BoE governor-to-be Mark Carney made a speech titled ‘Guidance’ last night. It was all about communications strategies, for both companies and central banks — a very interesting topic for students of monetary Jedi tactics.
Carney stressed at the beginning that his talk would be about guidance, and not containing guidance. Tee hee! However, he did drop the N-bomb and when a central bank governor talks in positive terms about a non-mainstream monetary policy framework, it’s… interesting. Read more
Do not Forseke me, oh my darling, as Frankie Lane might have sung, had he been an Alliance Trust shareholder. That’ll be Karin Forseke, the new chairman, and next Friday is High Noon (GMT) as the outlaws from Laxey Partners renew their efforts to shoot their way into the Dundee citadel of Britain’s largest investment trust. Colin Kingsnorth and his gang have already spurred Alliance into a frenzy of activity, overturning the habit of several lifetimes and buying in shares for cancellation, but now the gang is demanding a “comprehensive review of the company”.
There is something to be said for this. Alliance has struggled to make its diversifications (including the excellent Alliance Trust Savings) into profit centres, and even if ATS finally does turn the corner, it will be years before it has any impact on Alliance’s net asset value, the measure by which investment trusts are judged. The suspicion remains that its moves away from managing the main fund are to give the executives under Katherine Garrett-Cox the prospect of growing the business. Read more
The Bank of Canada raised its trend-setting interest rate on Tuesday for the second time in less than two months despite growing uncertainty over the domestic and global economic outlook, the FT reports. Even as the bank lifted its overnight lending rate to 0.75 per cent from 0.5 per cent, it said that it expected the recovery in Canada to be more gradual than projected in the spring. Read more
Echoing across the world on Monday — the sound of the dollar taps being turned on. Again.
From the Federal Reserve: Read more
Mark Carney, a former managing director in Goldman Sachs’ Toronto office, was named Thursday as successor to David Dodge as governor of the Bank of Canada. Mr Carney, 42, is the latest in a string of investment bank alumni – most of them from Goldman’s – to occupy prominent policymaking positions around the world. Others include Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary; Mario Draghi, governor of the Bank of Italy; and David Walton, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee. Mr Carney, who holds a PhD in economics from Oxford University, is currently the finance department’s senior associate deputy minister, the third highest-ranking official. He was a Bank of Canada deputy governor 2003-04. Read more
1Bernanke weighs in on robot wars; brings Keynes for backup
2Pump up, debase
3Further reading
4The risk of a Japanese VaR shock
5Collateral crunch-counting gets sophisticated
Show more6In which the FTSE puts the crisis behind it
7A Kazakh muddle
8Apple Operations International, facts (?) du jour
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