Interest rates, consumer spending and debt What is the relationship between interest rates, consumer spending & debt? If personal debt levels are rising to abnormal levels again and if the UK recovery is relying on the consumer to spend more – surely the UK’s low interest rate policy is simply …

£ Pound falls back The £pound has fallen back against the $dollar to £1.31 (earlier, before the BoE interest announcement, the £pound was at $1.325). The FTSE 100 has climbed to 7450 after the Bank of England news.

Sterling trading up The £pound was up against the $dollar at $1.325 – as traders await the Bank of England policy decision due at midday 3rd August.

Asian markets fall The Japan NIKKEI Index was down 0.4% – The Hang Seng fell by 0.28% – The China A50 Index was also down 0.47% Notably, South Korea KOSPI Index had the largest fall of 1.7% The DOW Jones Industrial Average breaking through the 22000 milestone didn’t appear to …

Mixed bag for NEXT PLC NEXT PLC (NXT) reports sales at its stores were down but online sales through its NEXT Directory were up! Overall sales for period May – July 2017 were up by slightly less than 1% at 0.7% NEXT PLC share price was up 7.8% (03/08/17 at: …

Super Thursday At midday today the Bank of England (BOE) will announce its interest rate decision, latest inflation report and release minutes of the monetary policy meeting. I don’t intend to guess the outcome – I’ll leave that to the clever guys, you know – the analysts who never get …

DOW closes at record high The DOW Jones reaches milestone – breaking through 22000 to close at 22016 – that’s now six consecutive days of record highs.

FTSE 100 lower The FTSE 100 closed lower today (02/08/17) at 7411 Old Mutual PLC (OML) was the best performer up 2.8% to 203p and Standard Chartered PLC (STAN) was at the bottom of the pile down 6.1% to 795p

Apple shares up Apple Inc. produced stellar results yesterday (01/08/17) and its share price has zoomed today – up in early trade by 6% to $159.00 Its not just down to hardware either – all areas of the business have done well including: Apple Pay, App Store, its cloud service …

Rise of the DOW The DOW Industrial Average continues on its meteoric path of record breaking milestones… In November 2016 the DOW breaks through 19000 for the first time – record no. 1 In January 2017 the DOW breaks through 20000 for the first time – record no. 2 In …