Good morning New York,
FT ALPHAVILLE
Alphachat - When bank capital sleeps with the fishes: This time, we chat with Anat Admati, Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business and coauthor of "Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do about it", and Frances Coppola, independent blogger and banking commentator over at Coppola Comment. The theme is bank capital and building a better banking system.
A Greek bond offer hangs around even longer: Did you forget that Japonica's offer to buy up a huge chunk of the Greek bond market still exists? It might be easy to. They've just extended the deadline again by another month, notes Joseph.
NEWS
Berlusconi has been definitively convicted for the first time: Italy's supreme court has rejected his appeal against a conviction for tax fraud, upholding a four-year jail sentence, but asking the Milan appeals court to review a five-year ban on the former Italian prime minister holding public office. (Financial Times)
RBS confirms Ross McEwan as chief executive: Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed that Ross McEwan will be the state-controlled group's new chief executive as it reported first-half results that were hit by investment banking weakness and charges linked to regulatory and legal issues. (Financial Times)
Google unveils latest challenger to iPhone: This is the company's latest attempt to leapfrog Apple's iPhone – this time with a device packed full of sensors and processors that will allow the phone to anticipate its user's intentions. (Financial Times)
Brazil supports IMF's Greek aid: "Brazil reversed its hardline stance on Greece's bailout on Thursday, saying it had not authorised its representative to the International Monetary Fund to withhold support for the latest aid to Athens." Finance minister Guido Mantega said Brazi's abstention from the vote on a €1.8bn tranche of aid was a 'mistake'. (Financial Times)
Bank of America faces new legal troubles from US authorities: The bank disclosed potential civil charges from the Department of Justice over securitisations of mortgages lent to wealthy borrowers." New threats, including Department of Justice plans to file civil charges over one or two jumbo prime securitisations, and the development of existing cases were announced in a regulatory filing yesterday. (Financial Times)
NIESR raises British growth forecasts: The think tank raised forecasts for both this year and next by 0.3 percentage points, to 1.2% for 2013 and 1.8% for 2014, citing rising consumer spending growth as the main reason for the revision. (Reuters)
Australia's budget deficit will widen to A$30.1 bn ($26.8 bn): This as the economy slows and unemployment rises, underscoring Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's challenge as he prepares for an election." (Bloomberg)
Chesapeake's shares jumped 7%: The energy producer's shares rose to the highest level in more than a year, as the company reported rising oil output and its new chief executive pledged to close a persistent gap between its spending and cash flow by next year. (Wall Street Journal)
Goldman's Fabulous Fab found liable: Fabrice Tourre was found liable for defrauding investors in SEC win. (Reuters) Tourre's decline and fall. (Financial Times)
Markets: A worldwide stock barometer was flirting with five-year highs as building optimism over the global economy, coupled with reassurances that central banks are in no hurry to tighten monetary policy, boosted demand for growth-focused assets. However, dealers were wary of some potentially volatile trading later in the session when the US non-farm payrolls report will offer a critical health check for the country's labour market and thus whether the Federal Reserve can proceed with a tapering of its asset purchase programme, likely to start in September. The FTSE All-World equity index was up 0.3 per cent to 248.6, less than two points shy of its best closing level since June 2008. Momentum was being provided on Friday by the FTSE Eurofirst 300 seeing a rise of 0.4 per cent and Tokyo enjoying its biggest gain in five weeks. Asian and European-based investors were energised by Wall Street's move to a fresh peak, the S&P 500 closing above 1,700 for the first time. Index futures suggested the benchmark would ease one point to 1,706 when the starting bell rings at 1430 BST. (Financial Times)
