Saturday, April 2, 2016

Taking a Complicated Financial Case to Court


Court cases that involve financial matters tend to always be delicate, if not heated and highly contested. You need the judge and jury to side with you if you hope to protect your assets and money. However, many juries lack the inside financial know-how when they are first seated for your case. You need someone to come to court to back up your argument and evidence. Along with retaining an attorney with this experience, you likewise may need to retain a consultant to provide advantages like expert witness testimony and explanations about why your argument is factual and deserving of the court's favor. You can retain this help today by going online and finding out more about the consultation services.

Explanations for Complicated Financial Matters

As noted, lay people typically have a working knowledge at best of complex financial terms and practices. They may not realize some of the finer implications that your case involves or why they should decide in your favor.

When you retain the consultation services of the firm, however, you get the help of an individual who has years of experience in the financial industry and can break down the terminology so that any jury can understand it. This person can also go into detail about why your argument is the most valid and why the other party in the case may be taking advantage of you or simply mistaken in their own arguments.

The consultant can help in cases that involve financial matters like bankruptcy, loans, and other banking practices. The service also may come in handy for cases that center on collection or credit issues.

The consultant can work with your attorney and you to ensure that your case is as solid as it can be before it goes before the judge and jury. You may be able to protect your own finances with this additional legal help.

Contact and Resources

When you are ready to retain this help, you can use the contact options found on the website. You can call or email the company directly.

You can also find resources that may help you understand your own case better. The resources link is found at the left side of the page.

Financial cases need to be competently presented in court. You can make your case stronger with the professional consultation services of a financial expert.

Friday, April 1, 2016

UK Inflation Rate Stays at 0.3%

uk

UK Inflations Unchanged at 0.3%


According to the Office for National Statistics – ONS, UK inflation, measured by the Consumer Prices Index remained unchanged at 0.3% in February. There was a big rise in vegetables though the transport cost had dropped as per ONS. The annual inflation was below the target of 2% of Bank of England for two years and last year it had been zero. Last month the Bank had stated that it predicted inflation to remain below 1% this year.

Other figures of ONS published at the same time showed that Chancellor George Osborne had been close to missing his target in cutting the budget deficit of the country in 2015-16 financial years. According to ONS, borrowing of the government dropped than anticipated in February which brought the overall deficit so far to £70 for the 11 months of the year, as against the chancellor’s full-year target of £72.2bn.

The borrowing figures could mean that the government could borrow on additional £1.5bn this month if it intends to avoid exceeding the forecast set by the Office for Budget Responsibility during the last week’s Budget. Recent ONS’s release revised January’s borrowing by 2.6bn and even though next month’s figure exceeds the forecast, there is a possibility of waiting longer for confirmation.

Difficulties in Implementing Some of the Planned Budget Cuts


Chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, David Kern, stated that while there is a gradual progress in reducing the deficit, the timetables outlined in the Budget last week tends to be ambitious and the return to surplus could take a bit longer than the chancellor hopes.

He further added that `the difficulties in implementing some of the planned budget cuts would increase the problem’. Under the single Retail Prices Index – RPI measure including housing cost, inflation was 1.3% in February, which also remained unchanged from the previous month. According to the ONS, the biggest downward pressure on the inflation rate was from the transport segment with the changes in prices for items like road passenger transport, second hand cars and bicycles.

There was a drop in prices for toothpaste together with other personal care products, though higher prices for vegetables, milk, eggs and cheese compensated for those declines.

Britain’s vote on European Union Membership – Hit UK Economic Growth


An increase was also seen in hotel accommodation and restaurant bills along with the price of furniture as well as household equipment. Lower oil prices kept a cover on inflation leaving the central bank in no haste to increase the rates beyond 0.5% which remained there for almost seven years. The unmoved level of inflation of February comes after three months of increased consumer prices.

 Clothing prices had been up by 0.4% when compared to last year while gas prices had dropped by 6% over the same period after energy giant E. ON’s decision to reduce the cost of gas by 5.1% for two million customers last month. The inflation announcement was made after the Bank of England had voted to maintain the rates on hold once more this month and cautioned that Britain’s vote on its European Union membership could hit UK economic growth.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

IMF Says World at Risk of 'Economic Derailment’

IMF

Global Economy Faces Rising Risk of Economic Derailment - IMF


The International Monetary Fund – IMF has advised that the global economy tends to face a rising risk of economic derailment. David Lipton, Deputy Director has called for urgent steps to increase global demand. He had mentioned in his speech to the National Association for Business Economics in Washingtonrecently, that they are clearly at a delicate juncture. He warned that the IMF’s latest reading of the global economy indicates once again a weakening baseline.

His comments have come up after weaker than expected trade figures from China portrayed that the exports had plunged by a quarter from a year ago, in February. With the second largest economy of the world often stated as `the engine of global growth’, weaker global demand for its goods seems to be read as an indicator of the general global economic climate. IMF have already mentioned that it would be likely to downgrade the present forecast of 3.4% for global growth when it tend to release in April, the economic predictions. International lender had warned last month, that the world economy seemed to be highly susceptible and had called for new efforts to spur growth.

Downside Risks Clearly Pronounced


Ahead of last month’s Shanghai G20 meeting, in a report, the IMF had mentioned that the group need to plan a co-ordinated stimulus programme since the world growth had reduced and could be derailed by market turbulence, the oil price crash as well as geopolitical conflicts. In his speech in Washington, Mr Lipton had stated that the burden to lift growth falls more squarely on advanced economics which tend to have fiscal room to move.

He added that the `downside risks are clearly much more pronounced than earlier and the case for more forceful and concerted policy action has become more compelling. Moreover risks seemed to have increased further with volatile financial markets and low commodity prices creating fresh concern about the health of the global economy’. A swing of weak economic data had lately been added to these apprehensions and the US ratings agency Moody’s had downgraded its outlook for China from `stable’ to `negative’.

Time to Support Economic Activity


The rising unemployment is also another worry as Beijing tends to slowly shift its economy from over dependence on manufacturing and industry to more services and consumer spending. The economy of China seems to be growing at the slowest rate in 25 years which has resulted in considerable uncertainty in the financial markets all over the world leading to sharp falls in commodity prices.

Lipton has commented that `together with bank repair wherever needed and with adequate targeting on infrastructure, this approach could create jobs and probably reduce public debt-to-GDP ratios in the medium term by motivating nominal GDP as well as support credit and financial stability. On strengthening the global outlook, this coordinated action could hurry healing in the banking sector and prevent continent liabilities for the government which appear in case of inaction.

 Moreover it would also have considerable positive spill-overs to susceptible emerging economics comprising of commodity exporters which would be unable to participate in the fiscal expansion, directly. He added that at the recent G20 meetings in China, he thinks that `there was broad recognition of these risks and priorities and now is the time to support economic activity and put the global economy on a sounder footing’.

40 Banks Test Bitcoin Tech for Trading Bonds

Bitcoin

Consortium of 40 Banks Test Using Blockchain


A consortium of 40 main banks comprising of Goldman Sachs and Barclays tested a way to trade fixed income assets by using the blockchain, which is a technology that tends to strengthens bitcoin in an attempt to emphasize how serious the biggest lenders in the world are regarding the technology.

R3 CEV, the financial technology firm that had brought the banks together last year to work on blockchain applications had made the announcement recently.Blockchain tends to work like a large decentralized ledger for the digital currency bitcoin, records each transaction and stores the information on a global network which cannot be tampered. But most of the experts agree that the technology does not seem close to mass adoption and is in the trial stage.

The technology could be applied to wide selection of uses and especially for financial firms; the most interesting parts would involve the clearing of trades. Experts state that the blockchain would enable a huge number of transaction settlements in a matter of minute or even in seconds together with it being very secure since each transaction tends to be recorded and is unable to be tampered. Presently some trades tend to take day in the settling process.

Smart Contract – Computer Code


Supporting this is the idea of `smart contracts, a computer code which would only perform when the terms of a contract are fulfilled. For instance, a trade may be carried out once the money from the buyer is received,all of which would be done automatically and there would not be any dispute since the same has been recorded in the blockchain.

A number of distributed ledger companies had worked with the banks for this test namely Chain, Eris Industries, Ethereum, IBM and Intel. The institutions had done an assessment of each smart contraction solution to trade fixed income of the company.

David Rutter, R3 CEO and a former executive at London based electronic brokerage ICAP had stated in a statement that `this development tends to support the belief of R3 that close collaboration among global financial institutions and technology providers will create significant momentum behind the adoption of distributed ledger solutions across the industry. R3’s website mentioned that its mission is `building and empowering the next generation of global financial services technology’.

Blockchain – Probable Disruptive Force in Finance


These technologies represent a new frontier of innovation and would dramatically improve the way the financial services industry operates, in the same way as the advent of electronic trading decades ago delivered huge advancement in efficiency, transparency, scalability and security’.Banks do not seem to be the only ones interested in technology. Nasdaq used the blockchain, last month to enable international resident of Estonia to vote in shareholder meeting while they were abroad and tested the blockchain for trading shares.

Bitcoin could have risen to more than 35% this year, though it is the fundamental technology behind the crypto currency which is moving the world’s main banks. Blockchain has been indicated as a probable disruptive force in finance by main institutions which tend to claim bitcoin as just the opening act in something bigger.

Friday, March 18, 2016

How Robots will Kill the 'Gig Economy

Gig Economy

Gig Economy – Cease to Exist in 20 Years


According to new report from venture backed start-up Thumbtack, an online marketplace which tends to help skilled workers locate customers, the so-called gig economy would cease to exist in 20 years. The study has forecast that logistic companies from start-ups like Uber right to tech giants like Amazon would be replacing drivers as well as delivery workers with autonomous vehicles and drones.

The study discovered that extremely skilled workers like lawyers and accountants would no longer be assured of jobs at big firms - will be the new gig economy workers. Jon Lieber, chief economist at Thumbtack and Lucas Puente, an economic analyst at the firm had mentioned in a report that `the gig economy known will not last.

 In the past few years, analysts and reports have obsessively focused on transportation technology platforms such as Uber and Lyft and delivery technology platforms like Instacart and the workers required for these on-demand services. The fine focus on low-skilled `gigs’ tends to miss a larger story. The rather commoditized, interchangeable services seem to supplement income, not generating middle class lifestyles. Besides, these jobs are probably going to be automated over a period of time and performed by self-driving cars and drones'.

Autonomous Driving Technology – Reduce Death/Transportation Affordable


Uber had been frank with regards to its plans in replacing drivers with robots over a period of time. An Uber spokesperson informed CNBC that `autonomous driving technology has the ability to drastically reduce deaths in cars, making transportation even more affordable. That it is an exciting future and one Uber plans to be part of, but that transition for technical, regulatory as well as adoption reasons, at scale, would take some time. The spokesperson stated that `in the meanwhile, the focus is providing flexible work opportunities for many people in the world as possible’.

According to Oxford academics Car Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, around half of U.S. jobs seem to be at high risk of computerization over the next 20 years. Their discoveries had been published in 2013 and are unchanged, but there are some limitations like resistance from stakeholders and relative wage levels which would determine if a job is in fact automated, according to Osborne.

Estimates on how many jobs robots will ultimately displace would vary widely. Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder mentioned in a report that `forecast of 16% of jobs would disappear owing to automation technologies between now and 2025.

Supervised by `Robo-Boss’ by 2018


However that jobs equivalent to 9% of present day’s jobs would be created. Physical robots need repair and maintenance professional, one of the several job categories which would grow around in a much automated world’. From the global point of view, over 3 million workers would be supervised by a `robo-boss’ toward 2018, as predicted late last year by research and advisory firm Gartner.

Osborne has stated that jobs which are least likely to be automated initially are those which need a high level of creativity or emotional intelligence. For instance, school teacher jobs seem to be comparatively safe due to the elevated level of social intelligence needed to teach as well as mentor children.

 The Oxford study found positions which seem mostly susceptible to automation comprise of telemarketers, watch repairer, tax preparers, insurance underwriters, cargo and freight agents and others. In each category, some jobs would be automated very soon. Osborne states that `this gig economy is being pursued via digital platform and is actually getting individuals to automate themselves out of a job by delivering data back to the platform which could be utilised in providing an automated substitute.