Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
Analysis: Mutual suspicion
Call them mutuals, thrifts, co-operatives, building societies or community banks. Whatever their label, customer-owned financial groups have been hit alongside commercial rivals by a crisis that is highlighting their drawbacks as well as enduring advantages, write Jane Croft and Patrick Jenkins.
Short View, video: Exit strategies and timing
Markets are beginning to bet on the timing of central banks’ “exit strategies” from the massive stimulus of the last year. Jennifer Hughes, the FT’s markets correspondent, considers whether the political angles of these strategies is being overlooked
Interview, video: Lord Turner, FSA chairman
In a wide-ranging discussion on bank regulation, FSA chairman Lord Turner tells FT editor Lionel Barber investment banks should produce ‘living wills’ in event of failure and proposes a debate on the need to simplify banks’ legal structures.
Insight: Peter Tasker – Hatoyama’s short honeymoon
The Japanese stock market’s reaction to the landslide electoral victory of the opposition DPJ – a feeble rally followed by a sharp fall – suggests the incoming Hatoyama administration will have the shortest honeymoon since Britney Spears got hitched in Las Vegas.
View of the Day: Albert Edwards – Post-bubble realities
Commentators have been perplexed by recent strength in government bond markets, especially set beside continued resilience in equities. They should not be, says Albert Edwards, global strategist at Société Générale.
Middle Eastern bond markets need nourishing
The credit crisis has breathed new life into the Middle East’s young bond markets, both of the Islamic sukuk and conventional variety, writes Henry Azzam, CEO, Middle East & North Africa at Deutsche Bank. But a central question for debt capital market issuers in the region will be whether to sell conventional bonds or sukuk.
Comment: Lee Myung-bak and Kevin Rudd – The G20′s big challenge
This is no time to be complacent, warn Lee Myun-bak, South Korean president, and Kevin Rudd, Australian prime minister. Signs of renewed stability in global financial markets confirm that the G20 policy measures put in to place are working. While such positive news has helped restore confidence, a global recovery is not assured. New global challenges require leadership from the G20.
Letters to the Editor
- Kaufman highlights the gap between critique and practice
- Sterling could live with a Tobin tax
- True meaning of quantitative easing is to increase net credit creation