Saturday 22 January 2011

Investors recoil at UK inflation

Funny to see the world's top investor quoted in the Financial Times today, saying:

"If CPI continues above 3% in the UK and above 2% in the US, then we are accepting negative real interest rates, and that is not an attractive investment."

According the FT, some of the world's leading investors are losing confidence in UK investments after they noticed that inflation here was rising.

A wry smile might creep across the face of the average British saver, seeing Bill Gross of Pimco cottoning on to this fact.

UK savers have been suffering negative interest rates -- that is, losing money once you subtract inflation from your savings rate -- ever since the Bank of England's base rate plummeted to half a per cent more than 2 years ago.

The difference, of course, is that the professional investor can scour the world for better returns and gamble on riskier classes of investment, such as shares and commodities.

1 comment:

  1. Sometimes it is the simplest of economic concepts that we miss. Something to do with wood and trees.
    Thanks for pointing this out.

    ReplyDelete