ROUND-UP
FT markets round-up: “Stocks on Wall Street staged a late rebound, pushing blue chip stocks to their highest close since 2007, as investors saw value in growth assets after recent declines. Earlier in the day, a sharp fall for Chinese stocks triggered selling across global bourses after attempts by Beijing to cool the country’s property market raised fears of another headwind for global growth. The dollar index ended the session slightly lower after earlier hovering near a six-month high and core fixed income prices were in retreat, pushing 10-year Treasury and Bund yields up 3 basis points to 1.87 per cent and 1bp higher to 1.42 per cent, respectively. Gold fell $3 to traded at $1,572 an ounce. The FTSE All-World equity index erased an earlier loss to finish little changed on the day as the FTSE Eurofirst 300 ended only a fraction lower. The S&P 500 shrugged off most of its opening-bell slide to rise 0.5 per cent at 1,525.” (Financial Times) Read more
This post by the FT’s US economics editor Robin Harding is cross-published from FT Money Supply.
Today’s speech by Janet Yellen is a mirror of Ben Bernanke last week when it comes to the costs and risks of continued asset purchases. “At this stage, I do not see any [risks] that would cause me to advocate a curtailment of our purchase program,” she says. Read more
It’s the kind of motto one sees on a T-shirt in a shop in the touristy part of town, but over the last few years it’s had a particularly painful ring of truth to it. Students in America are staying in education longer and are struggling to obtain full, gainful employment once they leave. This, combined with the rising costs of tuition, has seen the outstanding balance of student debt go past the one trillion mark and delinquency rates increase.
Talk is in the air of a bubble, as pundits point to student loans themselves and to the securities that are built from them. But is what’s going on “a bubble” in the usual sense? And more importantly, what does this say about college education in America? Read more
Via Bloomberg:
The American Securitization Forum, the leading trade association for the securitization industry, fell into turmoil last week when most of the board resigned in a dispute with the group’s executive director over governance and bonuses, according to six people familiar with the matter. … Read more
Alright, we put our hands up, we’ve been reading Zero Hedge.
His Anonymous Handsome Midriffness is busy being his usual self, and on this topic he’s made us go hmmm about a certain Wall Street Journal story concerning SecondMarket Holdings, Inc. The platform is launching a service that will allow lenders to sell exposure in student loans to (accredited) investors. The WSJ describes it thus (emphasis ours): Read more
For those who have a life are less interested in messy details, the explanation for the dealmaking optimism of recent months goes something like this:
– Since roughly last summer (OMT), tail risks are perceived to be down. And despite Washington’s reverse midas touch, the private sector has shown signs of staying resilient, including a streak of a spookily consistent employment reports. Read more
Evidently it’s time to get very excited about the risks posed by increasing student debt in the US, particularly as rates of delinquency are on the rise. Pretty graphs first, details follow…
Holy household debt, Batman! Student loan balances have surpassed credit card use and are still growing! Read more
Click above to see the survey/competition being run by a German Green party MEP, Sven Giegold. Read more
The 12th National People’s Congress convenes tomorrow in Beijing and, by the time it ends, Xi Jinping will be named head of state and Li Keqiang will be appointed premier.
There’s naturally much speculation around the signals for policy direction that might emerge. Although the events are more akin to formalities than actual decision-making fora, they are being watched closely for clues about the new leadership’s appetite for reforms — which may be revealed through bureaucratic reshuffles, as the FT’s Jamil Anderlini explains. Read more
Live markets commentary from FT.com
HSBC lifts dividend 50% || Kuroda says ‘will do whatever we can’ at BoJ || Nikkei rises, yen little changed || New Chinese property tightening announced || New Look to open shops in China || Swiss vote for pay curbs || Steinmetz launches $2bn distressed European property fund || New homes bonus ‘a flop’ || No end in sight for Italian gridlock Read more
The question mark in the header is just so as to (reluctantly) give the Bank of England the benefit of the doubt.
Here are the latest stats on the Funding for Lending Scheme, which was supposed to pump £100bn into households and businesses in the UK. Six months in, £13.8bn has been drawn down by British banks, £9.5bn of that coming in the final quarter of 2012. Read more
BoJ governor nominee Haruhiko Kuroda has already been fairly clear that he wants to expand the asset-purchasing programme, and buy longer-term bonds. So how significant are his Draghi-sounding “whatever we can do” comments, really? Read more
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Opaque finance, again, and solutions.
- Afghanistan’s mobile money revolution.
- Will biotechnology provide food security? Read more
Asian shares mostly lower || Kuroda says ‘will do whatever we can’ at BoJ || Nikkei rises, yen little changed || New Chinese property tightening announced || New Look to open shops in China || Swiss vote for pay curbs || Steinmetz launches $2bn distressed European property fund || New homes bonus ‘a flop’ || No end in sight for Italian gridlock Read more
