UK interest rate held at 0.25% The Bank of England (BoE) has held UK interest rates at 0.25% Interest rates could rise faster than expected after 7-2 vote to hold. Sterling The pound jumped against the dollar ($1.3280) FTSE 100 fell on the news sharply to 7316 – a fall …

Bank of England interest rate announcement due. At midday today (14/09/17) the Bank of England will announce its latest interest rate decision. The minutes from the Monetary Policy Committee meeting will also be published. Hawks or Doves to win? I will update the interest rate decision later.    

Bank failure – 10 years ago today. It was exactly ten years ago today on the 14th September 2007 that Northern Rock succumbed to the banking crisis. The Bank of England propped the lender up leading to the first run on a British bank in more than a century. We …

Lower on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended lower yesterday (24/08/17) to close below 21800 at 21783. The S&P 500 closed at 2438. Investor uncertainty continues ahead of the central bankers gathering at Jackson Hole on Friday.  

Compound interest – investors best friend. I didn’t quite know where to start with this post. So I decided to go back to school. In particular to my school maths lessons and Friday afternoons. Yep, that’s right maths on a Friday. What kind of person would schedule two hours of …

Sterling one pound – a brief history. NOTE: this rambles a bit, but bear with me… I’ll come back to it and tidy it up at a later date – maybe. A pound coin originally weighed one troy pound of sterling silver. This gave the currency the name pound sterling …

Central bankers head to Jackson Hole. Federal Reserve chair, Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President, Mario Draghi et al, will be meeting this Friday to make their eagerly anticipated speeches at Jackson Hole. Debate about QE roll back, interest rates and inflation will presumably take centre stage. The US …

Interest rate rise due soon? Will they – won’t they? A rate rise has been on the discussion agenda for some time now. Recent comments from the Bank of England MPC have been somewhat confusing, leaving us none the wiser again. With the next policy meeting due on 3rd August …

Bank bail out cost 5.2 billion euros. I notice in the news today that the Italian government is bailing out two more of its banks at a reported cost of 5.2 billion euros (£4.6 billion; $5.8 billion). This comes not long after the Monte dei Paschi bank bail out. It’s …