FURTHER FURTHER READING
- America owes a lot to Bernanke.
- The return of McMansions.
- John Carney on Goldman on Too Big To Fail.
- Should we trust economists?
- Higher mortgage rates might not kill the housing market.
- Rich countries are creating more jobs by creating worse jobs.
- Jess Staley thinks that one day investors will be able to understand banks.
ROUND-UP
FT markets round-up: "Growing uncertainty about the outlook for US monetary policy made for a choppy session for global equities ahead of a number of important risk events later this week. 'We will see Fed 'taper fear' ebb and flow all summer,' said Kit Juckes, FX strategist at Société Générale. 'It's a question of when, not if, policy gets less easy – that's probably the lesson from recent 'mixed' data.' Such an 'ebb and flow' of uncertainty was clearly visible on Wall Street, where the S&P 500 – along with the other main equity indices – briefly traded more than 1 per cent lower before pulling back to finish with a loss of less than 0.6 per cent. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 rose 0.3 per cent. There was a hefty bounce for Japanese stocks as the Nikkei 225 rose 2.1 per cent, attributed by some to a renewed bout of weakness for the yen. The Nikkei's rally followed a 3.7 per cent slide on Monday, a move that took its decline from a five-year high to 15 per cent over eight sessions." (Financial Times)
IBM and salesforce strike cloud computing deals: "The race to buy up providers of business services over the internet intensified on Tuesday with two industry giants making acquisitions worth a combined $4.5bn, underlining how so-called cloud computing is reshaping the information technology industry. The acquisitions by IBM and Salesforce are the latest signs of a big strategic shift in the technology sector as businesses increasingly buy software and services over the internet from remote locations that were formerly run on in-house computers." (Financial Times)
Rural US shrinks as young flee for cities: "The population of rural and small-town America contracted over the past two years for the first time on record as young people left to search out work in the cities and birth rates fell, according to official data." (Financial Times)
Fed tapering fears lift US mortgage rates: "The average rate on a US mortgage has soared above 4 per cent for the first time in more than a year, reflecting recent turmoil in the bond market and threatening to undermine the Federal Reserve's efforts to stoke the US recovery. The rise has outstripped even the sharp jump in rates on US Treasury debt, which took many traders by surprise in May." (Financial Times)
Amazon set to sell $800m in ads: "Amazon's advertising business is forecast to generate over $800m of revenue this year as the online retailer uses its consumer data and ecommerce engine to woo advertisers from rivals such as Google and Facebook. The revenue estimate from eMarketer, a digital research group, pointed to advertisers' desire to use Amazon to target ads based not only on what people search for online but on what they buy." (Financial Times)
