ROUND-UP
US stocks fell, insert fiscal cliff explanation here. The S&P 500 fell 0.2 per cent to close at 1,407.05. Gold fell below $1,700 a troy ounce (Financial Times). Read more
And so ends a little saga-within-a-saga in the Argentine bond holdout case (but one which shed interesting light on the various sides’ litigating strategies). Read more
Wednesday’s annual charity day at Exotix, the frontier markets brokerage. To that end…
Gabriel Sterne, Exotix analyst, has presented clients with his top ten eurozone crisis quotes of 2012. Of course Sterne gave the answers to who said them, but we thought it might be fun for readers to try and guess. We’ll reveal the answers later. Read more
Lord Dennis Stevenson (former HBOS and Pearson chair ) sent two rather telling letters to the FSA in 2008. Both were mentioned during Tuesday morning’s session with the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and one of which claimed HBOS was “in as secure a position as it could be” roughly half a year before its collapse.
No “lurking horrors in our business or balance sheet” either.
Oh dear. Read more
The Reserve Bank of Australia cut its cash rate on Tuesday to 3 per cent — making a total of 175bps worth of cuts since November 2011, and bringing the rate to its lowest level since the depths of the financial crisis.
The RBA’s governor’s statement alluded to the bank’s discomfort over the stubbornly high Australian dollar, which is not doing what it tended to do in the past and falling to provide a fillip to the economy: Read more
Is this the watershed moment for international audit firms in China?
The SEC’s announcement it was launching administrative proceedings against the Big Four audit firms (plus BDO)’s Chinese affiliates was dramatic, but big audit firms in China have for some time been stuck between a rock and a hard place, because Chinese law prohibits audit work papers being moved out of the country. Read more
Live markets commentary from FT.com
Here’s embattled agriculture combine Olam on Tuesday morning:
Goodmorning New York,
FT ALPHAVILLE Read more
Need some help from the ghost of Fiscal Cliff future with regards to what happens if current unsustainable trajectories are unchanged?
It’s possible you need look no further than Europe. While the causes of the cliff are different, it’s still the sort of drop off that can teach a valuable lesson or two. Read more
Mike Lynch has put together a website as a contact point and to publish views from himself and other former Autonomy management.
There is not much on the site so far, and most of it will be boring to anyone who’s been following the story; eg Lynch’s open letter to HP directors (of November 27); a clip of his interview with Maria Bartiromo on November 20. Read more
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- The austerity dictionary.
- The hedge fund dictionary.
- Just what is a recession?
- The factory floor as a core competency. Read more
Asian shares fell on Tuesday after a US manufacturing showed a fall in activity. The MSCI Asia Pacific was 0.1% and the euro hovered near a six-week high on optimism over Greece’s plan to buy back debt. (Reuters)(Bloomberg)
“Republicans proposed steep spending cuts on Monday but gave no ground on President Barack Obama’s call to raise taxes on the wealthiest in their first formal proposal to avert a “fiscal cliff” that could push the US economy into recession.” John Boehner presented a $2.2tn deficit reduction package over 10 years, including $800bn in new taxes – much lower than the $1.6tn target for new revenue proposed by the president last week. (Reuters)(Financial Times) Read more
1Time to take basic income seriously?
2We cannae give the economy no more, we're giv'n it all we've got Captain
3The case for official e-money +1
4Hacking and property prices make the BoE big league
5"Companies should know who really owns them..."
Show more6Tax needn't be taxing. It can also be a Hungarian debt wheeze
7QE down under
8The central bank (communications) bubble
9The end of the end of the end of the commodities supercycle is nigh, in Asia
10When liquidity meets control in China [updated with credit crunch probability]
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