Barclays shares ended the day 22% up as the bank confirmed it is in talks over a possible sale of its iShares fund management business. Whilst potential suitors have yet to confirm a deal, initial thoughts are that the sale could raise anything up to £5bn. Read the rest of this entry »

The announcement finally came that the UK is now officially in recession and has been so since July 2008. GDP fell 0.6% between July and September and a further 1.5% in the final quarter, thus meeting the technical definition of a recession.

The news is no surprise and it isn’t really a question whether we’re in a recession but how long we’ll be in a recession for?

Shares in Barclays Bank led the charge south as shares fell sharply during the final hour of trading yesterday. The fall came amid fresh fears that the banking and financial sectors are going to hit new troubles. This despite Barclays cutting the wage bill by axing 4,000 jobs, ordinarily seen as a positive move by the city.

Share prices wern’t helped by the restriction on short selling being lifted. A practice seen by some as an immoral way of making a profit.

US car giant General Motors (GM) said it would run out of cash in the first half of 2009 if economic and market conditions did not improve. This follows the announcement that third quarter losses hit £2.66bn. Read the rest of this entry »

Gordon Brown has admitted that the downturn in the world economy is likely to send the UK into recession. Adding that the crisis in the global financial markets would cause “recession in America, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and - because no country can insulate itself from it - Britain too”. Read the rest of this entry »

News that banks are looking to further tighten their lending criteria and the ever reducing number of new mortgage approvals raises hopes that the Bank of England will cut interest rates. Read the rest of this entry »

The proposed $700m bail out of the US Economy and Wall Street put forward by George Bush is stalling as legislators are worried about the cost and the governments level of involvement in the financial sector. However Bush remains optimistic that plans will be passed as Congress have vowed to stay in session until a deal is done.

The stalling created nervousness on this side of the pond and sent the FTSE down 109 points (2%) to 5,088. The bad news was compounded by Banks announcing that mortgage rates were on the increase again as liquidity in the market remains non-existent.