No need for nationalisation

Lord Mandelson has reiterated that the government has no plans to nationalise the banking sector.
His comments come two days after the government increased its stake in Lloyd Banking Group to 65% from 43%.

Will quantitative easing work?

So determined was the pro-Euro lobby to bury Emu-sceptics, it cast aspersions on the character of those who took an opposing view.
More recently, the same cowardly device has been used by deranged environmentalists. Anyone who dares to suggest “global warming” may not exist – that temperature changes could be driven by long-term climatic cycles rather than human activities – is dubbed a “denier”.

JP Morgan backs Ireland

One of the biggest Wall Street banks has warned investors not to bet on Ireland defaulting on its debt, as its financial position remains “remarkably strong” despite the banking crisis and economic downturn.
JP Morgan bond analysts pointed out in a note to clients this week, that many other eurozone countries “have significantly worse public sector debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratios”.

Central banks and the recession

When Europe’s central banks told the gold market five years ago that they would renew their pact to cap their bullion sales, the sector breathed a sigh of relief. Today, gold prices are double their 2004 level and central bank sales far smaller, but the market is still hoping that the Central Bank Gold Agreement will be renewed again.
The current CBGA, which caps sales at 500 tonnes a year, expires in late September, but the banks have in the past announced the terms of a new agreement in March and there is an expectation in the market that a statement could come soon.

£21bn chase

Cazenove, has charged fees close to £700 million in return for holding the hands of 11 major companies which have raised £21 billion of new money in just the first two months of 2009, the busiest flood of rights issues in years.
While the deluge of financing fees will help the books of the investment banks and stockbrokers and their coterie of lawyer and accountant advisers, the price being charged for the work is causing alarm.

Sub prime problems!

UK sub-prime lender Cattles says there has been a failure of internal accounting controls at the firm and it is suspending three senior managers.
It said that it had uncovered problems in the ways it accounts for bad loans.

Lowest Euro rate ever

The European Central Bank (ECB) has cut its key interest rate to 1.5% from 2.0%, the lowest since it started setting euro rates in January 1999.
It followed a cut in UK rates by the Bank of England. US and Japanese rates are, in effect, already at zero.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c41ab1a2-0713-11de-9294-000077b07658.html

Lending by banks and building societies to households totalled £1.1bn in the first month of the year – less than half the average for the last six months – according to new data from the Bank of England.
Net lending to individuals, a measure of consumer purchasing activity, fell in January to £1.1bn, roughly half the level of December and the average for the previous six months.

Mortgage approvals are stable

The number of mortgage approvals in January for house purchases held steady at 31,000 the Bank of England has said.
And although approvals are still less than half the level of a year ago, they have now averaged 31,000 a month for the past six months.

Finacial markets will fall further

Governments around the world may be starting to wonder if taking on the liabilities of the bust financial system was really such a good idea.
The markets took a real hammering yesterday as even the brightest star in the banking firmament – HSBC – turned out to have big problems, requiring the biggest non-government-backed rights issue in British history.