Financial Schools Reviews

New figures show number of approvals broadly the same in November as they were in October.

Mortgage lending continues to be flat, according to the latest figures from the Bank of England.

There were just 68 more mortgages approved for new purchases in November than in October, although the monthly total of 52,854 approvals is the highest since December 2009.

Meanwhile, the number of approved remortgages was down from 34,004 in October to 31,154 in November.

This indicates that lenders are still imposing strict requirements on borrowers looking for a mortgage.

However, figures from the Building Societies Association (BSA) showed that building societies and other mutuals lent 24% more in November than they had 12 months earlier.

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George Osborne is to press ahead with proposals to expand the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), says Larry Elliott in The Guardian. Income tax relief is to be raised from 20% to 30% for EIS investments, backdated to April 2011, and investor limits will be doubled to £1m, as of April 2012. Osborne hopes improved tax breaks will encourage greater investment in some of Britain’s fast-growing, smaller companies at a time when there are complaints about banks’ refusal to lend. Though high-growth companies account for only 6% of businesses in Britain employing more than ten people, over the past three years they have created 54% of all jobs in firms with more than ten staff.

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After the Tuesday release of the Federal Reserve minutes the trading world is weighing the possibility of another round of quantitative easing in the United States. The Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stated that he is concerned that the crisis in the European Union could cripple the 2 ½ year expansion the US has seen, and that the fragile recovery may need more help from the central bank.

While the Fed didn’t explicitly mention any new measures, the statement said that the economy in American “has been expanding moderately”, instead of the statement released in November that said growth in the US has “strengthened somewhat”. Other part

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The euro fell to its lowest level since mid-January, easing below the key $1.30 mark Wednesday, as any enthusiasm over Europe’s most recent “solution” has cooled.

“This has been a difficult trading year,” said Brown Brothers Harriman currency strategist Marc Chandler. “There’s more room to the downside.”

The euro was trading at $1.2975 and Chandler said next year, it could go below $1.25. It hasn’t traded this low since Jan. 11, when Japan pledged to buy eurozone bonds in an effort to stop the debt crisis from spreading.

“We’re looking at a protracted economic downturn in Europe,” said Chandler. “I’m generally optimistic about the dollar, but (only) out of default because the U.S. Full Article…

There was a time when Sears Holdings (SHLD) mattered, but you have to go all the way back to when you risked paper cuts from the retailer’s leafy mail-order catalog to remember it.

Things just haven’t been as rosy on this side of the millennium.

As the parent company of Sears and the even more underwhelming Kmart, Sears Holdings has been a meandering disaster since Eddie Lampert played Dr. Frankenstein in piecing the two tattered chains together in 2004.

Lampert’s plan made sense at first. Kmart and Sears were fading department store chains at the time, but they were huge generators of cash flow.

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