httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQcgcXG2kDY

Oxford Economics’ have forecasted for the FT the difficulty of fulfilling the aim of widening the foundation for growth in the UK, which is not inspiring confidence, especially when combined with the toughest public spending cuts for decades. Oxford is predicting 1.3million net new jobs, the same as the Office of Budget Responsibility. They believe that the regional divide will be enough to suppress consumer demand, but are by far the most optimistic of forecasters – expecting growth at an average of 3% in 2010-2015.

Yesterday Piraeus Bank made a cash bid of EUR701 million for the state’s stake in two domestic banks. This could help Greece’s bank sector which stopped receiving funding from interbank markets after their debt default. This deal would create the biggest domestic banking group in Greece and shows that Greece has come on a long way, by beating the first-half budget deficit target and generally improving the fiscal situation.

The US senate passed a reform yesterday to overhaul the US financial system and its regulators, this has been a victory for Obama who has been struggling to push this through for a year. Obama said of this, ‘The American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes’. Inflation remained the same in June but there was also a bigger than expected decline in jobless claims as fewer factories closed for the summer, but they still remain far too high. Yesterdays PPI fell by 0.5% from May to June, which compared to a year ago was up by 2.8%. This negative news has caused sterling dollar to rise above 1.54.

It is another busy day for US data today, with UoM consumer confidence and Long-Term TIC flows, with them rests the hope that the US will get better news than it has done over the past few days. The eurozone are releasing their Trade Balance at 10am this morning which might give euro another boost.