The conventional reason why most bank shares are cheap is that nobody quite believes that they have come clean about all the dud assets lurking in their balance sheets. Read
The Bank of England gave no explanation when it held its official interest rate at five per cent for a fifth month, after its interest-setting monetary policy committee split three ways in its vote in July.Read
The Royal Bank of Scotland raised £12 billion, Barclays £4.5 billion, HBOS £4 billion, even poor tattered Bradford & Bingley scraped home with its fund-raising in the end.Read
A sharp dip in output of electrical and optical equipment – a segment which includes computers and electronic components – drove the total for manufacturing as a whole into reverse for a second month running in June.Read
The slowdown in activity across Britain’s service economy steadied last month, although the rate at which service employers are cutting jobs speeded up.Read
This week it is the turn of the Passport Office to face the public sector unions’ campaign to test the Government’s determination to stick by pay deals that no longer match inflation.Read
Gloom has descended on the boardrooms of British industry over the past three months and the CBI fears that manufacturing may be in a “technical recession”, with output shrinking in both the second and third quarters of this year.Read
Few cries of pain in the West Midlands greeted the Bank of England’s decision to leave its official interest rate at 5.0 per cent for a fourth month.Read
The Birmingham office of the global property consultants DTZ has largely withstood the pressures on the commercial property market which drove the group as a whole into a second-half loss and forcing it to cut the final dividend.Read
Any attempt by the Government to squeeze business with new taxes to replenish the Exchequer’s dwindling funds would be a catastrophe for the country, a leading champion of small and medium sized companies has warned.Read
