Economics / Markets

FIVE THINGS

Just under a third (31%) of financial advisers believe that stagnant or negative UK GDP growth will be the biggest challenge to investment growth in 2013, according to the latest Barings Investment Barometer.

International banks have given greater flexibility and a longer deadline to meet Basel III liquidity rules.

UK interest rates will stay at historic lows for four more years as the economy struggles to return to normal growth levels, Citi has predicted.

The Chancellor is on a collision course with bond markets over plans to change how inflation is calculated. The switch could bring the exchequer a £3.8bn windfall from a reduction in interest payments.

Senior backbench MPs are being lobbied to set up a powerful US-style committee that would scrutinise the public finances as a whole and try to head off major fiscal disasters.

A wall of cash running to tens of billions of pounds could be about to flee from government bonds into the stock market, top investors have warned.

A pair of MPs have criticised the decision to award a knighthood to Hector Sants, the former chief executive of the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Leaders on the country's biggest firms are more confident in an economic recovery than they were a year ago but have less faith in the Chancellor, latest polling has found.

Strong data from China and a deal to avert the US fiscal cliff have helped push the FTSE 100 past the 6,000 mark for the first time since July 2011.