The IPO market’s rocky performance in the latter half of 2011 is expected to continue into 2012, according to a recent survey of investment bankers by BDO USA. A year ago, nearly three-quarters of the investment bankers surveyed predicted an increase in U.S. IPOs. That number since has dropped to 50%. What’s more, bankers are [...]
What a difference a day makes. It all looked so good in euroland after a market rally and successful Italian and Spanish bond auctions this week. However, on Friday the eurozone crisis again took a turn for the worse. Standard & Poor’s – the increasingly unpopular credit rating agency – is set to downgrade France [...]
Danny Alexander and George Osborne have raised what is perhaps the key issue from an economic perspective facing Scottish independence – what on earth would Scotland do about its currency? Initially, Alex Salmond had favoured the euro for an independent Scotland, but unsurprisingly, support for this idea has plummeted as a result of the finacial [...]
Rising unemployment, inflation and taxation – coupled with pay freezes and falling returns on savings and investments – mean many members of the ‘squeezed middle’ may struggle to make ends meet in 2012. But it’s not all bad news. You can make money out of your home without selling it and even without owning it. [...]
Rarely is anything perfect. Almost everything has a wart or two. Take cars. They get involved in costly prangs. They sometimes refuse to start in the winter, and they get punctures. Except that they don’t at the Detroit Motor Show. Imagine a version of yourself with all the traits you don’t like removed and any [...]
Here’s a story which I think has some bearing on the debate around HS2, the planned new rail link between London and Birmingham. One of my tasks way back when as a still relatively young financial journalist was to follow the tragicomedy of Eurotunnel, the realisation of a 200-year-old dream to link Britain with the [...]
