Good morning New York,
FT ALPHAVILLE
Big, detailed post from Cardiff: what can emerging markets do to stop capital flowing out? Why are capital controls are a dirty word? Is there really a long-term crisis brewing?
NEWS
General Electric is looking to get out of lending to the US consumer. The company has begun preliminary work on arranging an IPO to separate the credit cards and consumer financing business from GE Capital. Smaller asset sales and spin-offs remain under consideration, but a single buyer for the business is unlikely, given its size: consumer lending accounts for around $50bn of GE Capital's $274bn portfolio (Wall Street Journal).
BP accused Louisiana state officials of "political grandstanding" and of having "completely misrepresented" its Gulf clean-up. The US state is one of five suing BP for damages over the environmental effects of the 2010 Gulf spill. Governor Bobby Jindal recently accused BP of spending more on advertisements "telling us how great they are" than on clean-up operations (Financial Times).
India is not facing a repeat of its 1991 balance of payments crisis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the country's parliament. "There is no reason for anybody to believe that we are going down the hill and that 1991 is on the horizon," Singh said -- but warned developed countries to reconsider the impact of their monetary policies on emerging markets (Reuters).
Zurich Insurance will investigate whether undue pressure was placed on its chief financial officer before his suicide. Pierre Wauthier left a letter which referred to his relationship with Josef Ackermann, who stepped aside as chairman this week, the company said (Wall Street Journal).
Five-year high for UK mortgage approvals. Lenders approved 60,624 mortgages in July, the largest monthly number since March 2008 (Bloomberg).
And a two-year high for eurozone economic confidence. An index of business and consumer sentiment rose to 95.2 in August, the fourth consecutive month it has increased (Bloomberg).
