The average UK house price surged by £20,000 in twelve months to February, marking the fastest annual growth rate since October 2014. House prices jumped 8.6 per cent to £250,000, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The data will add to concerns that the UK housing market is experiencing a bubble inflated by low […]
Category Archives: Business
The UK’s FTSE 100 fell sharply on Tuesday, dropping below 7,000 again as tobacco shares tumbled and global sentiments on recovery took a hit amid an alarming rise in Covid-19 cases. The blue-chip index dropped by 2 per cent or 140 points, the biggest fall in two months after it claimed its pre-pandemic levels back, […]
W e’re told the motivation for the formation of a “European Super League” is greed. But is it also free market economics? The proponents of the breakaway league, and their financial backers, are clearly confident it would generate significantly larger broadcasting and sponsorship revenues than the current arrangements. Why? Because the new format – with […]
Primark‘s owner has pledged to hand back £121m claimed under the furlough scheme despite announcing plunging profits as stores remained closed for much of the autumn and winter season. Associated British Foods (ABF), which owns Primark as well as grocery brands including Twinings tea and Ryvita, reported a 50 per cent fall in operating profits […]
The UK unemployment rate fell to 4.9 per cent in the three months to February but there are now more than 800,000 fewer workers on company payrolls than before the pandemic, official figures show. As businesses adapted to lockdown measures put in place at the start of the year, the jobless rate fell slightly from […]
London’s FTSE 100 was dragged lower on Monday and ended the day’s trade in red, although it managed to stay above 7,000, a landmark it attained last week for the first time in over a year. The index of leading shares ended 19 points or 0.29 per cent down, at exactly 7,000, while the domestically […]
T he government’s back in the business of underwriting mortgages, in a move that sees Rishi Sunak using a taxpayer-funded helicopter to spray petrol on to the house price wildfire currently burning. The market was running hot before this latest intervention, which sees the state underwriting 95 per cent mortgages for homes worth up to […]
People who worked from home in 2020 worked around six hours of unpaid overtime each week on average, nearly double the amount of unpaid overtime done by those who never worked from home, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In its latest analysis of Britain’s home working situation, the ONS found that people […]
Senior managers in HSBC’s headquarters will have to hot desk on an open-plan floor instead of occupying private offices, the banking giant’s chief executive, Noel Quinn, has confirmed. Mr Quinn told the Financial Times that the move is part of HSBC’s cost-cutting plans to shrink its office space by 40 per cent in the aftermath […]
London’s FTSE 100 closed last week above 7,000, a landmark it reached for the first time in over a year since the pandemic hit. The FTSE 250 has erased all its pandemic losses, hitting another record high on Friday. The blue-chip FTSE 100 index has now recovered up to 40 per cent from its lowest […]