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rffrydr
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 Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:22 am Post subject: |
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Well the upside surprise took a year...a little trip around Gibraltar in the inter--regnum. Once again, look to cars:
Car registrations rise in key month
| Quote: | A surge in activity among private buyers drove car registrations 1.8 per cent higher in March, surpassing carmakers’ expectations in the busiest month of the auto industry’s calendar.
Last month 372,835 new cars were registered, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said on Thursday. The figures were 20,000 units or 6 per cent higher than the industry’s forecast for the month.
In a sign of revival in the retail market for cars, private registrations rose by 7 per cent in March, their best monthly increase in two years, the SMMT said. Last month was the third one running in which retail registrations grew.
Sales of cars to business fleets have been the main driver of Britain’s car market since the phasing out of the “cash-for-bangers” scrappage bonus. Registrations of cars by fleets fell by half a percentage point in March, the SMMT said.
March is traditionally the busiest month in the calendar for sales because of the licence plate changeover. The month typically averages 18 per cent of the full year’s volume of registrations, according to the SMMT.
“The draw of the 12-plate series and the launch of new models got consumers onto the forecourts and spending,” Richard Lowe, head of retail and wholesale banking at Barclays said in a research note. “On the back of increasingly positive economic data, consumer confidence appears to be edging back.”
Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist with IHS Global Insight, wrote: “This boosts hopes that consumers are becoming a little more prepared to spend, which would be good news for hopes that the economy can build on a probable return to growth in the first quarter.”
The SMMT said that while car registrations had risen in four out of the past eight months, “the underlying market trend is more about stability than growth.”
Britain’s car market has been running at an annualised rate of about 1.95m units since June 2011. In 2007, the last full year before the financial crisis, car registrations totalled 2.4m units. |
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 8:29 am Post subject: |
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For all the poo-pooing of the Royal Wedding I'll bet my knickers that when push came to tv the brits did concede more than a passing glance. Call it a guilty pleasure. And that takes a bit of the gloom out. Look for upside surprises this summer in a market heavily pricing austerity. The ECB show hike will give BOE plenty of cover here.
| Quote: | | Just for a bit of fun, TMM thought they'd have a quick look at what happened to markets at the time of the last Royal Wedding in 1981. The below chart shows YoY RPI (white line), Cable (Yellow line), YoY GDP (orange line), the Bank of England Base Rate (pink line) and the FT30 Index (green line - this was before the days of the FTSE100...). Coincidentally (or not), the recession ended exactly one month after the engagement of Prince Charles & Diana was announced, with equities rallying, inflation falling (along with the Pound). The equity market peaked a month or so before the wedding, with the BoE hiking rates shortly after and the Betty put in something of a rally. Equities then bottomed just after Diana's pregnancy was announced, rallying until just before Prince William was born, with Sterling resuming its sell-off as rates were lowered in response to falling inflation. |
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HenryTo
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| Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:58 am Post subject: |
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Bridgewater on the UK economy:
| Quote: | The UK Economy is Slowing in Response to Tightening
As we have said before, we think the UK economy provides a relevant data point on how the combination of quantitative and fiscal tightening play out in an economy that is in the midst of a secular private sector deleveraging. As we watch the BoE and the Treasury switch from a neutral to a tightening stance, we have been expecting the UK to be one of the first major economies to roll over. Roughly speaking, it appears the UK authorities are about three to six months ahead of the US in their tightening mode, and how the UK economy responds may provide some clues about the US economy. While the UK data is a bit mixed, it looks like the tightening is biting and the vigorous growth that marked 2009 and most of 2010 has begun to fade. |
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 11:30 am Post subject: |
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The utiliity model. UK utes in rally mode over....inflation protection. This defiance of conventional yield-curve trade is proper coming out of a depression and prefigures the more politically complex banks trade.
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diesel
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting that the gbp/usd forward basis has gone bid, sharply so since the austerity budget. Implicit in this is that in the future it will be harder to raise pounds from dollars, spot weakness in the gbp notwithstanding. The same dynamic occured in the eur last spring, where the forward mkts correctly anticipated a coming scarcity of Euros due to austerity and a slightly tighter ECB.
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 9:07 am Post subject: |
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Yeah...they're vigilante friendly. --Which if you're first mover (forget Ireland) buys alot of market good will. In the spirit of politics however there's some back-sliding. Good rallies in Brit banks as lower corp. tax rate was not credited against bank levy.
| Quote: | The bank levy of 4bp in 2011 rising to 7bp thereafter was the focus of market
attention in the aftermath of Chancellor Osborne’s budget earlier today. However,
there were two other significant issues for institutions operating in the UK. As well
as the levy, lower corporation tax will provide a boost to earnings. UK Leasing
operations will also suffer from lower future income flows from these businesses.
NH
Worst case impact of up to 10% of 2012 earnings
If we assume the UK charge is applied across the full balance sheet, the impact
could be up to 8% of normalised earnings. However, we expect balance sheet
management, group restructuring and deleveraging to reduce the net impact of this. |
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diesel
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| Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 1:34 am Post subject: |
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/politics/10371590.stm
| Quote: | | Chancellor George Osborne increased VAT from 17.5% to 20% and cut welfare spending as he moved "decisively" to tackle Britain's record debts. |
I expect the UK economy to roll over and head into the abyss again. They may have saved the pound but at what expense.....
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HenryTo
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NPearce
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Joined: 07 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 5:18 am Post subject: |
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You could say that. Although we have very few alternative options when compared to other similar economies like France or Germany....theres never the threat of proper change.... |
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HenryTo
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HenryTo
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HenryTo
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:56 am Post subject: |
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And they don't make anything--but they're still pretty good at "empiring."
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diesel
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| Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:32 am Post subject: |
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The UK is a write off IMO. This is my favorite short play over the longer term.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=6224.4645.0.0
| Quote: | “Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike,” said Theodore Roosevelt.
It is a lesson written in history: Without strong character the nation will fall!
A glance at the news in Britain shows that the country has a character crisis. Knife crime, teenage pregnancies and binge drinking frequently make the front page. Incidences of lying, cheating and stealing are common. A recent Guardian article detailed the rampant cheating of university applicants. One could argue that these young people are just following the example of the nation’s leaders |
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The corruption scandal in Parliament is a both a product and a cause of this dearth in morality, which, in turn, has everything to do with Britain’s problems today. The leaders have few morals, fostering selfishness and dishonesty in the people, leading to the nation’s decline.
Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower once wrote, “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” That is exactly what this scandal is all about. The MPs sacrificed their principles in order to get more privileges. Their lack of character is leading the whole nation further into decline.
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HenryTo
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| Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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London financial sector may soon be hollowed out:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aKCdIuHonoTM&refer=home
| Quote: | Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s proposal to boost the tax rate to 50 percent from 40 percent on income above 150,000 pounds ($220,000) pushed headlines about “class warfare” onto the front pages of the capital’s newspapers. It also prompted predictions from business groups that it would undermine the U.K.’s competitiveness and lead to an exodus of financial talent. Brown was portrayed as Vladimir Lenin in a cartoon on Page One of the Daily Telegraph.
The income-tax change, set to take effect next year, would give the U.K. a higher top rate than Spain, Italy, Germany, France and the U.S., according to KPMG, the accounting firm. Among the 30 members of the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development, the country would jump to seventh from 19th in the rankings of tax rates, accounting firm Ernst & Young said.
The initiative is part of the government’s efforts to contain a planned budget deficit of 12.4 percent of gross domestic product, Britain’s biggest in peacetime. The Treasury expects the tax to raise about 2.2 billion pounds next year when government borrowing will be 173 billion pounds. Darling’s budget calls for 703 billion pounds of deficits in the five years through April 2014. |
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