Good morning, New York...
FT ALPHAVILLE
Some Libor frustration: Joseph picked up on some (more) Libor reading and used it to discuss benchmarks more generally. It's wide ranging stuff. What is a price? Where do prices come from? Which retain "market confidence"? When does price transparency threaten market stability? And what about transition? What happens when a price benchmark is totally transformed, discontinued, or goes to die? What happens, really, to contracts which use that benchmark?
Japan's DPJ not so sure about Iwata… and possibly Kuroda, too: The great BoJ transition continues... Kate's post explores the continuing confusion about Kikuo Iwata's nomination as one of the two BOJ's deputy governors. Apparently, the Democratic Party of Japan said Tuesday it will oppose Iwata. And it's not as if 'support' for Kuroda is as clear cut as it sounds. The Diet votes on the nominations on Thursday — but it may not be all over then.
NEWS
The prospect of stagflation has returned to the UK as investors bet on a sharp jump in inflation to its highest level in almost five years. Inflation expectations, as measured by the difference between nominal and inflation-linked bond yields, ticked up to near 3.3 per cent on Tuesday, levels not seen since September 2008. (Financial Times)
Boeing's troubled 787 Dreamliner could return to commercial service within weeks after the main US aviation regulator approved the commercial jet maker's proposals to upgrade the aircraft's batteries, giving the go-ahead for test flights. (Financial Times)
Turkey emerges as true Iraq war victor. The Americans won the war, the Iranians won the peace and the Turks won the contracts. Turkey, which blocked the deployment of US troops through its territory during the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, is emerging 10 years on as one of the prime beneficiaries of the battle for the Iraqi market. (Financial Times)
IBM has begun developing data analysis technology to improve the treatment of traumatic brain injury, the latest move in the company's broader effort to apply its "big data" software to the healthcare sector. In partnership with doctors at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, IBM scientists are mining and analysing huge streams of patient data in order to predict the kind of brain swelling that leads to cognitive damage or death. (Financial Times)
Paul Ryan offered a staunchly conservative fiscal plan for his party that seeks to balance the budget in a decade through deep spending cuts. The budget presented by the former Republican vice-presidential nominee slashes government spending on a broad range of social programmes by $4.6tn over a decade while sparing defence and avoiding any tax increases. It achieves a tiny budget surplus in 2023, with spending and revenues each worth 19.1 per cent of the economy. The plan was quickly dismissed by the White House and congressional Democrats as an extreme document that gut spending for the poor and the elderly – as well as domestic investments in research and infrastructure – in order to spare further tax increases on upper-income families and companies. (Financial Times)
Silicon Valley hits at India over trade. A lobby group representing US technology companies is set to attack India for its domestic procurement policies at a congressional hearing Wednesday, in a sign of growing concern among multinationals about market access in the south Asian nation. Dean Garfield, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, which lobbies for large Silicon Valley groups including Apple, Google, and Hewlett-Packard, will testify that India is pressing ahead with measures that will "undermine, if not outright dismantle" its own progress as a global power in the tech sector. (Financial Times)
China's steel output rose to a record high in February, reaching 2.21m tonnes per day, a 9.8% increase on the previous month which broke the previous record of 2.5m tonnes per day, set in January. (Wall Street Journal)
International lenders in talks to shrink Cyprus bailout package. According to officials with knowledge of the talks, the government has been negotiating with the so-called "troika" comprising the IMF, ECB and European Commission to arrive at a €10bn total for a bailout package. This is significantly less than prior expectations. (Wall Street Journal)
Markets: Stock barometers are easing back from cyclical and in some cases record highs as the global equity rally appears to lose momentum. Moves are mild, however, and a glance across other asset classes shows no great aversion to risk, more a twiddling of thumbs as a dearth of early catalysts leaves the market apparently uncertain about what to do next. (FT's Global Market Overview)
