Good morning New York,
FT ALPHAVILLE
Time to rebuild dollar longs: Izzy looks at the surge of US short-term inflows and notes George Saravelos' point over at Deutsche Bank that these must change into medium-term buying of equities and bonds if the dollar is to be supported.
A guide to the conceptual US GDP changes: Cardiff breaks down the BEA's comprehensive benchmark revisions to the national income and product accounts. These include some major conceptual changes, including a move towards greater accounting of intangible contributions.
NEWS
SEC charges former Santander exec and judge with insider trading: The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Cedric Cañas Maillard, a Spanish citizen and former executive adviser to Santander's chief executive, and his friend Julio Marín Ugedo, a former judge in Spain, for allegedly making a total of $1m in illegal profits after trading in advance of the planned 2010 take." (Financial Times)
EADS to be renamed Airbus: The European aerospace group, is to change its name to Airbus and merge its sensitive defence units into a single division in a shake-up designed to streamline its clumsy multinational structure. (Financial Times)
BoE helped sell looted Nazi gold: According to a hitherto unpublished history of the BoE's activities in and around the second world war, the UK's central bank sold gold on behalf of the Reichsbank – which Germany's central bank had seized from its Czech counterpart – after the UK government had frozen all Czech assets held in Britain following the Nazi invasion. (Financial Times)
Tourre trial told of 'land of make believe': Former Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre was accused by lawyers for the US Securities and Exchange Commission of lying under oath and living in a "land of make believe", as attorneys on both sides of the high-profile case made their final arguments. (Financial Times)
Global fertiliser shake-up after cartel falls apart: One of the two big cartels controlling the potash market has fallen apart after a leading Russian producer of the vital ingredient in fertiliser announced its withdrawal from the group, sending sector share prices tumbling. (Financial Times)
BP braces for long battle over oil spill damages claims: BP said it was digging in for a long legal battle over "absurd" damages claims related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster, as it increased its provision for compensation payouts for the second quarter in a row. The increase highlights the growing problem BP faces from the torrent of claims submitted by businesses in the southern states of the US, many of which the company believes are "fictitious". But its legal attempts to block such payouts have so far been unsuccessful. (Financial Times)
EU unemployment rate falls: The rate fell in June for the first time in almost 2½ years, as the number of jobless people in the countries that use the euro also fell, albeit modestly, for the first time in two years. Eurostat, the EU's official statistics agency, said Wednesday that 10.9 per cent of the workforce in the 27 nations that then formed the EU were unemployed in June, down from 11 per cent in May. (Wall Street Journal)
JPMorgan to pay $410m to settle power probe: JPMorgan Chase is to pay $410m to settle allegations from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it manipulated power markets in California and the Midwest. (Financial Times)
Schneider Electric to acquire Invensys for £3.4bn: France's Schneider Electric on Wednesday said that it had agreed a friendly offer to acquire Invensys in a deal valuing the British engineering firm at £3.4bn. (Financial Times)
Markets: Markets were enduring another session of mixed and rangebound trading ahead of a few potentially trend-defining days of major monetary policy decisions and crucial economic data. Action in forex was fairly mild, with the dollar index flat as the euro added just 2 pips to $1.3264, dismissing news of contracting German retail sales in June. Benchmark Treasury yields were fractionally firmer at 2.62 per cent, while commodity price moves were muddled. The FTSE All-World equity index was down 0.3 per cent as the FTSE Eurofirst 300 shed 0.4 per cent and after the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan slid 0.7 per cent. US index futures suggested the S&P 500 would add 2 points to 1,688. All around there was evidence that investors are reluctant to take bold strategic bets lest they fall foul of upcoming "headline risk".
