Aurelia Butler

Property website Rightmove (OTC:RTMVY) said on Monday its asking prices for residential properties rose by 1.7% in the four weeks to April 13 when compared with the same period last year.Prices sought by sellers rose by 1.1% in month-on-month terms, slowing from a 1.5% increase in the previous four weeks.The average new seller asking prices of 372,324 pounds ($463,320) was only 570 pounds of a record hit in May 2023, Rightmove said.Other measures of Britain’s housing market have also shown a recovery in demand and prices, helped by a fall in borrowing costs which surged in 2022 when former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s plans for sweeping tax cuts upset financial markets.Rightmove said the number of new sellers was 12% higher than a year earlier and the number of sales was up by 13%. Demand was strongest in the high-end segment where asking prices in 2024 so far are up by the most since 2014.Demand for properties typically sought by first- and second-time buyers – who are typically more mortgage-dependent rose by less, the survey showed.”Despite the current optimism, these are not the conditions to support substantial price growth,” Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property science, said. “Sellers who are keen to secure their sale will still need to price realistically for their local market and avoid being over-ambitious.”($1 = 0.8036 pounds) More

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(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets.Asian markets on Monday will be hoping to bounce back from one of the most bruising weeks this year, but that won’t be easy given the hawkish tone of recent Fed comments, heightened Middle East tensions and deepening weakness in tech stocks.Wall Street fell sharply on Friday with the S&P 500 sealing its longest losing streak since October 2022 and tech darling Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s 10% plunge dragging down the Nasdaq, while demand for safe-haven Treasuries, gold and the Swiss franc rose. While there was no escalation in the Iran-Israel conflagration over the weekend, investors are cautious.The MSCI Asia ex-Japan equity index fell 3.7% last week to a two-month low. That was the biggest weekly decline since August, with rising U.S. bond yields, a strong dollar and wobbly global stock markets taking their toll.Investors are still digesting the IMF/World Bank Spring meetings and related conferences and events from last week, from which one of the clearest messages was how concerned officials are becoming with the strength of the dollar. The United States, Japan and South Korea issued a joint statement on the issue, ECB rate-setter Robert Holzmann said the ECB probably won’t cut rates this year as much as planned if the Fed doesn’t move, and the IMF urged Asian central banks to focus on domestic inflation rather than following the Fed too closely.Indonesia’s central bank on Friday intervened in the FX market “more boldly to maintain market confidence” as the rupiah weakened, while India’s rupee was lifted from a record low on Friday by likely intervention from the central bank.     South Korea’s central bank chief, meanwhile, said the bank is ready to take steps to stabilize the exchange rate if needed. Attention remains fixed on Asia’s most liquid FX market and whether, with the dollar hovering at 34-year peaks near 155.00 yen, Japanese authorities will back up recent warnings against the yen’s depreciation with intervention. So far, it has been just talk from Tokyo. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said in Washington on Friday that the central bank will “very likely” be raising interest rates if underlying inflation continued to go up.The latest positioning data from U.S. futures markets showed hedge funds and speculators increased their aggregate net short yen position in the latest week to a new 17-year high. Monday’s economic calendar sees the release of Indonesian trade figures and Taiwan’s unemployment rate, while the People’s Bank of China is expected to leave its one-year and five-year loan prime rates on hold at 3.45% and 3.95%, respectively.Chinese markets will get their first chance to react to new measures announced on Friday aimed at promoting overseas investment in its technology sector.Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Monday:- China interest rate decision- Indonesia trade (March)- Taiwan unemployment (March) (By Jamie McGeever; Editing by Josie Kao) More

“Barring surprises, there is no need to wait much longer”, Villeroy told business daily Les Echos in an interview, reiterating the stated position of senior ECB policymakers that the euro zone’s central bank will start cutting rates in June. “It should be followed by further cuts, at a pragmatic pace,” Villeroy said, adding that tensions in the Middle East for now do not threaten the target of bringing inflation down to 2% by 2025. “At the moment, the conflict is not leading to a marked rise in oil prices. If this were ever the case, we would have to analyse monetary policy for whether this shock is temporary and limited, or whether it is transmitted – beyond commodities – to underlying inflation”, he said. The ECB made it clear on Thursday an interest rate cut was expected in June, but policymakers differed on subsequent moves and on how low interest rates need to fall to stimulate the economy.Policymakers said energy market volatility and geopolitical tensions were a risk to inflation, but that the impact has not been enough to stop inflation falling. More

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