Retail sales stronger in March: CSO
NEW data shows retail sales were stronger in March with the headline figure up 1.7pc in volume terms and 8.9pc compared with the same period last year.
Sales were 7.9pc higher on average than the same period last year.
Excluding car sales, the figure was down 1.1pc in the month but 2.2pc higher in the year. “Core” sales have been higher on an annual basis in nine of the last …
Details of tough bank stress tests to be unveiled by Europe this week
The European Banking Authority (EBA) will this week unveil details of the scale of economic distress banks must be able to withstand to pass continent-wide stress tests due to happen later this year.
This year’s round of tests will be tougher than in 2011, the head of the ECB’s supervisory board chair Daniele Nouy said over the weekend.
The London-based EBA will set out tomorrow the scenarios that banks will …
Borrowing by first-time buyers on course to hit €5bn by 2018
MORTGAGE lending to first-time buyers could quadruple in the next four years. And an extra 82,000 houses will need to be built up to 2018 in order to cater for demand, a new report from Davy stockbrokers says.
The Government has projected that an additional 25,000 houses a year will have to be constructed by 2018.
Davy analysts Conall Mac Coille and David McNamara estimate that strong demand from first-time …
ESB staff face new wait to trade €200m of shares
PLANS to allow nearly 11,000 current and former ESB staff to trade their lucrative shares in the semi-state company are set to be delayed over “serious concerns” among Employees Share Ownership Plan (ESOP) trustees about the ability to “deliver a fair solution for all participants”.
ESB ESOP members own 5pc of the company, with 99 million stock units having been acquired by the ESOP in 2011 for almost €76m. The …
Investor who predicted Lehman collapse warns of new tech bubble
Greenlight Capital, the $10.3bn (€7.4bn) hedge-fund firm run by David Einhorn said it was betting against a group of technology stocks as evidence grows of a bubble.
The firm is best known for rightly calling the market in 2008 by betting against Lehman Brothers stock before the bank collapsed in 2008.
“There is a clear consensus that we are witnessing our second tech bubble in 15 years,” the New York-based …