GDP

During a climate change debate at the National Press Club in Canberra Australia, Lord Christopher Monckton argued that cutting emissions to curb global warming is like trying to "swat" an asteroid away with a cricket bat.

Some of the heat has come out of the Aussie over the last 24 hours after the RBA doused expectations of two further rate hikes this year. This could see the Aussie come back to test support at 1.0600. After seeing a move back to 1.0600, traders could then be looking to a bounce from support.

The recent unrest in the Middle East and North Africa has enabled China to take a stand on international issues and reaffirm its own vision regarding conflict resolution.

Budget airline easyJet has again warned that coalition Government's plan to raise Air Passenger Duty (APD) and incentivise long haul travel will damage the environment and cost up to 77,000 jobs.

Following a ceasefire agreement, the last American ground troops left Vietnam in 1973 and in 1975, Saigon (officially now named Ho Chi Minh City) fell to the North Vietnamese Army.

Shares in British banks were down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading after rating's agency Moody's suggested that Britain's triple A credit rating could be downgraded.

British economic growth is likely to be less impressive than previously thought, according to the British Chambers of Commerce, who today published their revised growth projections for this year and the next.

As expected the second estimate of the United Kingdom's first quarter GDP growth remained unchanged by the Office for National Statistics.

The second estimate of first quarter GDP for the United Kingdom is due to be released tomorrow, although little or no change is expected in the 0.5 per cent growth given at the first estimate.

Created as part of a French initiative to address the first oil crisis in 1975, the G8 is an informal group of advanced economies, which meets once a year at a Summit of Heads of State and Government.

Relief could be felt and hope expressed after the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced that he was willing to sign a transition deal. However, on Wednesday and despite Washington's insistence on the necessity of a deal being signed so Yemen could "move forward immediately" with political reform, the agreement fell through. It seems that unhappy about certain details, the Yemeni president backed out of a deal that would have granted him immunity from prosecution and allowed him...

EasyJet has condemned plans by the Coalition government to change the rules on Air Passenger Duty (APD), saying that the proposals will increase CO2 emissions while harming the economy.

The Bank of England is expected to release its quarterly inflation report tomorrow and the expectations are that, for the fourth time in a row, the BoE will be revising up its inflation forecast while maintaining a commitment to low interest rates.

One of the "forgotten" former headline stories was the catastrophic flooding in Queensland, Australia. Here is a snippet of what has been happening.

The Office for National Statistics is set to release GDP data for the United Kingdom tomorrow and it is expected that the figures will show a return to economic growth.

Shares in British banks were broadly up on the FTSE 100 in morning trading ahead of results from Barclays, expected tomorrow.

Now that we are in the year's second quarter, the end of the United States Federal Reserve's asset purchase program - dubbed quantitative easing two (QE2) - suddenly seems to be rushing toward us. The debate among market participants that remains unsettled is whether June 30th will in fact be the retirement of this form of monetary policy, or will it instead spawn an offspring for another period of time - QE3?

Following Chancellor George Osborne's "Budget for growth", unveiled yesterday, eyes will turn to the Office for National Statistics tomorrow when it publishes its third and final estimate for GDP in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The equity markets began to deteriorate weeks before the devastating natural disaster in Japan. Food inflation in the emerging markets and the ensuing unrest in the Middle East and North Africa causing an unwelcome spike in oil prices, and hawkish comments from the European Central Bank at a time when the continent's peripheral countries are struggling, collectively weighed on equity prices. Now news from Japan that is troublingly fluid regarding the earthquake's aftermath, which has soc...

On 17 December 2010, a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire because a female municipal official and her aides had had his goods confiscated. This sparked protests against the Government for a variety of grievances, social, economic and political.

Shares in Diageo were up on the FTSE 100 in morning trading after the beverage company said it would be acquiring Turkish spirits company Mey Icki for £1.3 billion.

The central bank of China raised interest rates again last week and followed that by increasing the reserve requirement for the country's banks this week. This has been a fairly consistent pattern by the People's Bank of China over the last four months. The signs of creeping inflation and speculative activity in the property markets are clearly higher than the authorities' comfort level. Consequently, monetary policy is in the midst of "catching up" to economic activity.

Central banks in the U.K., Europe, Australasia and Latin America, are focused on the ill effects of inflation, which is rising at a rate that threatens to impair economic growth in their respective jurisdictions. This follows a period where these economies were attempting to stoke growth through monetary stimuli that led to lower interest rates and sizeable gains in bond prices. This is now changing.

The IMF estimates the U.S. gross outstanding public debt to GDP ratio at approximately 100% for 2011. Not good, but the U.S. can point to Japan and Italy as having higher ratios. But probably not many think that Japan's dismal economic picture is one that the U.S. should try to model itself on. Italy also has more than its share of economic issues and an economic framework that not many countries aspire to.

Shares in Rio Tinto were down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading despite the mining group reporting record underlying earnings and a slashing of its net debt in the full year ended 31 December 2010.

Shares in British banks were broadly down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading ahead of key economic data from the U.S.

Shares in British banks were broadly up on the FTSE 100 in morning trading ahead of minutes from the Bank of England, expected today.

Shares in British banks were broadly down on the FTSE 100 in morning trading as the Office for National Statistics reported a surprise contraction in GDP during the fourth quarter of 2010.

The daisy chain of events manifesting from the European fiscal crisis that initially consumed Greece then Ireland in its wake has skipped into Portugal. This is not being greeted by market participants as much of a surprise since this development had been foreshadowed for months. Portuguese bond yields had risen above 7%, roughly 4% higher than the benchmark 10-year German bund. This is the inglorious territory of Greek and Irish bond yields just as they were teetering on fiscal insolvency. ...

The federal fiscal policy debate is being overwhelmed by a growing sense that America must slash its deficit now, before it is too late. Actually, the United States is in no danger of a Treasury debt crisis and can carry far more debt than people believe without dire consequences.