I’m willing to bet that nearly all of you have used a Microsoft product. Probably an equally high proportion have used Google and a reasonably significant number of you will own an Apple product. What about LinkedIn? Most of you have no doubt heard of it and a number of you will be registered with [...]
Published on: 18 Nov 2011One of the ways that governments around the world have tried to kick start the economy during the recent recession has been through the reduction of interest rates. 10 years ago the Bank of England base rate was 11.38%. Today, the current rate is 0.5%. If individuals have variable rate loans or mortgages on their [...]
Published on: 01 Jun 2011The professional networking site LinkedIn yesterday announced plans to raise up to $175 million (£110 million) by way of a public offering. Many of you may well be members of LinkedIn and in terms of registered users it has been very successful since it started back in 2002. Financial information about the company though has [...]
Published on: 28 Jan 2011It hardly seems possible that the bank run on the UK bank Northern Rock happened over 3 years ago but last week some people thought that there was a similar run on the Spanish bank BBVA. A bank run occurs when a large number of people with deposits at a particular bank head to branches [...]
Published on: 15 Nov 2010Asset valuation is a tricky business. It is, however, a skill that accountants are often commissioned to use. It’s also a useful one to have when making personal decisions, such as whether to buy a home or not. Some people would argue that a major driver of the current economic slump in many countries is [...]
Published on: 11 Aug 2010The major stock markets around the world have been bear markets for the last couple of years but with the end of the recession looking like it’s fast approaching we should soon see a switch to a bull market. Analysts around the world will be arguing one way or another on the timing of the [...]
Published on: 11 Jun 2010The other day I was talking to a few local business owners and I asked them if they knew what their cost of capital was. I got a few blank stares. When we discussed the issue further, people started to warm up to the idea that the cost of capital can be viewed in terms [...]
Published on: 26 Sep 2009