The UK government is attempting to reignite the economy with a plan to relax planning rules, to allow businesses and homes to expand and improve their properties. The expectation is that this supply side policy will help remove the bureaucracy and begin growth for the UK economy. Bank of England (BoE) announces interest rates and its asset purchase plan at 12pm (London). The benchmark interest rate is expected to be left unchanged at 0.5% and the asset purchase facility held at…

The pace of growth in the Australian economy seems to have slowed. GDP data released overnight showed that economy grew 0.6% QoQ (Q2) compared to the more impressive 1.4% in Q1. The main contributing factor seemed to be the mining sector, down 1.4%. Perhaps this is due to other mitigating factors, though analysts are likely to point to the connection between the slowing of Chinese demand and Australian mining supply. Anticipation for the next iPhone release is underway as Apple…

The US markets were closed yesterday for the Labor Day public holiday, meaning that volumes were thin between the European and Asian sessions. Overnight during the Asian session, the RBA rate decision took centre stage, and left interest rates on hold at 3.50%, as expected. AUDUSD initially rallied on the decision and is currently trading at 1.02861. The London 2012 Olympic Games failed to boost the UK high street, with August BRC like-for-like retail sales -0.5%. This doe…

The weekend’s financial press were awash with articles discussing Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke’s Jackson Hole speech on Friday. Bernanke’s comments were sufficiently dovish, and led US equity markets to close with gains on Friday, with Gold and Silver benefiting from the prospect of QE3. The official China PMI for August was released on Saturday while the markets were closed, and printed a week figure of 49.2, below the pivotal 50.0 expansion le…

The key event of the week in the financial markets has arrived as traders eagerly await the speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Speculation as to what the context of the speech will include, however the focus is due to whether there will be another round of quantitative easing (QE3). Many analysts and market commentators had voiced that this is all but a done deal, however it opinion seems to be split as to whether it will be announced. The Presi…

The Mayor of London election campaign is in full swing, with radio and television coverage of debates between the incumbent Boris Johnson and his challenger Ken Livingstone. For those unfamiliar with Mayor of London post, it was created in 2000 after the London devolution referendum. The reason for its high profile nature of the post is that London is the bread winner of the UK. It is densely populated and filled with well paid professionals who pay a considerable contribution to the treasur…

Fears of contagion swept through the European session yesterday, as yields rose on Spanish and Italian bonds and investors found the safety of Gold. The recent positive sentiment towards the US had led to the overhanging issues of Europe been overlooked. However following the disappointing employment figures from the US on Friday combined with bearish data from Europe has led to a reignition of fear. The yield on the Mediterranean Government bonds is close to previous levels that promoted ba…

China is taking a major step today towards integrating their currency (RMB) into the worlds foreign exchange market. The controlled peg set by their government has been allowed to float within a marginal band against a small basket of currencies around a fixed rate since 2005. The government has announced that they will gradually increase its flexibility and this latest announcement seems to confirm that. The undervaluing of the currency has been said by some to unfairly allowed China to con…

Economic data released this morning shows that the UK economy has entered a technical recession. This is deemed as two consecutive quarters with negative GDP. Economists has expected slight growth, compared to the actual shrinking of the economy. The Office for National Statistics said that the negative growth was due to a sharp fall in construction output. This is a disappointing release for the Chancellor George Osborne as the shadow of recession covers the country once again.…

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The latestquarterlysurvey from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said the the UK economy has shown a few signs of improvement in the last three months. It is refreshing to see an article that ispositive, as the majority of articles highlight the potential fallout from a Euro-zone breakup. The BCC expects economic growth of 0.3% in the quarter 1 of 2012, which is in contrast to the announcement of the OECD last week which predicts the UK economy to contract. This would be quarter on quar…

The part of George Osborne’s budget that still seems to be causing a political stir is that of the adding VAT to ‘hot’ food sold in retail outlets. VAT previously wasn’t added to ‘hot’ food from retail outlets such as Greggs, however the Chancellor announced that no longer would the pasty loving British be able to shy away from adding to the public purse. The backlash andridiculous pictures of Labour leaders eating pasties has covered the newspapers. It se…

It came to light after the European close, the tax payer backed bank Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is in talks with the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth to purchase a stake. Though these are high level talks, it has been announced that they are inpreliminarystages and the deal is not imminent. The coverage of the deal has been met with mixed reviews, the average purchase price of the government share of 82% was at roughly 49.9p and the share closed at 27.75p yesterday. The treasury does need to beg…