Finance Matters

Posts Tagged ‘beat’

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has today revealed UK retail sales beat forecasts in September, led by spending on electrical goods such as laptop computers.

According to the Statistics Office, sales rose by 0.6% last month, reversing the 0.4% fall in August.

Furthermore, the figure was 0.6% higher on an annual basis.

Retail sales have been struggling over recent times as households continue to be squeezed by higher inflation, rising unemployment and sluggish wage growth.

As a result, conditions are expected to remain challenging for retailers in the medium term.

Last week, the ONS revealed UK unemployment rose to a 17-year high in the three months to August, while earlier this week, it revealed that inflation surged to 5.2% in September, from 4.5% in August.

These pressures are making consumers cautious about spending, according to analysts.

In order to stimulate the economy and aid the recovery, the Bank of England last week announced it would embark on a fresh round of quantitative easing (QE).

There have been fears that the UK could enter a double-dip recession after a recent series of bad news from the economy and the ongoing debt crisis in the euro zone and the majority of economists expected the central bank to introduce a further round of QE.

However, while the Bank hopes the QE scheme will revive the sluggish economy, leading think tank, the Ernst & Young Item Club, warned earlier this week that the QE measures are unlikely to boost the recovery.

Its comments came just a week after the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said the fresh round of QE may not be enough to prevent the economy from slipping back into recession and “more radical measures” are required.

In other news today, UK consumer confidence rose for the first time in four months in September, according to GfK NOP research company.

Figures today have revealed Ireland’s economy continued to see growth in the April to June period.

According to the Central Statistics Office, the economy grew by a better than expected 1.6% in the three-month period and this follows a revised 1.9% growth rate in the first quarter.

This represents the first time since 2006 that Ireland’s economy has grown for two consecutive quarters.

Meanwhile, today’s figures shocked analysts who had expected growth of just 0.25%.

Furthermore, the figures surpassed those from Europe’s powerhouses, Germany and France.

The latest figures will be regarded as encouraging for the former “Celtic Tiger” economy which suffered a prolonged recession and was one of the last euro zone nations to emerge from recession.

The economy slipped into recession during the first half of 2008 – becoming the first nation of the euro zone to do so.

The country’s economic turmoil resulted in a bailout package last year worth €85 billion.

However, analysts say the figures suggest the economy is in the early stages of recovering from its property and debt crisis.

Since the credit crunch four years ago, the country’s public finances have been battered by having to prop up the banking sector, as well as the collapse in its property market.

Ireland experienced a property boom in the late 1990s, with multinationals arriving to take advantage of one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the euro zone.

However, the country’s banking system came close to meltdown after the slump in the country’s property market resulted in a fall in the value of investments linked to it.

Several of the country’s banks have been nationalised, while property prices have fallen by more than 50%, in some cases.

Finally, like fellow bailed-out nations Greece and Portugal, Ireland has been forced to introduce tough austerity measures in order to reduce its spiralling budget deficit.

Wall Street banking giant Morgan Stanley has today reported a rise in quarter two revenues – beating forecasts. The US bank reported a 17% rise in revenues for the three months to the end of June totalling $9.3 billion (£5.7 billion) – up from $8 billion in the same period a year ago. However, the [...]

US banking giant Citigroup reported a 24% rise in second quarter profits as losses were reduced from bad loans. The bank, which is in the third largest in the US, reported net income of $3.34 billion (£2.07 billion) in the three month period to the end of June. The results beat market forecasts and represented [...]

The US banking reporting season has got off to a good start today after JP Morgan reported a 13% increase in profits to $5.4 billion (£3.3 billion) – exceeding analysts’ expectations. Furthermore, revenues were 7% higher in the three months to the end of June at $27.4 billion. The good performance comes despite losses from [...]