Economics / Markets

Japan's economy grew less than expected at the end of last year, highlighting potential weaknesses in Prime Minister Abe's economic policies.

Thanks to investors hungry for better returns, high yield bonds have performed strongly over the last year. More and more companies are issuing corporate bonds in that space. But how long can the good times last?

Weaker US data and ongoing expectations of tighter UK monetary policy have helped boost gold and sterling respectively as the dollar loses ground.

Henderson Strategic Bond fund manager John Pattullo has moved aggressively in to gilts in a bid to hedge against a worldwide deflationary shock caused by the chaos in emerging markets.

Contrarian views on the UK from Fidelity's Alex Wright

Can emerging market debt recover from its torrid 12 months?

Sterling has climbed against a basket of currencies including the dollar this morning after the Bank of England altered its forward guidance policy and revealed GDP is expected to overshoot expectations.

The Bank of England has today said it will not hike rates "for some time to come" - with the base rate potentially at 2% by 2017 - as governor Mark Carney begins to alter his forward guidance policy.

Three former members of the Bank of England's rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) have suggested interest rates could rise sooner than expected.

Former Financial Services Authority (FSA) chairman Lord Turner has warned that the UK has failed to rebalance its economy and is simply repeating the errors made in the run-up to the 2007/8 financial crisis.