A more doveish sounding set of minutes yesterday from the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) doesn’t change that. In fact very little, if anything, has happened of late to change the UK economy’s inherent weakness to inflationary pressures. Our economic Achilles’ heel is getting worse.
The economy’s bumpy road to recovery continues unchanged with some quarters better than others. High street demand is getting weaker, as evidenced by several profits warnings from retailers, but that won’t be enough to significantly dampen overall inflationary pressures.
A weaker pound has boosted exports by making them cheaper but continues to suck in increasingly expensive imports.
The MPC said it was “puzzling” that import growth had remained so robust, despite the pound’s devaluation.
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Maine’s Androscoggin Bank is offering 60-month “blended” CD rates that beat the top nationally available deal.
It’s paying 3.05% APY with a $500 minimum deposit.
The bank says the deal should be available online to national savers within a few weeks. For now, you have to visit one of the bank’s 13 locations.
We’ll keep an eye on this deal to see when it’s available everywhere.
The 3.05% APY is the result of the bank blending, or combining, five different annual percentage yields over the course of the term.
In this case, the APY is 1.00% for the first year, 2.02% for the second year, 3.04% for the third year, 4.07% for the fourth year and 5.12% for the fifth year.
If you withdraw your funds early, you won’t get the full benefit of the blend — and you’ll pay a hefty 365-day penalty, too.
The rate on this hybrid CD beats the top nationally available 60-month CD rate by over a tenth of a percentage point. (Check out our late
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Tags: Cd Rates, National
Forget buy-to-let, families are now renting to move, but even then banks have spotted a weasel way to milk them for everything they can.
The reported rise in the value of properties up for rent is an interesting minor trend that illustrates quite how dysfunctional the UK property market is.
ARLA, which highlighted the number of more expensive properties coming up for rent, pointed out that this is a London and the south trend.
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Tags: Banks, Banks Hurt
The US Labor Department said that consumer prices climbed a higher-than-expected 2.7pc in March from a year before.
Almost three quarters of the rise was due to surging food and petrol prices, with petrol costs climbing 5.6pc, the ninth straight month of increases. Food rose 0.8pc in March, the largest gain since July 2008.
A survey of 41 economists by Bloomberg had on average expected annual inflation to hit 2.6pc.
David Wyss, the New York-based chief economist at Standard & Poors, said the inflation was largely as expected, adding: “The Fed is not going to see inflation as a threat so they have the freedom to keep interest rates low longer. But core inflation is creeping up from its lows six months ago, so the Fed is going to end its extraordinary measures. There will be no QE3 [a third round of quantitative easing].”
The consumer price index’s monthly rise was 0.5pc, in line with economists’ expectations, the ninth consecutive increase. Cor
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Tags: Petrol Prices, Prices
It’s hard to get excited about 3-month CDs these days.
With short-term CD rates so low, many savers are abandoning 3- and 6-month certificates of deposit for higher-paying savings and money market accounts, which are offering much higher (by comparison, anyway) rates of 1% or 1.25%.
Some of us here at Bankaholic are, too.
Our current 3-month leader, California First National Bank, better known as CalFirst, is offering just 0.80% APY with a $5,000 minimum deposit.
Not great.
But it’s still better than the average annual yield that large banks and thrifts are offering. That whopping 0.19% APY marks a record low since Bankrate.com began tracking the 3-month term in 1989.
(We did find some better-than-Leaderboard CD rates in Atlanta last week, which are still good, for savers in the peach state.)
Three banks offer nationally available rates of 0.75% APY. The
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Tags: Cd Rates, Rates