Definition: A contract for difference CFD is a contract which enables you to buy or sell a share in the future. Unlike futures they don’t necessarily have a fixed date for completion. Essentially Contract for difference (CFDs) are used as a way for people to try and make money from predicting future share movements. If …
UK Inflation Since 2000 Readers Question: How can we have both inflation and deflation in the economy at the same time? (the RPI falling to 0% and CPI rising to 3.2%) Deflation requires a fall in prices. We would need a negative inflation rate (e.g -0.3%) to have deflation Note if the inflation rate fell …
Readers Question: Is there any other political influence on the falling rate of sterling, something like monetary policy or political uncertainty? And why did some news reports say inflation and weak sterling could be helpful to UK economy? Thanks. The value of a currency is primarily influenced by economic factors. E.g. weak sterling can be …
Readers Question: I have a question which confused me for a long time. Recently, Zimbabwe’s central bank decided to delete 12 zeros of their currency to deal with the Hyperinflation problem. I just have an intuition that this action doesn’t work as the purchasing power of the currency remains unchanged. Can you tell me the …
The US dollar surprised many people by retaining its value for a long period during this economic crisis. Despite, 0% interest rates, increasing government debt, and a current account deficit, many were still buying the dollar as it was perceived as ‘relatively safe’ However, the recent plan by US treasury to buy even more assets …
M4 is known as the ‘broad money supply’. It is a measure of notes and coins in circulation (M0) + bank accounts. This includes private-sector retail bank and building society deposits + Private-sector wholesale bank and building society deposits and Certificate of Deposit. The Bank of England produce figures on M4 growth. [link] Money supply …
Readers Question: what are the causes of recession in india now a days? India is not in a recession. What is happening is that the growth rate is slowing down from 7% a year to an estimated 5.5% to 6.5% (link) India’s economy has been slowing down because: Fall in exports to US, Europe and …
I wrote a brief explanation to the current credit crunch, breaking it down into 10 stages – including why It occurred and who does it affect. Some common questions on Credit Crisis Why Do US Mortgage Defaults Affect the UK? The US mortgage companies funded their mortgage lending by selling their loans onto other financial …