Chancellor issued a 'don't panic' message to the City as he strode to the Labour conference to be crowned prime minister in waiting.
TimesOnline: Taxes 'must rise' by 3p in the pound Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, will have to raise taxes by the equivalent of 3p in the pound after vastly overestimating economic growth, a leading think tank warned today.
BBC News: Oil dips as US refineries reopen Oil prices have continued to fall as some refineries which emerged largely unscathed from Hurricane Rita have started to reopen.
BBC News: Chancellor 'faces tax rise call' Gordon Brown may have to raise taxes after he suggested UK economic growth would be lower than the government had forecast, a business group has warned.
smh.com.au: Slowdown hits home for agents There are plenty of For Sale signs going up all over your suburb. But they are not being put up on your neighbours' houses. All over the city, real estate agents, hit by the downturn in listings and property sales, are selling their assets and shutting up shop.
thebusinessonline.com: Brown under fire over economic growth downgrades Chancellor Gordon Brown’s claim that the high oil price was almost single-handedly responsible for his decision to downgrade his growth forecasts for the British economy this year came under sustained attack at the weekend.
'UK house prices will fall by up to 50%' - in2perspective In an article published in The Observer today, financier-turned-economic pundit Jim Mellon identifies five trends that he predicts will lead to a dramatic fall in house prices in the US and UK within three years. "Stock markets will collapse, house prices in the over-extended markets of the UK and the US will fall by up to 50%, and major investment banks and other financial institutions will go bust," forecasts Mellon.
Guardian: Oil market braced for Rita blast The world's oil markets are braced for a tumultuous week, with US refineries shut down in the wake of Hurricane Rita, and fears mounting that sky-high energy prices are taking their toll on gas-guzzling economies.
Yahoo: G7 to meet again on December 10 in London ...They also want to have another discussion early on about high oil prices, identified as a key potential risk for the global economy, U.S. Treasury officials said.
Telegraph: Sorry Gordon, you know you had it coming On Friday Gordon Brown acknowledged that his forecast for UK growth this year would not be met. Earlier the International Monetary Fund had reduced its own forecast from 2.6 per cent to 1.9 per cent.
The Observer | Alphabet of global downturn: "Although a natural optimist, I am going to make a prediction that is almost apocalyptic. In a short time - a few years at most - the rich West and Japan will have a terrible shock. Living standards will fall precipitously, companies will fail en masse and established institutions will find themselves in financial peril. Asset prices - particularly those of houses - will fall dramatically in some countries, notably the US and UK, and world trade conditions will deteriorate significantly"
Sky News: Brown admits fault Gordon Brown has been forced to admit economic growth will not be as strong as he had predicted. The Chancellor has repeatedly refused to give in to pressure to cut his Budget forecast for growth.
BBC Panorama: Brown's miracle economy Panorama asks whether Gordon Brown's miracle economy is as miraculous as it seems. BBC economics reporter Stephanie Flanders examines whether we have experienced a sea-change in Britain's economic fortunes, or another old-fashioned spending binge that will eventually run dry.
BBC NEWS | Politics | Economy 'weaker than predicted' Economic growth in the UK will be weaker than predicted, Chancellor Gordon Brown is set to admit. He will tell the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that record oil prices and a slow global economy are to blame.
TimesOnline: British Land planning £1bn disposal BRITISH LAND, the FTSE 100 property company, is planning to sell more than £1 billion of property over the next 18 months after a strategic review of its portfolio, The Times has learnt. It is understood that British Land will seek to cash in on high demand for commercial property and soaring values by selling assets that it believes will underperform in the next few years. Buildings for sale include CityPoint, a £500 million office tower in the City of London, which will represent Britain’s largest single office investment sale.
TheTimes: Brown to blame oil price rises for growth downgrade GORDON BROWN has set the stage for an embarrassing retreat over his economic predictions for Britain, signalling that he will cut his growth forecasts sharply while seeking to blame high oil prices.
This Is Money: Three big retailers awash with pessimism JOHN Lewis, Laura Ashley and Ottakar's added to the deepening gloom on Britain's High Streets. All said there was no sign of a pick-up before Christmas, chiming with recent downbeat comments from Next, Woolworths and B&Q.
Reuters: Inflation expectation fears stalk Bank of England After years of well-contained rices, Bank of England policymakers now fear that Britons could make their job harder by overreacting if inflation rises too far beyond its recent range. Climbing petrol prices and soaring household bills have pushed inflation well above the central bank's 2.0 percent target in recent months to a near-9 year high.
Action News: No down payment? No sweat "What happens when you run out of people who could even qualify to buy a house with an interest-only, (zero-down), variable-rate mortgage?" Thornberg asked. "The answer is ... there are no more shills to enter the bottom of this pyramid and, therefore, the pyramid scheme will have collapsed into itself."
BBC: US jobless claims hit by Katrina The number of Americans out of work and seeking benefits as a result of Hurricane Katrina has risen to 214,000, according to US government figures.
Telegraph: Banker auctions his house by reducing price £2,000 a day A town house is to be sold by Dutch auction with the price dropping £2,000 each day it remains on the market. The idea is based on a technique used in financial markets and will test the nerve of bidders interested in the four-bedroom property.
Business Week: Housing Markets Are Stable ... Until They're Not Three top economists made a splash on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page this past Monday with a piece headlined "Bubble Trouble? Not Likely." But the way I read the research underlying the Journal piece, a better title would have been "Housing Markets Are Stable ... Until They're Not."
FT: Fears that Katrina has blown deep hole in deficit Now the hurricane seems likely to send American public finances plunging deeper into the red. The White House, sensing unrest in Republican ranks, has stressed that the total rebuilding cost remains unknown. But, with $62.3bn already appropriated, it seems reasonable to expect the Federal government's final bill will reach $200bn.
Reuters: G7 to welcome China yuan steps, wince at high oil Soaring energy costs and steps by China to loosen its rigid currency trading system looked set to dominate talks on Friday among finance chiefs from the world's rich nations.
Reuters: Morrison to close 3 depots, 2,500 jobs may go Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc is to close three distribution depots with the loss of 2,500 posts as it battles with problems arising from the ambitious acquisition last year of larger rival Safeway.
Bexley Times: Anger over possible job losses UP TO 600 workers at one of the borough's biggest employers are facing redundancy following the company's loss of a lucrative contract. Managers at Ferndale Foods, based in Hailey Road, Erith, have had a £40 million agreement with Asda supermarkets, to which they supply ready meals, terminated.
BBC NEWS | England | Staffordshire | Bathrooms firm set to axe 30 jobs Thirty people are being made redundant at the Twyford Bathrooms factory in south Cheshire. Employees at the plant in Alsager were told on Thursday the jobs will be axed by the end of October. The company said it has struggled with difficult trading conditions for the whole industry over the past year and is having to restructure.
BBC NEWS | England | Essex | Hundreds of jobs go with shutdown More than half the workforce at a factory in Basildon is to go after the firm announced production is to move. York International, which employs 450 people, is to stop making air conditioning units in the town as part of a restructuring. A company spokesman said production would be phased out over 12 months with the loss of 250 jobs
Guardian: It's tough out there, says John Lewis chief - but we can trade our way through it Conditions on the high street are "the worst for 15 years", the chairman of the John Lewis department store group said yesterday. Announcing a 3% dip in half year profits, to £78m, at the employee-owned partnership, Sir Stuart Hampson said trading conditions in the non-food sector were "exceptionally harsh" and that consumers had been "spooked" into curtailing their spending.
Guardian: Exporters forced to cut prices despite oil rise The continued sluggish performance of the eurozone - destination for half of British overseas sales - has sent manufacturing export orders to their lowest since the turn of the year, the CBI said yesterday. The CBI's latest snapshot of industry showed firms expect to have to cut the prices of their goods in spite of big cost rises caused by surging oil prices.
Policy Exchange: Bigger Better Faster More Britain has some of the oldest, pokiest and most expensive homes in the world. Our search for better alternatives took us to four countries with similar demand side pressures to find out how their planning systems succeed (and fail) to provide high quality, spacious homes at affordable prices.
FT: Latest storm could hit refineries harder than Katrina More than 1m people on Thursday fled their homes along the Texas and Louisiana coast to escape Hurricane Rita as President George W. Bush sought to avoid a repeat of the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina by urging a mass evacuation.
This Is Money: City turns on Brown's figures GORDON Brown's optimistic view of the economy is unravelling fast, as City economists warn that soaraway oil prices could drive inflation as high as 3% and undermine growth.
BBC NEWS | Business | UK factory orders 'remain weak' Manufacturing orders improved slightly in September, but remain near two-year lows, business group the CBI has said. Its latest monthly industrial trends survey showed that 39% of firms said order books were below normal, while only 12% said they were above.
Independent: IMF warns of $80 oil by Christmas The world economy could be plunged into recession by soaring oil prices or a sudden collapse in the dollar, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday.
Guardian: Brussels tells Brown to raise taxes or cut spending The International Monetary Fund and the European commission called on Gordon Brown yesterday to increase taxes or reduce spending as both organisations separately slashed their forecasts for British growth this year.
TimesOnline: MPC ponders how to deal with high oil price threat MEMBERS of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) are in a quandary over how to respond to high oil prices. Minutes of their latest meeting on September 7 and 8 show that the nine economists and Bank officials fear that high oil prices will raise inflation but slow the growth of output and spending. There appear to be wide differences, however, over how monetary policy should be used to deal with these opposing threats.
Reuters: OPEC powerless as oil keeps climbing after deal OPEC ministers left Vienna on Wednesday powerless over oil prices that kept climbing despite the cartel's commitment to offer up every last barrel of its spare production to reassure consumers. "We have done everything we can. This is the time for others to do what they can," Libya's Oil Minister Fathi Omar Bin Shatwan told Reuters ahead of his departure.
Economist: Reluctant party-poopers Despite the economic impact of Katrina, which dealt a stiff blow to America’s oil markets, the Federal Reserve has once again raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point. With high fuel prices threatening to bring on both inflation and recession, being a central banker is harder than it used to be.
BBC News: Call to cut cost of house buying Some people who buy and sell properties may be paying too much for local authority information, a study by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has found.
This is Money: Record numbers remortgaging Homeowners are remortgaging in record numbers to snap up the best interest rates. The amount loaned in remortgages reached £11.7bn last month, the same amount which used to be handed out in a whole year only a decade ago.
BBC News: Bank unanimous in holding rates The Bank of England's decision to keep interest rates on hold this month was unanimous, minutes of its September meeting show.
Independent: Surge in tax receipts cuts UK budget deficit Gordon Brown's quest to slash government borrowing was helped by a surge in tax receipts last month that narrowed the budget shortfall. Income from taxes rose twice as fast as spending, helping to keep the lid on public sector net borrowing (PSNB), which stood at £4.8bn in August - way below City forecasts of a £6bn deficit.
ThisisMoney: Record numbers remortgaging HOMEOWNERS are remortgaging in record numbers to snap up the best interest rates. The amount loaned in remortgages reached £11.7bn last month, the same amount which used to be handed out in a whole year only a decade ago.
New York Times: Pop Goes the Bubble? Maybe It's Time to Cheer Let me break the news: the housing bubble never loved you. The bubble is not even your friend. In fact, the very best thing you can say about the passing of this particular bubble is "good riddance."
New York Times: Putting the Squeeze on a Bubble Richard Bernstein, a strategist at Merrill Lynch, pointed out in a note to clients that construction company executives had been vigorously selling their shares in their businesses. Heavy insider selling is a red flag.
This Is Money: Your past needn't be a problem BORROWERS with a less-than-perfect credit history have often had a hard time getting a mortgage, with many turned down or charged high rates. But High Street lenders are now taking a more relaxed approach.
Reuters: Oil eases after 7 pct surge, storm threat looms Oil inched back to around $67 early on Tuesday after surging 7 percent as a fresh storm loomed in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening more supply disruptions less than a month after Hurricane Katrina.
Reuters: BoE vote to hold rates in Sept probably unanimous ..."Alternatively, the minutes may be more hawkish than the market expects, and the comments may have been a pre-emptive strike intended to prevent the market pricing in too much chance of higher rates."
CNN Money: Housing prices can go down Across America, real-estate prices continue to confound the skeptics. Many Americans have come to think of their homes as rock-solid investments with little downside.
Reuters.co.uk: Possible no housing market bubble-BoE's Nickell The housing market, which rose 123 percent between early 1999 and the middle of last year, may well not have been in a bubble, Bank of England policymaker Stephen Nickell said on Tuesday.
BBC News: Credit card spending falls again Spending on credit cards fell again in August, according to the British Bankers Association (BBA). Borrowing fell by £146m as card holders paid off more of their debts in August, triggering the second monthly fall in spending on credit cards this year
ICWales: More than 500 job cuts at Irish Ferries THE loss of 500 jobs on ferries sailing between Wales and Ireland has been blamed on fuel costs and competition from cheap flights. The planned cuts come after mounting costs at Irish Ferries, which sails out of Pembroke Dock and Holyhead. The company has offered voluntary redundancy to 543 staff, it was announced yesterday.
Examiner: Beatties plan to axe 300 jobs STAFF at Beatties department store in Huddersfield face uncertainty today after a decision to axe 300 jobs at the company. Beatties' owner House of Fraser is to close Beatties' loss-making Birmingham store with about 140 job losses. Another 30 jobs will go at the Beatties head office in Wolverhampton. The rest of the job losses will be at the chain's remaining 11 branches, which includes the store at Kingsgate.
EuroNews: Siemens announces more job losses The German engineering firm, Siemens is to lay off 2,400 workers at its computer-services division and reduce costs by 1.5 billion euros over the next two years. The head of that unit is also being replaced. In addition, the company will eliminate an unspecified number of jobs at Siemens Communications and break up its loss-making logistics unit.
Independent: Surveyors report pick-up in house sales Hopes of a return of life to the housing market receive another boost today from a survey showing a rise in the number of buyers and successful home sales.
TimesOnline: Film industry jobs hit by tax changes EMPLOYMENT in Britain’s film industry plunged by 20 per cent last year after a sharp decline in spending on production because of uncertainty over lucrative tax breaks offered to Hollywood studios.
BBC NEWS | England | Beds/Bucks/Herts | Factory shuts with 370 jobs lost The first Shredded Wheat factory to be built in the UK is to close after almost 80 years in production. The Grade II listed factory in Welwyn Garden City, Herts, will close in 2007 - with the loss of 370 jobs. Parent firm Cereal Partners said production of the cereal would be moved to their factory in Staverton, Wilts. A spokesman for the firm said the move was regrettable but that: "Lower manufacturing costs can only be achieved with fewer factories."
FT: New US hurricane threat sends energy prices soaring The threat of a new hurricane heading towards the Gulf of Mexico repeating the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina sent oil, petrol and gas prices soaring on Monday and overshadowed the ministerial meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
BBC: UK shuns designer wear for thrift UK shoppers are avoiding potential "fashion victim" purchases by turning to cheap chic instead of designer clothes, a new survey indicates.
Reuters: EU executive to rule UK budget deficit excessive The European Union's executive Commission will declare Britain in breach of the EU's budget deficit limits on Wednesday, a draft Commission report obtained by Reuters showed on Monday.
Money Week: A Bumpier Road Ahead For the US ...Reconciling these forces in my view implies changes in asset prices. In particular, the shift in the saving-investment balance will likely drive up US real rates. But volatility and real interest rates may rise globally, testing risky asset markets.
Money Week: The Simple Economics of Oil I had lunch earlier this week with a very clever economist who pointed out that economics really isn’t that hard. To be good at it, he said, you need only understand two things – supply and demand.
Money Week: Renting Looks Cheaper Than Buying As the housing market has cooled over the past year or so, agents and landlords have reported a steady demand for rented property. This is not surprising, as the modest falls in average house prices reported to date have yet to make much of a difference to first time buyers already priced out of the market.
ABC Money: Signs of recovery in Rightmove August report but wishful thinking? Further proof was provided that the property market had reached its trough and would recede no further. Data from a survey by property website Rightmove said the average asking price of a home in the UK had fallen from £196,282 to £195,407.
FT.Com: Rate cuts predicted if growth in UK falls short There is a “serious risk” that economic growth will fall short of the Bank of England's forecast, forcing further interest rate cuts, Stephen Nickell, a member of its monetary policy committee, has told the Financial Times.
ThisisMoney: Buyers tempted by price cuts BUYERS are returning to the property market, seemingly attracted by lower house prices. Prices fell for the third month in a row, figures showed today.
Telegraph: Banks blow cold on shared-equity scheme The Government may have to abandon its attempt to get mortgage banks to subsidise first-time buyers and help more of them on to the housing ladder, says the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
Reuters: House prices ease as sales rise House price inflation continued to ease in the last month but the number of house sales rose sharply, probably helped by August's interest rate cut, in a sign the property market slowdown may have troughed.
Reuters: Inflation expectations up in Aug Britons' expectations for inflation over the coming year rose to a median 2.2 percent in August from 2.0 percent in May, the Bank of England reported in its quarterly inflation attitudes survey on Monday.
News.com.au: House prices 'stagnate' House prices will likely stagnate for "many years," dragging on consumer spending and economic growth, according to analysts at ABN AMRO.
Independent: As the waters recede, expect US rates to keep rising All eyes will be on the US Federal Reserve this week as it meets to set its key interest rate. Surely, with rates having been raised 10 times in a row, the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina will be the signal for it to take a breather?
ThisisMoney: Warning over £1 trillion mountain of debt BRITAIN'S £1trillion personal debt mountain may be starting to fall apart with dire consequences for millions of households, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday. The highly-respected economic watchdog sounded the alarm over the recent record increase in personal bankruptcies. They rose by 37% to 11,195 between April and June compared to the same period last year, according to government figures.
Telegraph: Gloom deepens as stores suffer 20pc drop in sales Retail sales collapsed last week, with some stores reporting falls of up to 20 per cent, as an anticipated autumn recovery failed to materialise. A senior retailing executive said: "There were a number of causes of this particular disaster. People were queuing for petrol, the weather was warm, they were watching the cricket, and so on."
Telegraph: Whitehall sees off pressure for redundancies There has not been a single voluntary or compulsory redundancy of a full-time employee in seven of the Government's most important departments during the 14 months since the Chancellor pledged to slash Whitehall costs. However, there has been an explosion of expenditure on management consultants, hired to find cost savings.
Independent: Chains will go under, warns retail expert An expert on struggling retail businesses has predicted a glut of collapses on the high street in the run-up to Christmas. Paul McGowan, the UK chairman of Hilco - a US group that specialises in distressed debt and underperforming retail firms - said conditions were tough now but likely to get tougher, which would make further casualties unavoidable.
Independent: Chancellor is looking down a barrel as growth hopes take a knock A leading economic forecaster has been forced to shave its predictions for UK growth as high oil prices start to hit home. Ernst & Young's Item Club, which uses the Treasury's economic forecasting models, said GDP growth would slow to 2 per cent this year if oil prices remained around their current level of $65 a barrel. That is well below the forecast of the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who is looking for growth of 3 per cent, and also marks a 0.1 per cent reduction in the Item Club's most recent prediction.
TimesOnline: Brown warns on oil price as retailers report plunge in sales GORDON BROWN will tell the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank next weekend that Britain is being hit by a global slowdown as a result of high oil prices. The Ernst & Young Item club, in a new report, says high oil prices could slow Britain’s growth for three years.
NCPA: The Bicoastal Housing Bubble (USA) Speculative "bubbles" can appear in various sectors of the economy when the Federal Reserve eases monetary policy by lowering interest rates. Generally speaking, when the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy, the sectors of the economy that went up the most during the easing phase will fall the hardest as the bubble bursts.
Telegraph: Now the petrol crisis sweeps China The Chinese government is being pressed to solve the problem not by lowering the price, but raising it - a demand being led by the country's oil companies.
Economist: Don’t blame the savers Some economists argue that the imbalances in the world economy can be blamed, in part, on a glut of savings from developing countries gushing into American assets. New reports from the IMF and the World Bank say the problem lies elsewhere.
BBC News: Insurers being sued over Katrina Five US insurance companies are being accused of trying to trick Hurricane Katrina survivors out of millions of dollars in damage payouts.
Reuters: Rate cut this year seen less likely Another Bank of England interest rate cut this year is looking less likely as evidence builds that the economy is not slowing as quickly as many had feared.
HBOS: Million Pound Property Sales Down 26% In The First Half Of 2005 Million pound property sales across Britain in the first half of 2005 were 26% lower than in the first six months of 2004, according to new Halifax research. This decline followed a 36% rise between 2003 and 2004.
MoneyWeek: High Oil Prices Are Here To Stay It now seems to us quite unlikely that oil prices will be much lower at any time this year. The high oil price has hit American gasoline prices, which proportionately rise much more than the UK petrol prices because of the low level of taxation.
BBC News: US consumer confidence plunges US consumer confidence has plunged to its lowest level in more than a decade after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast, causing death and destruction.
Moneyweek: Housing slump demolishes builders' profits We have long been worried about house prices here at MoneyWeek. But last May, we finally got worried enough to run a four-page feature (by James Ferguson) explaining why the house price bubble had pretty much run its course.
ThisisMoney: Birds Eye up for grabs FROZEN food giant Birds Eye has been put up for sale and could fetch as much as £1bn in the latest shakeup at Unilever's sprawling Persil and PG Tips-to-Wall's ice cream empire.
Annova: Learning body to cut 1,300 jobs The official body in charge of promoting learning and skills in England is to axe 1,300 jobs under cost-cutting plans, union officials have been told.
Yahoo: Secured loans demand 'to ease off' Demand for secured loans is set to cool over the coming five years as the property market continues to slow down, research has claimed. Market analyst Datamonitor said the double digit growth in secured lending seen during the past few years was unlikely to be repeated in the near future. Instead it expects total advances of the loans, which are secured against people's homes, to increase at a rate of just 5.3% a year between now and the end of 2009 to reach £35.4 billion a year.
Yahoo: £34bn spent on home improvements Britons are collectively investing £34 billion a year in improving their properties, research has shown. More than half of those questioned had already made changes to their home this year, and a further 16% are planning to make modifications during the next 12 months, according to savings group ING Direct. On average, home owners estimate they spend more than £350 a month on their properties, with just under a fifth saying they save the money they need to carry out their improvements.
Reuters: OPEC brushes aside calls to raise crude output OPEC's chief on Thursday brushed aside calls from Finance Minister Gordon Brown to pump more oil to help stabilise world energy markets, saying supply was already meeting global demand.
TimesOnline: High street gloom increases as sales slump at supermarkets HIGH street tills failed to ring up any rise in sales last month as battered retailers were hit by a slump in trading at food stores. Retail sales volumes stagnated in August, while a decline in sales in July was revised to show a drop of 0.6 per cent — twice as large as previously reported.
ThisisMoney: Labour's tax on the family FAMILIES are being encouraged to break up by Labour's tax and benefits policies. Parents can receive £4,000 more in handouts if they split up, says a report by the think-tank Civitas.
Telegraph: Housing downturn comes back to haunt the home improver You can do it if you B&Q it, the advertising jingle said. Unfortunately, it turns out that you can do it if you Homebase it, or Tesco it, or Topps Tiles it. Or, if your mortgage repayments have gone up, why do it at all?
Guardian: Next chief says sector is having its worst time in 13 years Simon Wolfson, chief executive of the fashion chain Next, described high-street conditions yesterday as the worst he had experienced since joining the retail business in 1992. The Next Group, which is Britain's third-biggest clothing business, said sales in the last six weeks had deteriorated further from the poor trading of the first half. Its shares lost 48p to £14.42 and led to falls across the retail sector.
ChannelRegister: Job losses loom at SiemensSiemens could be about to announce a rack of job cuts as part of moves to restructure the business and stem losses, according to reports from Germany. Some 1,300 jobs are due for the chop at Siemens' SBS IT division, according to a report by Sueddeutsche-Zeitung by way of AFX, as it seeks to find €1.5bn in cost savings.
BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | High Street bank name disappears The Birmingham Midshires name is to disappear from England's high streets. Parent company HBOS is to revamp 19 branches under the Halifax brand and close the remaining 48 branches in the Midlands, North West and South West.
BBC News: US jobless claims at 10-year high Before Katrina struck, the US economy was creating new jobs US unemployment has surged in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, with the weekly rise in the number of people claiming benefits jumping to 10-year highs.
BBC2: Get Rich Quick Filmmaker Saul Dibb follows one of the booming number of investment schemes that claim they can create vast amounts of wealth in very short spaces of time. Revealing, funny and at times deeply poignant, the result is a gripping modern morality tale.
MoneyWeek: Is the World Headed for Stagflation? Recent economic data, combined with the rise in energy prices this summer and the likely policy reactions in Washington to Hurricane Katrina, have firmed my belief that the global macro environment will turn stagflationary soon.
MoneyWeek: Australia Points The Way for UK House Market In recent months we have highlighted developments in Australia, another economy whose very rapid rates of house price growth in recent years appear to have left its housing market significantly overvalued and vulnerable to a correction.
MoneyWeek: Is the first cut the last cut? Earlier this year, everyone thought the Bank of England should keep raising interest rates. Last month, everyone thought it should start cutting them...
Mortgage Introducer: Mind the gap Following a cut in Bank base rate, it takes up to a month for providers to pass a reduction on to their existing mortgage customers according to Moneyfacts.co.uk.
Reuters: Property going, going, gone for a song The value of properties going under the hammer jumped in 2004 despite a slowdown in house price growth, as buyers increasingly turned to property auctions to nab a bargain.
BBC News: UK consumer spending remains flat UK retail sales for August remained unchanged on the previous month, as the Office for National Statistics revised downwards the annual figure for July.
SKY News: Fuel still in short supply Queues at petrol stations are getting shorter - but there are still fuel shortages across many parts of Britain because of panic-buying.
ITVNews: Mortgage customers 'wasting thousands' Britons coming to the end of a mortgage deal are collectively wasting £20 million a month by failing to switch to a better rate.. Around 50 per cent of homeowners have a fixed or tracker rate mortgage, but 35 per cent of these say they will not bother remortgaging when their current deal expires, according to high street bank Abbey.
Reuters: Kingfisher H1 profit slumps, to revamp B&Q Kingfisher (KGF.L: Quote, Profile, Research), owner of B&Q and France's Castorama home improvement chains, posted a 23 percent fall in first-half profits on Thursday and said market conditions remained weak in the second half.
ThisisMoney: Next plunge chills High St FASHION chain Next sent a chill wind through the High Street today as it said trading in the past six weeks has been far worse than in the whole of the first half of the year and admitted it was not keeping up with fashions quickly enough.
Forbes.com: Kingfisher to close 20 underperforming B&Q stores Struggling UK retailer Kingfisher PLC will announce the closure of up to 20 of its underperforming B&Q DIY stores when it unveils interim results this Thursday, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
Telegraph:Property nightmare - taking a fall in value Falling property values brought about by the recession in the 1990s may seem like a thing of the past, but when Richard and Carol Odendaal came to sell their four bedroom home they found themselves out of pocket, writes Christopher Browne
FT.Com: Crude surges after drop in inventories Crude oil prices rallied after a larger than expected fall in US oil inventories was reported by the Energy Information Administration in the second week after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast.
BBC News: New debt fear for Katrina victims New US bankruptcy laws could add to the woes of Hurricane Katrina victims as they struggle to rebuild their lives, a politician has warned.
FT.Com: US Federal Reserve set to raise rates again The US Federal Reserve is set to press ahead with its campaign of raising interest rates at its meeting next week, in spite of the economic impact of Hurricane Katrina.
This is Money: To buy or not to buy Buying your first home is always fraught, even at the best of times. But with house prices in some regions falling, would it be better to put off that purchase for a few months?
Guardian: Oil lifts inflation to highest level for nine years The spiralling cost of oil sent inflation in Britain to its highest level in almost nine years last month as dearer energy pushed up the cost of travel by car, train, plane and ferry, government figures revealed yesterday.
Fox News: Is The US Housing Market About to Bubble Over? The reason you want to pay close attention to Shiller, a professor at Yale University, is that he is remarkably prescient: his book "Irrational Exuberance," which predicted the bursting of the technology stock bubble, came out in early 2000. A month later the market started its painful three-year decline.
Times Argus: US Consumer confidence plummets Consumer confidence tumbled in early September as Hurricane Katrina made people feel increasingly anxious about the economy's prospects and their own in the months ahead, according to figures released Friday.
Channel 4 News: Brits 'panic save' for retirement An estimated 2.6 million people are panic saving, desperately trying to set aside as much money as possible in the last few years before they retire, according to research.
BBC News: Debt 'way of life' for under-25s The proportion of 18 to 25-year-olds among the clients of one of the UK's leading debt charities has doubled over the past three years.
MoneyWeek: Will The Fed Freeze Interest Rates? At Alan Greenspan's pre-Katrina speech at Jackson Hole, he clearly indicated that the Fed is targeting what he feels is an unhealthy rise in asset prices, and specifically the rise in your home values. Even for a Greenspan speech, or maybe especially for a Greenspan speech, it was not subtle.
SkyNews: HP TO AXE HUNDREDS US computer giant Hewlett-Packard is to cut 968 jobs in Britain over the next 12 months. The cuts will be part of a total of 5,900 jobs around the world. The UK jobs are to go at Hewlett-Packard's five British sites: Bracknell, Bristol, Glasgow, Reading and Warrington.
Motley Fool: Your Home Could Become A Prison! I watched a very gloomy programme on ITV1 last night, entitled Repossession, Repossession, Repossession (a title we suggested in this article). The show featured real-life tales from homeowners who had been turned out of their homes after getting into difficulty with debt or mortgage repayments.
Guardian: City says homeowners should be braced for period of falling prices · Official figures challenged by analysts· Warning that market is already in retreat. The City was last night warning homeowners to brace themselves for a period of falling house prices after the latest figures from the government showed the value of property rising at its slowest rate since the year before Tony Blair entered Downing Street.
Reuters: CPI seen rising further above target in Aug Inflation is expected to have risen further above its 2.0 percent target in August, boosted by surging petrol prices, according to analysts polled by Reuters.
SkyNews: AUGUST LONDON SALES DIVE Shoppers' reluctance to go to central London following the July attacks on the Tube brought about a 11.5% slump in sales on the same time last year. The fall was the worst since the London Retail Sales Monitor began in October 2002.
ThisisMoney: House prices continue to slow GOVERNMENT figures confirmed the continued slowdown in the housing market today, with home prices now just 4% higher than a year earlier.
ThisisMoney: Britain slipping up on business BRITAIN is slowly but surely becoming a less attractive place to do businesses, according to figures published by the World Bank yesterday.
ThisisMoney: High Street gloom deepens on sales slump A TRIPLE whammy of Ashes fever, fine weather and lingering anxiety after the London bombings were today blamed for a disastrous fall in High Street sales in the capital last month.
BBC News: 'Minimum buy' to fight fuel panic Motorists may have to make a "minimum purchase" at petrol pumps to prevent panic-buying in the event of refinery blockades, fuel retailers have warned.
BBC News: House price growth still cooling House prices rose by an annual rate of 4% in July, a slowdown from June's 5%, according to the latest data from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
ThisisMoney: The Iron Chancellor should bend a little GORDON Brown finds himself at the centre of a political firestorm over surging oil, petrol and energy costs. The Chancellor knows that rising oil prices will boost his tax revenues and encourage North Sea oil production.
Independent: Demand for commercial property grinds to a halt, says RICS UK businesses' demand for property has ground to a standstill as retailers and factories respond to the sharp fall in consumer spending, a report showed today. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said the number of firms cutting back their property budget outnumbered those raising their demand.
Reuters: Housebuilder Bovis eyes cheaper sales as H1 falls Housebuilder Bovis Homes Group Plc posted a 32 percent fall in half-year profit on Monday, hit by a slowing housing market, and said there was "considerable uncertainty" over the housing market's robustness.
FT.com: Housing chains pay to keep buyers “Co-operation” is a rarely heard phrase in the dog-eat-dog world of property sales. But in today's sluggish housing market, some buyers are shelling out thousands of pounds to strangers just to stop housing chains from collapsing.
Guardian: Fears grow for Katrina insurers The Financial Services Authority has launched an inquiry into the effects of Hurricane Katrina on insurers as fears grow that a number face financial collapse.
ThisIsMoney: Estate agents scheme too weak Consumers are at the mercy of unscrupulous estate agents because the code of conduct that regulates them is not up to scratch, according to Which?.
Sky News: Fuel Protests Set For This Week Britain is bracing itself for a week of disruption, as fuel protesters threaten refinery demonstrations and motorway go-slows.
BBC News: EU faces Katrina economic effect Limiting the economic impact of soaring fuel costs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is top of the agenda for European Union talks.
BBC News: Oil rises amid winter price alert Oil prices rose for the second day running amid predictions from the US that this winter would bring the highest energy costs for a decade.
MoneyWeek: The Sales That Aren't There The statistics we have right now are all based on properties that actually sell, not the huge quantity, perhaps even the majority, that just don’t sell.
Yahoo: EU demands more and cheaper oil European ministers urged the oil-producing countries on Saturday to boost supplies rapidly to combat soaring fuel bills and told oil companies to reinvest more of their vast profits in exploration and refining.
The Times: Fears that higher oil prices are pushing up UK inflation Higher oil prices are exerting significant upward pressure on inflation, official figures are set to show this week. After a month in which crude oil prices topped a record $70 a barrel, figures tomorrow are set to show industry’s raw material and fuel costs rising at their fastest rate for more than 20 years.
The Observer: Savers hit by sinking interest rates Savers should check the interest rates they are earning as nearly every bank or building society has now reduced the rates on its savings accounts and Isas following last month's base rate cut.
Scotsman.com: A first foot on the ladder A NEW mortgage to help first-time buyers take that initial step up the home ownership ladder will be launched this week, at a time when other deals to help property market newcomers are being withdrawn.
icWales: Home debts swallow more income The ost of servicing mortgages is taking up an increasing amount of the nation's disposable income, according to new figures.
EDP24: We owe an average of £27,000 each People in Norfolk who seek help with money troubles owe an average of £27,000 each in personal debt (excluding mortgages), new figures revealed last night.
TimesOnline: Is buy-to-let a letdown? ALL THE STATISTICS now tell us that the soar-away British housing market is sinking into a period of price stagnation, if not outright and sustained falls. Does this mean that buy-to-let can now be consigned to the dustbin of Cabbage Patch doll investments, all the rage one day, all but disappeared the next? If we look back on the behaviour of buy-to-let since it became a market phenomenon about five or six years ago, we can see three main explanations for its popularity:
ThisisMoney: Power price blow for millions MILLIONS of British Gas customers were today hit with a 14.2% rise in their energy bills - the third increase since January last year. Parent company Centrica said the soaring oil prices and dwindling North Sea gas reserves had forced it to follow the lead of rivals Powergen and EDF Energy.
FT.Com: House price inflation slows to near zero House prices in England and Wales fell for the sixth month in a row in August, according to the FT house price index, the most reliable guide to the prices achieved by sellers in the property market, published on Friday. After another small monthly drop of 0.1 per cent last month, the annual rate of house price inflation has declined from 15.2 per cent in August 2004 to 3 per cent.
TimesOnline: Pressure rises on Bank to cut rates if economy falters BUSINESS groups stepped up pressure on the Bank of England to keep the door open to further cuts in interest rates yesterday after the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) pegged borrowing costs at 4.5 per cent yesterday.
Money Week: Upbeat US Analysts Ignore Katrina's Reality Objective discussion of North American financial and economic matters is often made insuperably difficult by the inherent optimism of so many resident commentators and players.
Yahoo! Finance: Westbury expects big fall in H1 operating profit Housebuilder Westbury Plc said it expects a signficant fall in first-half operating profit and margin, adding that last month's cut in UK interest rates was not sufficient to revive an ailing housing market.
Money Week: US Consumers Are Running on Empty The role of American consumers in promoting economic growth in the U.S. and, indeed, in many export-driven foreign countries will be especially significant in coming quarters.
Yahoo! Finance: ONS says labour market may be weakening The labour market, while still strong, is weakening, with wage inflation easing and the trend in the employment rate starting to fall, the Office for National Statistics said in a report on Thursday.
BBC NEWS | Business | Bank keeps rates on hold at 4.5% The Bank of England's rate-setting committee has voted to keep UK interest rates on hold at 4.5%. The decision by the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was widely anticipated by analysts.
BurtonMail: TOO MANY NEW HOUSES BUILT BURTON’s housing boom appears to have come to a halt after council bosses unveiled plans to block new developments in the town over fears that supply is outstripping demand.
BBC News: Bank poised to leave rates steady The Bank of England's rate setting committee is widely expected to keep interest rates on hold at 4.5% at the end of its two-day meeting on Thursday.
BBC News: MFI hit by sharp fall in UK sales UK spending on furniture has fallen Furniture retailer MFI has added to the gloom surrounding the retail sector by reporting a sharp drop in UK orders.
SkyNews: JAGUAR TO SHED HUNDREDS Hundreds of white collar jobs are to go at luxury car maker Jaguar and its Ford-owned stablemate Land Rover. Up to 300 office posts could be lost at the two companies as part of a voluntary redundancy scheme to restructure the car makers.
ThisisMoney: Banks warned on cheap loans BRITAIN'S banks face a growing threat as they continue to lend cheaply in an economic environment that is becoming more uncertain, John Tiner, head of the Financial Service Authority has warned.
Telegraph: We' can't see even a glimmer of light, says Dixons chief Dixons chief executive John Clare yesterday blamed UK consumers, burdened with tax increases and high oil prices, for a very poor trading performance by the retailer. He said: "We're not seeing any glimmer of light."
Independent: Estate agents to share £77m bonus Estate agents at Savills will share in a bonus of as much as £77m after sales of multimillion-pound houses and commercial properties continued to prosper in the first six months of the year.
Independent: Jump in property prices rules out interest rate cut House prices posted their strongest monthly rise for almost a year last month, according to figures that took the City by surprise yesterday and eliminated any prospect of a cut in interest rates today.
SkyNews: MORTGAGE COSTS RISE The average cost of servicing a mortgage rose slightly during August despite the interest rate cut. People in England and Wales spent an average of £512 on mortgage repayments during the month, £10 more than they spent in July, according to the Woolwich.
Reuters: BoE set to leave interest rates steady this week The Bank of England looks almost certain to keep interest rates steady at 4.5 percent this week after last month's quarter-point cut but analysts are increasingly divided over what the next move in policy will be. All 47 analysts polled by Reuters last week predicted no change on Thursday. After that, 17 said a slowing economy would prompt another easing later this year. Another 17 said the BoE would wait until 2006 before cutting rates any further.
Reuters: UK consumer services see business stagnating-CBI UK consumer service firms expect business to stagnate over the next three months and costs will keep rising and dent profits, a survey showed on Wednesday. A quarterly survey of consumer services by the Confederation of British Industry and accountancy firm Grant Thornton, showed business volumes rose modestly in the three months to August to a balance of +9 from 0 in the May survey.
ThisisMoney: Credit card spending falls SPENDING on credit cards in the South East fell last year for the first time on record as consumers fell out of love with their plastic. A report published tomorrow by Apacs, the UK payments association, will show people living in the England's most affluent region spent £33bn on credit cards last year, down from £37bn in 2003.
Guardian: Bank fees have cost shoppers millions Britain's consumer watchdog ruled yesterday that UK shoppers have been unfairly "taxed" hundreds of millions of pounds because banks have been charging retailers excessively high fees. Following a five-and-a-half-year investigation, the Office of Fair Trading said an agreement between Mastercard and Britain's major banks - concerning the fees charged when consumers used their credit cards to buy goods - breached competition law.
Guardian: OECD warns on UK interest rates The west's leading economic thinktank last night sharply cut its forecast for the UK this year and warned that the Bank of England might need to cut interest rates further to boost flagging growth. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, based in Paris, Britain will grow by 1.9% in 2005 - barely more than half the rate predicted by the chancellor, Gordon Brown, in the budget .
TimesOnline: OECD cuts Britain's growth forecast to just 1.9% BRITAIN’s economy will slow sharply to just 1.9 per cent this year, the OECD forecast yesterday, as new figures showed weakening activity in the crucial services sector and manufacturing struggling out of technical recession.
The Herald: Helping the house-hunter On one level, it seems a curious, even irresponsible, way to make law. The mechanics are familiar. Publish proposals to change the way we do things.
EANews: Revenue slump set to continue... THERE is unlikely to be any recovery in the value of the estate agency market until 2008. That is the prediction of market analysts Key Note, who reckon that a revenue decline of 9.1 per cent this year will be followed by a further decline of 10.3 per cent in 2006. Their forecast comes as a drop in transactions and profits and consequent branch closures continue to afflict wide sections of the industry.
TheCourier: City braces itself for major job losses MANUFACTURING workers employed by NCR in Dundee are bracing themselves for potentially substantial jobs losses among their ranks after an announcement by the US-owned company that it is to open a new plant in eastern Europe. NCR employs some 1500 personnel in Dundee, around 800 of whom are manufacturing workers at the Gourdie factory on Kingsway Wes
ThisisMoney: Retail sales in summer doldrums RETAILERS suffered another month of falling sales in August – the sixth time business has declined this year.The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said like-for-like sales fell 1% in August, better than the decline of 1.9% seen in July but still disappointing when placed against weak trading a year earlier.
Reuters: UK watchdog criticises small mortgage brokers Britain's financial watchdog criticised small mortgage brokers on Tuesday for poor record-keeping and potentially recommending low-income borrowers take on more debt than they can afford. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said it had referred three firms to its enforcement unit for further investigation after it uncovered evidence they were potentially helping people to obtain mortgages by possibly inflating incomes on application forms.
Guardian: 150 jobs to go at Travis Perkins Building materials group Travis Perkins is to shed 150 jobs as it speeds up its cost-cutting in the wake of a 7.4% fall in like-for-like retail sales at the newly-acquired Wickes. Back office, IT and finance staff at the former Wickes headquarters at Harrow, north London, and Travis's base in Northampton are at risk of redundancies.
Guardian: Summer sales fail to lift gloom Bombs, the weather, cricket and the new mood of consumer caution conspired to provide Britain's shops and stores with another grim month's trading in August, the British Retail Consortium reports today.
Yahoo (US): First Crack in the Housing Bubble ... And Everyone Missed It The Wall Street Journal missed it ... and so did almost every major media outlet. When the new statistics on new home starts and pricing came out last week, the good news was overwhelming. Housing sales were up 6.5% "to break yet another record," reported WSJ.
NEWS.com.au: Investors flee property The number of loans taken for homes rose 0.2 per cent in July, but investment loans tumbled as the housing market softened.
Independent: Jobs axed as DIY feels High St gloom THE gloom on Britain's High Streets has spread to the DIY sector as the axe is brought down on up to 1300 jobs. Travis Perkins, owner of the Wickes chain of DIY stores, has already shed 735 jobs over the past few months to deal with what its boss called 'challenging trading'.
Reuters: UK manufacturers cautiously upbeat,output slows British manufacturers' confidence about their future order books has risen even though actual output has declined and firms are struggling to pass on the cost of soaring energy prices, an industry survey showed on Monday. The latest Engineering Employers' Federation survey showed firms predicted export orders would pick up as would overall output even though official data has shown Britain's manufacturing sector slipped into recession earlier this year. "We are certainly not looking at the big confidence balances of last year but companies are guardedly optimistic about the future," said EEF chief economist Steve Radley.
Reuters: August services growth slows, costs rise British service sector growth slowed more than expected in August as soaring oil prices pushed up costs at their fastest rate in four months, a report showed on Monday. The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply/NTC Research said its services Business Activity Index slipped to 55.2 last month, its weakest in three months, from 56.3 in July. That was below consensus expectations for a slight fall to 56.0 but still showed relatively strong growth and is unlikely to change expectations that the Bank of England will leave interest rates at 4.5 percent this week.
BBC NEWS | Business | Manufacturing job hopes 'worsen' Employment prospects in manufacturing have hit their weakest levels in two years, a report from the Engineering Employers Federation (EEF) has said. The EEF said most areas of the sector cut jobs in the three months to August.
Yahoo: Jobcentre staff consider actionThousands of workers in job centres, benefit offices and pensions centres are to vote on whether to stage a strike in protest at job cuts. Around 10,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) in London will be balloted over the next few weeks on whether to hold a one day walkout followed by other forms of industrial action. The union said it was starting to mobilise possible action in London because 1,000 jobs had already been axed in the capital, hitting benefit payments
Yahoo: First time buyers told 'head north' First-time buyers looking for the best return on their investment should head north to purchase a home, research claims. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) said three of the top five property hotspots for first-time buyers were in the north of England, while one was in Scotland and one was in Wales. The group looked at a range of factors to find where the best places for first-time buyers to get on to the property ladder were, taking into account factors which would affect future house price
Reuters: Manufacturers cautiously upbeat, output slows British manufacturers' confidence about their future order books has risen even though actual output has declined and firms are struggling to pass on the cost of soaring energy prices, an industry survey showed on Monday.
Independent: Millions of savers lose out as banks take advantage of interest rate cut Leading banks and building societies are taking advantage of last month's base rate reduction by cutting the interest they pay savers much more sharply. A report published today by market analyst Moneyfacts reveals that several savings account providers have cut their interest rates by as much as 0.6 percentage points, even though the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee's August reduction was just 0.25 percentage points.
Guardian: Firms look at switching production abroad Major British manufacturing companies are considering switching production to overseas sites because of the rising cost of energy and concerns about security of supply, according to a leading business group.
TimesOnline: Banks set for sharp increase in mortgages to landlords BANKS in the buy-to-let market are looking forward to a sharp rise in demand for loans resulting from an expected 40 per cent surge in the private rented sector. The Centre for Economics and Business Research believes that Britain’s private rented sector will surge by a million homes to 3.5 million over the next eight years.
BBC NEWS | Business | B&Q 'to axe hundreds of workers' DIY chain B&Q is to cut almost a third of its head office workers, a newspaper report says. On Tuesday the firm will announce it is cutting 400 staff from its 1,400-strong workforce at its HQ in Eastleigh, Hampshire, the Mail on Sunday reported.
Yahoo! Finance: IMF says global growth at risk from high oil price Global economic growth is continuing above 4 percent this year, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Saturday, but he warned that the high price of oil posed an increasing risk to growth.
Yahoo! News UK: IEA chief warns of worldwide energy crisis The head of the West's energy watchdog said in an interview on Saturday that Hurricane Katrina could spark a worldwide energy crisis if damage to U.S. refineries led to a big increase in U.S. purchases of European petrol.
Scotsman.com: Economy blown off course Hurricane Katrina will deliver a huge blow to the US, and potentially the global, economy following this week's devastating hit on the Gulf Coast, as the loss of production and rising oil price holds back GDP growth.
Telegraph: Rush for unit trusts drives sales up tenfold Net retail sales of unit trusts - new investments by individuals, less units encashed - soared to £852 million last month, more than 10 times their level in July last year.
MyFinances: Rents rising for buy-to-let property Buy-to-let landlords have seen rents rise at their fastest rate for four years, the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors (Rics) reveals today.
Times Online: Give your savings a better home There is no better kind of loan than the offset mortgage, or at least that’s what some lenders are telling the nation’s homebuyers. This mortgage, we are told, will solve all your financial dilemmas and leave you happier and richer.
Scotsman: Speed of manufacturing job losses increases BRITISH manufacturers facing pressure from falling sales and rising raw material costs have been shedding jobs at the fastest rate for two years, according to a new report. The squeeze on the workforce came as firms continued to report lacklustre levels of activity, albeit at a stronger rate than the past four months.
Money Week: Beware the US Housing Bubble Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has upped the ante. Having said in May that parts of the US housing market were looking frothy, last week he described the US housing boom as an “economic imbalance” and warned that prices, fuelled by “investors accepting lower compensation for risk”, could go into reverse. Basically, says Paul Krugman in The New York Times, he’s saying “beware the bursting bubble”.
Scotsman: Troubled waters for landlords It seems like only yesterday that every man and his dog wanted to be a buy-to-let investor. Buying off-plan on the waterfront was a passport to riches and staring off into the horizon all we could see were calm waters offering exponential capital growth and a tidy sum each year from rental profits. As the reality of both over-supply of investor-friendly flats and over-optimistic predictions takes hold, however, the tranquil waters of buy-to-let have taken on a distinctly choppy cast.
Yahoo! Finance: King says some oil price rise temporary Some of the rise in oil prices over recent weeks won't last but the big run-up over the past year, driven by strong world demand, is here to stay, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said on Thursday.
CreditAction: Debt Facts and Figures - Compiled 1st September 2005 Total UK personal debt broke through the £1.1 trillion barrier (£1,100,000,000,000) in June 2005. This is 11 months since it broke through the £1 trillion barrier in July 2004. Britain's personal debt is increasing by £1 million every four minutes. At the end of July 2005 the total UK personal debt was £1,114bn. The growth rate remains strong at 10.7% for the previous 12 months. 2004 saw the largest single-year increase in debt (£116bn) since the Bank of England was founded in 1694.
Independent: King comments quash rate hopes Mervyn King appeared to quash any lingering hopes of an imminent cut in interest rates yesterday, hailing the economy's prospects as "optimistic" and warning of continued high oil prices.
Guardian: Rate cut fails to lift property prices The Nationwide said yesterday the average house price fell 0.2% last month, reversing July's gain and dragging the annual rate of growth down to just 2.3%, the weakest for nine years.The survey showed that the Bank of England's interest rate cut at the beginning of August had done little to breathe new life into a moribund housing market.
Guardian: Petrol to hit £1 a litre after US buys up supplies Motorists were warned last night that petrol prices seem certain to pass £1 a litre within days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out many of the oil refineries on the US Gulf coast. As US oil companies bought up 20 shiploads of European petrol yesterday, the wholesale price of petrol on the Rotterdam spot market soared to a record of $855 a tonne (more than $100 a barrel), up more than 20% in two days and something experts said would feed through to the forecourt within days.
TimesOnline: £1 litre looms as US oil firms target European fuel supplies THE economic damage from Hurricane Katrina will soon be felt in Britain with petrol prices possibly soaring as high as £1 per litre. Flood-damaged American oil companies are expected to turn to European refineries for alternative supplies of road fuel, forcing up the price of petrol and diesel in Britain.
TimesOnline: Fuel prices soar as US rushes to fill petrol shortfall THE transatlantic fuel crisis deepened yesterday as it emerged that Hurricane Katrina has left America with an acute gasoline (petrol) shortage that could continue for several months. Flood-hit US oil companies need to find one million barrels per day to keep the American market in balance and are now scouring the globe for alternative petrol supplies.
TimesOnline: House price rises move into line with inflation HOUSE prices fell in August, marking the third monthly fall this year, Nationwide has reported, taking the property inflation rate to its lowest level in nine years but leaving analysts divided on how much longer the slowdown will continue. The building society said that house prices fell by 0.2 per cent last month, fully reversing a 0.2 per cent rise in prices in July.
smh.com.au: Harder they fall: Sydney's biggest housing slump Sydney home prices have suffered their sharpest annual fall on record as the property market continues to slump - and experts are tipping the slide to continue for the next few years
Guardian: House price growth still slowing, says Nationwide The year-on-year rise in house prices fell to its lowest rate since May 1986 in August, but first-time buyers now need to find a deposit of £17,000, according to figures published today. Nationwide building society said prices were down 0.2% over the month, reducing annual price inflation to 2.3%. This is compared to annual growth of 2.6% in July and 18.9% in August last year.
smh.com.au: Sydney house prices down Sydney home prices have suffered their sharpest annual fall since the Australian Bureau of Statistics began keeping records two decades ago.
SkyNews: FUEL PRICES HIKES NEAR The knock-on effect of Hurricane Katrina is threatening to push up petrol and diesel prices in Britain. The wholesale cost of fuel has leapt on both sides of the Atlantic as traders expect America to start snapping up supplies after oil refineries were put out of action.
Forbes.com: Twenty oil rigs missing in Gulf of Mexico - Coast Guard At least 20 oil rigs and platforms are missing in the Gulf of Mexico and a ruptured gas pipeline is on fire after Hurricane Katrina hit the region, Agence France-Presse reported, citing a source from a US Coast Guard unit operating in the area.
ThisisMoney: House prices slide again HOUSE prices fell again in August despite the cut in interest rates at the beginning of the month, Britain's biggest building society revealed today. Nationwide said the average price of a home slipped 0.2% to £157,310, wiping out the previous month's 0.2% rise. That pushed the year-on-year rate of increase down to 2.3% - the weakest since May 1996.
BBC NEWS | Business | House prices head lower in August House price growth has slowed to its lowest level in nine years, according to figures from the Nationwide. Price continued to decelerate, falling 0.2% in August from July and leaving the annual rate of increase at 2.3%.
Silicon.com: Barclays to axe 500 UK IT jobs Barclays is preparing to cut up to 500 jobs from its UK IT department in the next month as part of a massive shake-up that includes the restructuring of a key $350m desktop outsourcing deal with EDS. Multiple sources have confirmed to silicon.com that the bank will sack between 450 and 500 middle and lower ranking staff from Barclays' 2,500 UK IT workforce over the next four weeks after staff were told that their jobs are at risk.
ISP Review: THUS To Shift 60 Jobs Offshore THUS (Demon Internet) is reported to be planning a cull of 60 jobs at its Southend office, with some tech support being shifted offshore to India. The move is part of a cost cutting drive for the operator, which recently failed in its bid to acquire rival Energis:
FT.Com: Hurricane raises fears of global energy crisis Fears of an international energy crisis mounted on Wednesday as the scale of human and economic devastation caused in the southern US by Hurricane Katrina became fully apparent. The death toll of more than 100 in official tallies was expected to rise much higher, with the mayor of New Orleans warning that the number of dead in his city would be “minimum hundreds, most likely thousands”. A massive operation was under way to rescue people stranded by floodwater and to care for the many thousands made homeless.
Reuters: House prices fall 0.2 pct in AugustHouse prices fell 0.2 percent on the month in August taking the annual rate of increase to its weakest in more than nine years, the Nationwide building society said on Thursday. The annual rate of just 2.3 percent was the slowest since May 1996 and took the price of the average home to 157,310 pounds from 158,348 the month before. House prices edged up a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in July, leaving them up 2.6 percent on the year.
Guardian: Job ad fall hurts Johnston Press Johnston Press became the latest regional newspaper publisher to issue a downbeat trading outlook yesterday after warning of depressed advertising revenues for the rest of the year. The owner of 276 titles including the Yorkshire Post said the recruitment market, its largest source of advertising income, suffered a near-double digit decline in the first half of 2005. Advertising revenues for the six months to June 30 fell 0.8%, but tight control of costs and a doubling in profits from Johnston's online business helped pre-tax profits rise 9% to £82.2m. Total revenues rose 1.2% to £264.6m.
TimesOnline: Big banks set to slash savings rates MORE than half of the UK’s banks and building societies are expected to cut interest rates on savings accounts on Thursday, reducing the value of millions of savers’ investments. Big players such as Abbey, Alliance & Leicester, Barclays, Woolwich, Halifax, HSBC and Lloyds TSB have yet to advertise savings rate changes, but a barrage of cuts is expected on September 1 in response to this month’s quarter-point drop in the Bank of England base rate to 4.5 per cent.
TimesOnline: Chinese deadlock threatens small fry THE deadlock over Chinese clothing quotas could threaten the survival of hundreds of small companies. The fears emerged last night as Snowbee, a Portsmouth company that imports clothing and equipment for fly-fishing from China, said that a prolonged impasse would jeopardise the business.
BBC NEWS | Business | Katrina threatens petrol prices Oil prices have fallen back from record levels after the US said it will release crude from its emergency stock following Hurricane Katrina. However, the price of gasoline jumped higher on concerns that refineries will take time to get back to full output.
