This may not be the main thing that financial markets are looking at right now, but the Bank of England has announced it is thinking of removing another hurdle from the path or house price inflation.
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Care about ESG? Do not buy Bitcoin
With almost every investor out there claiming deep commitment to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) cause, one issue on which there is surprisingly little debate is that of cryptocurrencies.
Investor enthusiasm for these two new buzzwords in the investing world is high, but few people are ready to admit that they are mutually exclusive: you cannot claim to focus on ESG and own Bitcoin at the same time.
Continue readingClimate change could be the market’s next Black Swan
Even those who still do not believe that climate change is a serious threat to our way of living will need to pay attention: it could turn out to be the next Black Swan for financial markets.
Continue readingMortgage guarantee could sow the seeds of trouble
The UK government awarded hard-working medical staff a meagre 1% pay rise in the most recent budget, all the while splashing out on yet another indirect subsidy for house prices: the mortgage guarantee.
Continue readingMarket turmoil tests the power of central banks
The turmoil we are currently seeing in stock and bond markets is just one battle in the war that has been going on in capital markets for a long time: debt versus equity versus central banks.
Continue readingStricter liquidity and leverage controls may be coming
If you are wondering what’s behind the sudden largesse of the European Central Bank (ECB) when it comes to purchases of bonds, you may find a recent speech by an ECB official at a conference about financial stability enlightening.
While regulators focused on making banks safer following the 2007-2009 financial crisis, the non-bank financial sector has been allowed to continue without the same stringent requirements for liquidity and leverage. This gap came into sharp focus during the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Growth or stability? Central banks face dilemma
It must be a strange experience, being a central banker these days. Ever since the financial crisis of more than a decade ago, central banks have had to reconcile two opposing goals — both of them self-imposed.
Brexit will enrich the EU’s financial industry
If Brexit does go ahead (and probably even if it does not), the European Union is ready to chip away at Britain’s dominance in the financial sector. At least, that’s what a recent speech by François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Bank of France, suggests.
Libor manipulation suit could open the floodgates
The news that the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is suing European banks in London for manipulating Libor should worry central bankers everywhere.
It’s all hush-hush, with details coming from reports in newspapers, rather than made public officially. The Financial Times reported that the FDIC is suing Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Rabobank and UBS, as well as the British Bankers’ Association, accusing them of fraudulent misrepresentation.
Lloyds said it doesn’t believe the claim has any merit, while the others did not comment, according to the report.
The real reason the Fed is hiking interest rates is scary
Some people wonder why the Federal Reserve is in such a hurry to raise interest rates, pointing out that growth in the world’s first economy is hesitant at best. Inflation, of course, is an issue — even the stripped-down official version of inflation, “core” as they like to call it, is rising.