quantitative-easing

EUROPE ON THE BRINK

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously in favour of keeping bank rate at a record low of 0.5% and maintaining QE at current levels, while warning inflation is unlikely to fall as fast as expected.

ON ASSET ALLOCATION

Kames Capital's Bill Dinning said the ECB needs to urgently introduce quantitative easing to avoid a situation that would make the Lehman Brothers collapse look like "child's play".

Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that bankers caught manipulating the market to take advantage of QE can expect to face criminal prosecution.

Threadneedle's Cormac Weldon has rotated out of cyclical names in favour of defensives in his £1.2bn American Select fund, as companies struggle against a muted outlook for the US economy.

Eurozone in crisis

Ernst & Young has downgraded its forecast for UK gross domestic product (GDP) to just 0.9% this year - significantly below the 1.4% it predicted three months ago - as it described the economic situation "worse than we thought".

£75BN MORE QE

Global macro funds outperformed most other hedge fund strategies in the third quarter of 2011 as bearish bets on commodities, equities and the euro started to pay off.