Business Comment

Margareta Pagano: La recapitalisation? It's time for the French to swallow their pride

Recapitalisation is the same word in French but it's slightly prettier said with a Gallic twist; not in France, though – there it is a dirty word and only uttered with much hissing.

Inside Business Comment

Hamish McRae: No one can say if this is a pause in the recovery – or another leg of recession

Sunday, 25 September 2011

Economic View

Hamish McRae: If there is hope, it lies in the emerging world

Saturday, 24 September 2011

Analysis

Stephen Foley: HP's bizarre decision may yet turn out to have been a masterstroke

Saturday, 24 September 2011

US Outlook: Hewlett-Packard's decision to appoint Meg Whitman as chief executive is bizarre bordering on the laughable.

Stephen Foley: A sticky time for Fed's Operation Twist

Saturday, 24 September 2011

US Outlook: The day after the Federal Reserve announced its latest attempt to boost the US economy, Operation Twist, the central bank released a study which explains why it won't work. The financial crisis began in the US housing market, and recovery from the subsequent recession will not be complete until the housing market is finally healed, no matter what jiggery-pokery the Fed performs.

Stephen Foley: Titans of Wall Street face a loss of power

Saturday, 24 September 2011

US Outlook: This will hardly satisfy the scores of #OccupyWallStreet demonstrators staging a sit-in in the Financial District here in Manhattan, but it has been a good week for those of us who want to cut the overmighty US banks down to size.

David Prosser: The biggest problem of all is policymakers' inability to agree

Friday, 23 September 2011

Outlook Desperate times require desperate measures: and it is difficult to see the US Federal Reserve's extraordinary $400bn "Operation Twist" as anything else (not least, because there are very serious doubts about its effectiveness). What they also require, however, is a consensus for action – the sort of global response mustered by Gordon Brown following the collapse of Lehman, in which parties who have implacable ideological differences put them aside in the face of a crisis. And unfortunately, what we have now is the opposite of that.

Are we following in the footsteps of Japan and heading for a lost decade?

Friday, 23 September 2011

Hamish McRae: Household debt has shot up. We must pay the excesses of the last boom - excesses by us as individuals as well as by the Government on our behalf.

David Prosser: Tesco takes action to address loss of share

Friday, 23 September 2011

Outlook If in doubt launch a "price war". That has been the tactic in the supermarket sector for as long as anyone can remember. Yet most price wars are in name alone: mark-downs on prominent products are paid for by mark-ups in another aisle.

David Prosser: Lord Davies's generosity on women on the board is about to be abused

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Outlook Let us be charitable and say they are leaving it late. UKSIF, the sustainable investment group, revealed yesterday that it has written to all of the FTSE 350 companies which have yet to explain how they will respond to Lord Davies's report in February on increasing the number of women on the board, the deadline for which is fast approaching. So how many stamps did UKSIF have to buy? More than 250 – and 60-odd of the letters went to blue-chip FTSE 100 companies.

David Prosser: Will more QE refloat Britain's economy?

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Outlook It looks ever more likely now that the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee will call for another bout of quantitative easing in order to get the economic recovery back on track (or to avoid deflation in the terms in which its mandate is framed). The minutes of the meeting suggest QE2 may begin as soon as next month.

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