Wednesday, August 10, 2016

The British economy shrank in July, according to an influential think-tank

The British economy shrank in July, according to an influential think-tank

  • 23h
  • 187
    •  
  • 1
    •  
Honey I Shrunk the KidsHoney I Shrunk the Kids
Britain's economy contracted by 0.2% in July, the first full month after the UK's vote to leave the European Union, according to the latest numbers from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR).
The NIESR's monthly economic data shows that on a quarterly basis, growth in the UK was 0.3% in the three months up to the end of July, compared with 0.6% growth in the three months to the end of June.
That fall was driven by the contraction in July, which saw economic activity shrink as a result of the economic uncertainty and trepidation brought about by the Brexit vote.
Speaking about the numbers, James Warren, a Research Fellow at the NIESR said:
"We estimate that in the three months to July the UK economy grew by 0.3 per cent, a marked economic slowdown. The month on month profile, suggests that the third quarter has got off to a weak start, with output declining in July. Our estimates suggest that there is around an evens chance of a technical recession by the end of 2017."
The institute said the numbers should be trated with caution: "Monthly data are volatile and as such we should be cautious about over-interpreting developments in the fundamentals of the economy from any single month."
Last week, the influential think-tank argued that there is now a 50-50 chance of Britain entering a technical recession in the coming year or so, saying in a statement: "We expect the UK to experience a marked economic slowdown in the second half of this year and throughout 2017. There is an evens chance of a 'technical' recession in the next 18 months, while there is an elevated risk of further deterioration in the near term."
Late on in July, the Office for National Statistics' official data for the UK's economic growth showed a better than expected performance for the economy in the second quarter of the year.UK GDP grew by 0.6% in the second quarter of 2016, according to figures released by the ONSbeating forecast growth of just 0.5%. On an annual basis, GDP rose by 2.2%, again beating the 2.1% growth predicted.

NOW WATCH: No one wants to buy this bizarre house in a wealthy San Francisco suburb

h
More: NIESR Recession UK GDP ONS 
Posted by at No comments:

Brazil President Dilma Rousseff is headed to trial

Brazil President Dilma Rousseff is headed to trial

Reuters
  • 6h
  • 609
    •  
  • 1
Dilma Rousseff BrazilSuspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff attends a news conference with foreign media in Brasilia, Brazil, June 14, 2016.REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's Senate voted early on Wednesday to indict President Dilma Rousseff on charges of breaking budget laws and put her on trial in an impeachment process that has stalled Brazilian politics since January.
With the eyes of the world on the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, senators in the capital Brasilia voted 59-21 against the suspended leftist leader in a raucous, 20-hour session presided over by Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski.
A conviction would definitively remove Rousseff from office, ending 13 years of leftist rule by her Workers Party, and confirm that interim President Michel Temer will serve out the rest of her term through 2018.
Rousseff's opponents needed only a simple majority in the 81-seat Senate to put her on trial for manipulating government accounts and spending without congressional approval, which they say helped her win re-election in 2014.
A verdict is expected at the end of the month and will need the votes of two-thirds of the Senate to convict Rousseff, five votes less than her opponents mustered on Wednesday.
Wednesday's vote showed the movement to oust Rousseff has gained strength in the Senate, which had voted 55-22 in May to take up the impeachment proceedings initiated in the lower house in December. It also looked like game over for Rousseff who lost crucial ground instead of winning over more senators.
This will strengthen Temer's hand as he strives to establish his legitimacy and stabilizeBrazil politically.
The uncertainty has hampered his efforts to plug a fiscal crisis inherited from Rousseff, who is blamed for driving the economy into what could be its worst recession since the 1930s.
Temer, Rousseff's conservative former vice president who took office in May, has urged senators to wrap up the trial quickly so he can move ahead with a plan to cap public spending, reform an overly generous pension system and restore confidence in government finances.
Investor expectations that Rousseff will be replaced by the more business-friendly Temer have strengthened Brazil's currency and driven up shares on the Sao Paulo stock market by more than 30 percent since January, placing them among the world's best performing assets.
Rousseff has denied any wrongdoing and denounced her impeachment as a right-wing conspiracy that has used an accounting technicality as a pretext to illegally remove a government that improved the lot of Brazil's poorer classes.
"The cards are marked in this game. There is no trial, just a sentence that has already been written," Workers Party Senator Jorge Viana said in a speech to the chamber. The impeachment, he said, was driven by the elite which oppose social welfare gains.
Rousseff's critics say her interventionist economic policies and inability to govern led to the debacle in Latin America's largest country. Some argue that, whatever the legal reasons for impeaching her, she should not be allowed to return to office for the good of the nation.
Her supporters argue that she is being ousted by politicians who are in many cases being investigated for receiving kickbacks in the graft scandal at state-led oil company Petrobras.
Corruption allegations forced the resignation of three of Temer's cabinet members after and he could also be implicated. In plea bargaining testimony published by local media over the weekend, jailed construction magnate Marcelo Odebrecht reportedly claimed Temer had received illegal campaign funding.
(Additional reporting by Carolina Marcello and Bruno Federowski; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2016. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

MORE FROM REUTERS:

More: Reuters Brazil Dilma Rousseff Impeachment 
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

LendingClub is diving after reporting an earnings miss and announcing its CFO is resigning

LendingClub is diving after reporting an earnings miss and announcing its CFO is resigning

  • 17h
  • 1,876
sssGoogle
LendingClub shares fell by as much as 8% in after-hours trading on Monday after the company reported worse-than-expected earnings and some management changes. 
The online lender announced in astatement that CFO Carrie Dolan resigned "to pursue a new opportunity." The company said she brought up her departure earlier in the year, but the board asked her to wait amid the CEO's resignation.
Bradley Coleman, LendingClub's principal accounting officer, will become the interim CFO.
Also, Timothy Mayopoulos, the president and CEO of Fannie Mae, was appointed to LendingClub's board as an independent director. 
LendingClub reported an adjusted loss per share of $0.09 for the second quarter, greater than the three-cent loss analysts had projected, according to Bloomberg. Its earnings were dented by acquisition and severance costs. 
Its net revenues beat expectations, totaling $103.4 million ($100.6 million expected). 
Former CEO Renaud Laplanche stepped down in May after an internal investigation into improper lending practices. Separately, New York regulators subpoenaed the fintech company over the interest rates and fees it charged customers.
LendingClub's loan originations rose 2% year-over-year to $1.96 billion during the second quarter.

NOW WATCH: JIM CRAMER: This is what’s preventing people from achieving the American dream

h
More: Lending Club
Posted by at No comments:

Deflationary pressures across China's industrial sector are weakening

Deflationary pressures across China's industrial sector are weakening

DAVID SCUTT 
   
Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Chinese consumer price inflation ebbed in July, rising by the slowest amount seen since January.
According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), consumer prices rose by 1.8% from July last year. The increase was in line with market expectations, but marginally softer than the 1.9% pace seen in June.
By component, food inflation continued to slow, rising at an annual rate of 3.3% from 4.6% in June. Falling pork prices — a staple of the Chinese diet — largely explained the deceleration, falling from an annual pace of 30.1% in June to 16.1% in July.
Partially offsetting the deceleration in food price inflation, non-food inflation accelerated, rising 1.4% from the levels of a year earlier. Not only was this higher than the 1.2% pace seen in June, it marked the fastest year-on-year increase seen in over a year.
By location, consumer prices rose by 1.8% in urban areas over the past year, marginally ahead of the 1.5% increase seen in rural areas.
Though consumer prices came in bang-on expectations, there was better news on upstream price pressures with producer price deflation weakening far quicker than markets had expected.
Compared to a year earlier, prices fell by 1.7%, a figure that was an improvement on the 2.6% contraction seen in June and forecasts for a decline of 2.0%.
While prices have now fallen for 53 consecutive months, the year-on-year decline was the smallest seen since August 2014.
On that score, deflationary pressures caused by lower commodity prices and severe overcapacity in some industries appears to be ebbing.
The annual pace of deflation has now fallen every month since the beginning of the year. That, at least based on the figures presented, fits with the recent surge in raw materials prices, driven in part by government measures to shutter obsolete and uneconomic output and heightened levels of speculation in futures markets.
There has been no discernible reaction to either release, suggesting that Chinese data — at least for the moment — is not a consideration for investors.
Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, August 8, 2016

Japan's huge sex problem is setting up a 'demographic time bomb' for the country

Japan's huge sex problem is setting up a 'demographic time bomb' for the country

  • Jul. 1, 2015, 3:03 PM
  • 350,242
    •  
  • 81

sad japanese girl rainsilentmind8 / Flickr
The Japanese press has taken to calling it sekkusu shinai shokogun: celibacy syndrome.
Basically, the country just isn't that interested in sex — and it could have huge effects beyond its borders.
The most recent evidence comes in a survey by the Japan Family Planning Association, reported on in the Japan Times.
A full 49.3% of respondents between the ages of 16 and 49 in the 1,134-person survey said they hadn't had sex in the past month.
There was a minor gender variation:
• 48.3% of men reported not having sex
• 50.1% of women reported not having sex
According to Japan Times, both figures showed a 5% increase since two years ago.
Respondents gave a range of reasons as to why: 21.3% of married men and 17.8% married women cited fatigue from work, and 23% of married women said sex was "bothersome." And 17.9% of male respondents said they had little interest (or a strong dislike) of sex.
Other research suggests even more extreme trends.
According to a 2011 report from Japan's population center cited by Max Fisher at The Washington Post:
• 27% of men and 23% of women aren't interested in a romantic relationship
• From ages 18 to 34, 61% of men and 49% of women aren't involved in a relationship
• From ages 18 to 34, 36% of men and 39% of women have never had sex
Experts say "the flight from human intimacy" in Japan comes from having a highly developed economy and high gender inequality. (According to the World Economic Forum, Japan ranks 104 out of 140 countries regarding gender equality, slotted between Armenia and the Maldives).
"Professional women are stuck in the middle of that contradiction," Fisher writes. "It's not just that day-care programs are scarce: Women who become pregnant or even just marry are so expected to quit work that they can come under enormous social pressure to do so and often find that career advancement becomes impossible. There's a word for married working women: oniyome, or 'devil wives.'"
That puts a squeeze on relational prospects for Japanese women. Fisher reports that women in their early 20s have a 25% chance of never marrying and a 40% chance of never having kids.
Japan's birth rate hit a record low in 2014 at just over 1 million infants. When combined with 1.3 million deaths in the same year, that's a deepening population crisis. According to Japan's population institute, the overall population could dip to 107 million by 2040 — or 20 million lower than today.
At the same time, Japan's population is shrinking and graying, setting up a "demographic time bomb" that could radiate out globally through the country's Greece-level national debt and deep economic ties with China and the US.
The Japanese government has stepped in to help with the national trend against relationships:Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government wants 80% of fathers to take paternity leave, same as mothers taking maternity leave — while also increasing support for childcare. And one economist recommended a "tax on the handsome" to make geeky guys more attractive to women.
Different "demographic time bombs" are set to go off around the world: In China and India, the birthrates of boys have been outpacing those of girls for such a long time that a "marriage squeeze" is starting to hit both countries.

NOW WATCH: These bionic ants have the ability to think independently but work together

h
More: Psychology Relationships Women Innovation 
Posted by at No comments:

Chinese trade data for July was a disappointment

Chinese trade data for July was a disappointment

Business Insider Australia
  • 9h
  • 375
china slowdownGOH CHAI HIN / AFP / Getty Images
Chinese trade data for July is out, and it’s missed to the downside.
According to China’s General Administration of Customs, exports fell by 4.4% in US dollar terms compared to a year earlier.
Although an improvement on the 4.8% decline registered in June, the figure missed the median market forecast for a drop of 3%.
Over the first seven months of 2016, the value of exports fell by 7.4% compared to the same period a year earlier.
In yuan-denominated terms, exports rose by 2.9% compared to July 2015, underlining the effect of the weaker Chinese yuan seen over the past 12 months.
An official from China’s Customs Bureau stated that pressure on exports was likely to ease at the start of the December quarter.
Like the performance of exports, the import figure also underwhelmed.
Imports fell by 12.5% from the levels of a year earlier, well below the 7% contraction expected. It was also steeper than the 8.4% contraction seen in the 12 months to June, and was the largest year-on-year percentage decline since February this year.
Between January to July, the value of imports skidded by 10.5% compared to the same period in 2015.
Courtesy of the weaker yuan, in local currency terms, the value of imports fell by a smaller 5.7% over the past year.
As a result of the steep drop in imports, the trade surplus grew to $52.31 billion, up from $48.11 billion in June and forecasts for a decline to $47.6 billion.
It was the largest surplus recorded since January this year.
Read the original article on Business Insider Australia. Copyright 2016. Follow Business Insider Australia on Twitter.

MORE FROM BUSINESS INSIDER AUSTRALIA:

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

728 X 90

336 x 280

300 X 250

320 X 100

300 X600