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Purchases of new houses in the U.S. probably rose in March from a record low, economists said a report today will show. New-home sales, tabulated when contracts are signed, climbed 12 percent to a 280,000 annual pace last month, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 64 economists. Purchases slumped 17 [...]
Prime Minister David Cameron called the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton “unadulterated good news.” As Britain prepares for a second consecutive four- day weekend, business groups and economists beg to differ. The Federation of Small Businesses calculates the extra public holiday to mark the nuptials in London’s Westminster Abbey on April 29 may cost the economy as [...]
European Central Bank council member Erkki Liikanen said the single currency isn’t in crisis, even after a third country in the bloc sought a bailout and as Finland’s next government may limit the region’s rescue tools. “There is no crisis of the euro,” Liikanen told a public seminar at the Bank of Finland in Helsinki yesterday. “Look [...]
Australian consumer prices gained the most in five years last quarter, driving the nation’s currency to a record on bets the central bank will resume raising interest rates. The consumer price index rose 1.6 percent from the previous three months, the biggest jump since 2006 and higher than the forecasts of all 26 economists in a Bloomberg [...]
The Bank of England will probably wait until the third quarter before raising interest rates from a record low 0.5 percent, a Reuters poll of economists showed on Wednesday. The survey of 67 respondents, taken this week, showed just a 45 percent chance the Bank of England would hike interest rates before the middle of [...]
The Australian dollar has risen to a 29-year high against the US dollar as demand for the country’s commodities continues to grow. It rose as high as $1.0318 in trading on Wednesday, the highest since the currency was freely floated in 1983. There has been a steady demand for Australian commodities from growing economies like [...]
You don’t have to be a gold bug to wonder if the Federal Reserve has completely lost its mind. Can’t the Fed see what’s happening to the prices of commodities, such as gasoline, grains, metals and other raw materials? Is the Fed blind to the inflation that’s raging all around? Yet, the Fed still clings [...]
Unemployment near 10 percent in Europe will weigh on workers’ wages, preventing a sustained surge in prices, said Carl Weinberg, chief economist and founder of High Frequency Economics Ltd. in Valhalla, New York. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet this month said the ECB may raise interest rates in April for the first time in almost three years to [...]
Thierry Stern, chairman of Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe SA, says his home nation may be better off adopting the euro as the franc’s appreciation hurts exports. “It’s a nightmare for everybody,” Stern said during a March 24 interview in Basel. “We have to adapt. Something will come. I don’t know when, but one day it [...]
UK retail sales fell 0.4% on a like-for-like year-on-year basis in February, versus a 2.3% increase in January as sales for non-food items slowed sharply due to uncertainty about jobs and incomes, according to the British Retail Consortium-KPMG’s monthly sales monitor. Total sales rose 1.1% on a year ago in February, against January’s increase of [...]