FURTHER FURTHER READING
- John Jeremiah Sullivan on the publication of Cotton Tenants.
- Early bird specials and US growth.
- Some good ideas on infrastructure and profit repatriation from Larry Summers.
- The mystery of why Portugal is so doomed.
- All quiet on the M&A front.
- When the beautiful game turns ugly.
- Google: the GE of the 21st century
ROUND-UP
FT markets round-up: "World equities suffered sharp losses and highly rated government bond prices rose as the markets continued to look for guidance on the outlook for global central bank policy. In particular, investors were keen for further clues as to when the Federal Reserve might begin scaling back its $85bn-a-month asset purchase programme. But there was also plenty of focus on the latest comments from Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, on his economic revitalisation strategy, as well as on Thursday's European Central Bank policy meeting. Equity markets saw significant selling. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 1.4 per cent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed below the 15,000 level. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 index fell 1.5 per cent to a six-week low. And there were further sharp losses for Japanese stocks as the Nikkei 225 tumbled 3.8 per cent to its lowest close for two months – taking its decline from a five-year high on May 23 to more than 18 per cent." (Financial Times)
Signs of torpor in US labour market: "A rise in service sector activity calmed jitters about the health of the US economy but there were further signs of torpor in the labour market ahead of Friday's crucial non-farm payrolls report. The Institute for Supply Management said its services index edged up to 53.7 last month from 53.1 in April, beating expectations for a level of 53.5. A reading above 50 means activity is growing." (Financial Times)
Paris threatens EU-US trade talks as China trade war looms: "Paris is threatening to block EU-US trade talks that Britain wants to launch at this month's G8 summit in Northern Ireland if French demands to exclude cultural industries such as music and film are not met. Washington, London and Brussels are pushing hard for a new transatlantic trade agreement to boost the US and European economies, with President Barack Obama swinging his weight behind the move." (Financial Times)
IMF admits to errors in international bailout of Greece: "The International Monetary Fund has published a scathing report about how it and the European Union handled Greece's first €110bn bailout, saying growth assumptions were too optimistic and that debt restructuring should have occurred earlier." (Financial Times)
EU plan to remove libor from London: "Brussels is proposing to put the scandal-ridden Libor lending rate under the watch of a European supervisor based in Paris as part over an overhaul of regulation of pricing benchmarks for an array of markets from oil to gold. A draft of the European Commission regulation, seen by the Financial Times, seeks to call time on the era of self-regulation for hundreds of benchmarks and moves direct supervision of Libor from London to the European Securities and Markets Authority, based in France." (Financial Times)
