Safiya Bashir on 30/09/2015
Transport for London to crackdown on Uber
Love it or hate it, Uber has undoubtedly revolutionised taxis in all over the World. With now over 60,000 private hire vehicles in London, it isn’t surprising there is tension and dispute with TFL and traditional black cab drivers.
Despite being criticised for being too soft on Uber, TFL has recently proposed a series of measures that will change many of Uber’s business models; one of which includes a compulsory five minute wait after requesting a taxi.
Whilst the chief operating officer for surface transport at TFL Garrett Emmerson claims these changes will “improve the regulations that govern the capital’s private hire trade”, this crackdown on the app-controlled taxi ride have been described as bureaucratic by Uber’s UK head.
This severe crackdown may be what the black cab drivers have been looking for, but Uber is fighting back with an online petition that has already gathered over 80,000 signatures to ensure these new laws for private car hire won’t ‘be the end of Uber we all know and love”.
Cocontrol: crowdfunding to revolutionise social housing
As the UK’s economy moves ever closer towards recovery and growth, there is still great debate on the controversial austerity measures introduced by the government over the past couple of years. Labour’s new leader Jeremy Corbyn has recently set out plans to increase the country’s finances without introducing further cuts, and alarming figures are often used to carefully illustrate why further austerity measures, heralded by chancellor George Osborne as the UKs saving grace, are not the answer.
According to start-up company Cocontrol, 4.1 million householders live in social housing as a result of benefit cuts and reduced rent protection schemes. Of these householders, 43 percent live in poverty and struggle to balance food expenses and rent with the increasing cost of gas and electricity bills. To counter this problem, Cocontrol have designed new technology in the hope of helping tenants, easing the burden on social landlords and saving money and energy in the process.
Social landlords are now required to comply with ‘duty of care’ legislation which requires them to continuously improve the well-being of their tenants, although overall funding has been cut. Cocontrol’s system helps manage heating requirements within a budget through cloud-based intelligence, enabling heating systems to work more efficiently and economically; making both tenants’ and landlords’ lives easier.
The team behind the company have great potential: Cocontrol’s Chairman is Andrew Wordsworth, something of a celebrity in the crowdfunding sector after his company E-car Club became the first UK equity-crowdfunded startup to successfully exit and pay back their investors. He works alongside the company’s founder, James Byrne, who has a built up a wealth of experience in the energy efficiency and social housing over the past five years, founding several different companies who operate in the sector. He also advises The Mayor of London as a Commissioner on the LSDC.
The business has raised over £300,000 in grant funding to date, securing £225,084 of non-dilutive grant funding from InnovateUK’s Future Energy Management For Buildings Collaborative R&D competition, establishing strong sales partners and achieving early sales with a London Council. Cocontrol are aiming to use the money raised through crowdfunding to strengthen their marketing, recruit additional management staff and enhance user experience.
Cocontrol are offering 100,000 for 14.29 percent equity on Crowdcube.com. For further information on how to invest, visit their campaign page here.
Miranda Wadham on 30/09/2015
Sainsbury’s shares shoot up after raising forecast
Shares in supermarket chain Sainsbury’s (LON:SBRY) shot up by 13 percent this morning, as the grocer announced that it would be raising its full-year profit forecast.
Total retail sales for second quarter were up 0.3 per cent excluding fuel and its full year underlying profit before tax now expected to be moderately ahead of published consensus.
The chain have opened 27 new convenience stores this quarter, with their clothing section growing by nearly 13 per cent.
Mike Coupe, Chief Executive, said:
“Our programme to enhance the quality of over 3,000 own-brand products is on track. Taste the Difference volume grew by over four per cent in the quarter and was voted the best supermarket range by Good Housekeeping for the third year running.
Whilst the market is clearly still challenging, with food deflation impacting many categories, we are making good progress on delivering our strategy.”
Sainsburys is currently trading up 13.74 percent at 260.80 pence per share (1006GMT)
China consumer sentiment increases to highest in more than a year
As Chinese demand for commodities wanes and markets fret over a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy, last we received a ray of hope from the 1.3 billion Chinese consumers.
The Westpack MNI China Consumer Sentiment increased to 118.2 in September, the highest since 2014 and a leading indicator of mainland Chinese consumer strength.
The survey of 1000 Chinese consumers showed that general consumers ‘views of the economy were improving due to increased stability in the housing market and the fact that only around 11% of households are invested in the stock market.
As China slows, fears are increasing that there will be a fast reduction in GDP growth, known as a ‘hard-landing’. Last night’s data will go some way to quell these fears and lends support to the view that China is going through an inevitable transition to an economy that is increasingly reliant on domestic demand.
According to the World Bank, Chinese household consumption was only 36% of GDP which compares to 64.4% in the UK and 68.5% in the US.
China’s largest component of GDP is currently net exports. As exports slow the potential for personal consumption to grow as a percentage of GDP is key to China’s future economic growth.
House price growth rises in August, but consumer confidence falls
British house price growth rose 0.5 percent in September, more than expected by analysts, according to data released by mortgage lender Nationwide on Wednesday.
This data is the latest in a string of indications recently that the housing market may be getting back on track, after a dip at the end of last year.
House prices were up on August’s figure of 0.4 percent and rose on an annual basis by 3.8 percent, up from 3.2 percent last month. This is complementary to data released yesterday, showing mortgage lending increased the most since 2008 and confidence in the market is on the rise.
The Chief Economist at Nationwide, Robert Gardner, commented: “The data in recent months provides some encouragement that the pace of house price increases may be stabilising close to the pace of earnings growth.”
However, news across the spectrum may not be so positive. A further survey showed on Wednesday that GfK’s consumer confidence index fell strongly in August, dropping from +7 to +3; signs that consumer confidence has been hit by both the economic downturn in China and the migrant crisis in Europe.
Asian shares fall, dragged by Glencore
Asian shares fell sharply on Tuesday as falling commodity prices continue to affect global markets.
The Shanghai Composite closed down 2% at 3,038.14 and in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index closed down 4.05% at 16,930.84. Japanese shares have suffered a difficult period over the last few weeks, with the economy struggling to pick up again after a disappoint second quarter. The index dropped to an eight-month low, as investors await the Bank of Japan’s Tankan business confidence survey due to be released on Thursday. Markets are uncertain throughout Asia as investors await the manufacturing surveys on Thursday for more information on the extent of the slowdown in China. Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also closed down 3% at 20,556.60 on its first day back after the national holiday. A 30 percent drop in Glencore shares (LON:GLEN) pulled the benchmark index down. Shares in mining giant Glencore have fallen 87 percent since it listed in 2011 as commodity prices continue to fall, with more than 7 billion pounds in market value wiped out over the last week. Yesterday was a difficult day all round for the mining sector, with uncertainty in the sector also pushing Australian-listed shares of BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) down 6.4%, and Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) 4.6%.India lowers interest rates as commodity prices continue to hit
India’s central bank has lowered interest rates to their lowest level in four and a half years, in an attempt to bolster an economy increasingly affected by the slowdown in Asia and falling commodity prices.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reduced its repo rate, the rate at which it lends to commercial banks, to 6.75 percent from 7.25 percent. Economists had forecast a reduction to 7 percent.
The governor of the RBI, Raghuram Rajan, has been under increasing pressure from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to reduce borrowing costs, after India’s inflation hit a record low of 3.6% in August.
In a statement, Rajan said that “a tentative economic recovery is underway, but it is still far from robust”, and cited the need to counterbalance the effect of continuing low commodity prices.
“Investment is likely to respond more strongly (and boost domestic demand) if there is more certainty about the extent of monetary stimulus in the pipeline.”
Rajan, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is aiming to keep inflation within 6 percent by January, 5 percent a year later and near 4 percent by early 2018.
Whilst there are fears that India’s economy is slowing, it currently still has one of the highest growth rates in the world with a growth forecast of 6.4 percent for 2015; almost double the UK’s rate of 3 percent.
Mortgage lending jumps in August, indicating further growth
U.K. mortgage lending jumped by nearly 3000 in August, the most since before the financial crisis, according to new data released by the Bank of England on Tuesday.
With a rate hike looming, customers hoping to take advantage of current interest rates have fuelled demand and mortgage approvals for house purchases totalled 71,030 in August, beating expectations and up on July’s figure of 69,010. Net lending on property rose by £3.4 billion.
This is the latest in a string of economic data suggesting that Britain’s housing market is hotting up. According to Rightmove, asking prices for U.K. homes hit national records in September; and although the market suffered a temporary dip last year when new government rules on mortgage lending came into force, it appears to have got back on track with mortgage approvals rising consistently for most of this year.
Corbynomics: Labour’s promises to crack down on corporate tax avoidance
Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected the leader of the British Labour Party, boasting almost 59.5% of first preference votes, every move by the Labour party has been heavily scrutinized from all sides. This includes the new economic policies that Corbyn now hopes to push for, or as they have been named; Corbynomics.
Corbyn’s approach to the economy has led to opponents heralding the Labour party as ‘unelectable’ but John McDonnell, the Labour Party’s newly appointed Shadow Chancellor, hopes to win support through his promise to find £20bn-£25bn of uncollected taxes and narrow the total £120bn tax gap between the taxes due and those that are collected. This will in turn replace policies such as the 1% pay freeze on public sector workers in the hopes to cut the deficit without austerity.
McDonnell specifically singled out corporations including Amazon, who last year only paid £4.2m in tax last year despite selling £4.3bn worth of goods due to loopholes McDonnell hopes to close down.
So will Corbyn’s new left-wing economic policies including the crack down on tax avoidance lift the burden from middle and low income earners as McDonnell promises, or are they as David Cameron claims; a threat to Britain’s economic security?
Safiya Bashir on 28/09/2015
Apple breaks records, selling 13 million of iPhone 6s & 6s Plus over launch weekend
With the design of Apple’s new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus models released only two weeks ago, Apple has exceeded high expectations; figures released earlier today revealed that the new iPhone has hit record sales over its first weekend on the market.
Tim Cooke, Apple’s chief executive, said earlier in a statement that the sales of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus have been “phenomenal”, with more than 3 million more phones sold this year than the first weekend sales in 2014.
This increase has undoubtedly been supported by the inclusion of the Chinese market, which has recently overtaken Europe as Apple’s second biggest market, where the launch weekend last year was delayed due to regulatory issues.
New features that Apple has found that customers are “loving” include the 3D touch, sensing how deeply the display is touched, along with the new Live Photos.
After such a successful launch weekend for the new iPhone, sales will undoubtedly continue to grow; Apple are hoping to make the new iPhones available in 130 countries by the end of the year.
Safiya Bashir on 28/09/2015