It remains the automatic assumption of most savers in this country that they will ultimately get a better return from equities than from bonds, if they are willing to pay the price of greater volatility. Owning shares, even those of blue-chip companies, can be an unnerving experience.
Read full article...On one level, Icap's figures this week demonstrated its resilience in the face of the global financial storm but on a deeper and more interesting level they told a different story.
When commercial property prices crashed in the mid-1970s, in circumstances that were very similar to today, it took them years to recovery.
Shareholders lost a lot of money as a result of the banking crisis, partly because none carried much clout in the boardrooms so they were easy to ignore.
Barclays chairman John Varley was given a page in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph to plead the case for being allowed to keep his investment bank, Barclays Capital. The article was not billed like that but why else would the chief executive of the group devote three-quarters of the article to a description of what the investment bank was, how socially useful it was, how the world could not grow without it, and how far it and its clients were from gambling?
We all have our opinions about the value of opinion polls, but I was nevertheless struck by one this week that showed the Conservatives in line for a majority in the House of Commons of only two.
Global shipping is a complete disaster. World trade has fallen more than anyone would have thought possible a year ago, and there are simply not enough cargoes. In the three classes, oil tankers, bulk carriers and container vessels, it is estimated there is between 30% and 40% overcapacity.
The popular perception of regulators is that they rarely put themselves out of a job. Callum McCarthy certainly went in that direction when he became gas and electricity regulator, which was so long ago it was before he became chairman of the Financial Services Authority. But in general, regulators do little to reverse the impression that they are on the constant lookout for ways in which to expand not contract their empires.
Perhaps the most intriguing observation to emerge from the acres of coverage marking yesterday's 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was the role of the financial institutions in reshaping the newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe.
If the Government gets its way, every working person in the country will be in a pension scheme in a little more than five years. As we speak, the system's architecture is being developed so that literally millions of people can have what is known as a personal account — an individual personal pension that will move with them from employer to employer throughout their life.
Back in March, Cable & Wireless had a pension deficit in its main UK scheme of £32 million but in the half-year figures published yesterday this had ballooned to £305 million.
It is one of the abiding political myths in this country that a Conservative Government is good to the City as opposed to being good for it. The financial community may prefer the style of government and be more in tune with the philosophies espoused than they are with Labour but it is a fact that when it comes to things like being nasty to investment bankers, the Tories are much more likely to be harsh than the current Government which from the Prime Minister down has repeatedly appeared to have been mesmerised by them. One fears therefore that the enthusiasm with which most of the City is looking forward to a change of Government is rather reminiscent of the observation made by George Bernard Shaw on the willingness of divorced people to get married for a second time. It was he said, the triumph of hope over experience.
The monthly meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) starts today and while these things are rarely dull — not these days anyway — this promises to be even more meaningful than most. As one of its former members, the economist Charles Goodhart, pointed out this week, policy set at this meeting is likely to take us through to the election.
The life assurance sector has had a rough year. It weathered the financial crisis relatively well with no spectacular casualties and none of the bailouts seen in countries like Holland noted for their sound approach to finance
The boss of BP, Tony Hayward, said this weekend in public what many in business believe but precious few are prepared to live by.
The excitement which greeted Centrica's decision yesterday to build a big new offshore wind farm, financed in part by recycling its capital out of earlier investments, might have persuaded an optimistic casual observer to think the UK is well on course to meet its wind generation and green energy targets. But the realistic interpretation is that people got excited because it is so unusual. Britain's embrace of renewables is nowhere near enough to meet the challenge.
A generation ago, around 1980, Kleinwort Benson was the same size as Goldman Sachs.
Though Lloyds' massive capital raising now seems inevitable there still seem to be two bits of unfinished business.
The latest issue of National Savings Certificates was described in a press release yesterday as “a great deal for customers, but a kick in the teeth for competitors”.
For some years now Andrew Fisher, the chief executive of the independent financial advisers Towry Law, has told anyone who cared to listen that no self-respecting firm could call itself independent and rely for its income on commission paid by the manufacturers of the products they successfully recommended to their clients
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