Hints and tips:
...This means that offloading liabilities, and the assets backing them, to insurance companies is becoming a viable option for more businesses....
...A digital pound could thus shore up sterling’s role as a reserve currency. Finally, a CBDC could benefit consumers by protecting their data....
...Who will attack sterling if they fear the BoE could quickly hike?...
...Financial markets shrugged off the GDP data, with sterling flat against the dollar at $1.2792 and interest rate-sensitive two-year gilt yields unchanged at 4.2 per cent....
...Sterling also nudged lower, falling 0.2 per cent against the dollar at $1.2696....
...Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, has accepted almost all the measures in Hunt’s two recent fiscal statements — including a 4 percentage point cut in national insurance — while Hunt has copied Labour’s plans...
...The UK-specific spike in borrowing costs triggered by the “mini” Budget lasted only until late 2022, earning the memorable “moron premium” moniker, while sterling recovered even faster....
...The 2016 Brexit referendum vote walloped the value of sterling, enabling foreign buyers to pick up champagne British assets at beer prices....
...For example, if you paid £25 per share but they were worth £75 at exercise you would be subject to income tax (and possibly national insurance) on £50 per share....
...Its replacement, SONIA, the Sterling Overnight Index Average used in almost all modern day interest rate swaps, is by contrast described by the Bank of England as “the risk-free rate for sterling markets...
...“We will also — as a second and parallel step — reach out to a broader set of NBFIs active in core sterling markets to explore how access might be expanded beyond ICPFs over time,” Hauser added....
...Andrew Bailey dishes out tough love to British public Aggregate demand: UK homeowners secure £800bn windfall with house price rise Fiscal policy: Lower public borrowing gives Sunak room to stall national insurance...
...Pension funds are piling into UK corporate bonds, encouraging some French and German companies to issue sterling debt for the first time....
...They include cheap insurance funding, a sterling reputation with sellers and uniquely tolerant shareholders happy to eschew dividends, buybacks and other forms of instant gratification....
...Under the microscope Apollo’s bold bet on insurance has made it the envy of the private equity world. But it has also invited more scrutiny, Bloomberg reports....
...Private credit co-heads James Reynolds and Kevin Sterling have also been named global head of direct lending and global head of investment-grade private credit and asset finance, respectively....
...I now move on to the OBR’s economic and fiscal forecasts, and I thank Richard Hughes and his team for their sterling work in preparing them....
...Job moves Shearman & Sterling’s chief commercial officer Robert Brown has joined Sheppard Mullin as chief operating officer ahead of its $3.4bn merger with UK firm Allen & Overy....
...He added that the UK’s tax regime was a potential deterrent for firms, alongside sterling’s volatility and pension rules that he said took investors out of the UK equities market....
...Pressing ahead with preparatory work on a digital sterling is similar to taking out insurance against an uncertain world in which the payments landscape becomes much less customer-friendly than the one of...
...The lack of any real fear over the UK’s solvency can be seen in the price of so-called credit default swaps, a kind of insurance-like contract that allows investors to insure against or wager on a country...
...Like Hungarian-born hedge fund trader George Soros, Lewis is known for betting against sterling and profiting from Britain’s exit from the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992....
...Some have dubbed it “Britcoin” but a digital pound would be more akin to a stablecoin, pegged to sterling with the same value as a minted coin....
...Sterling was also stronger ahead of the Bank of England rate-setting meeting that starts today. Read more on the latest UK inflation data....
...Investors pile into insurance Investors are buying record amounts of insurance contracts to protect themselves from a sell-off that has wiped trillions of dollars off the value of US stocks this year....
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