ROUND-UP
FT markets round-up: “Encouraging macro data releases from China and Germany offered further support to equity bulls as global stock indices climbed to fresh cyclical highs. Chinese export growth picked up to 14.7 per cent in the year to April from 10 per cent in the previous month, while imports rose 16.8 per cent last month from a year earlier. And there was no stopping Wall Street’s march to fresh peaks, as the S&P 500 rose 0.4 per cent – its fifth successive advance. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 climbed 0.7 per cent to a five-year high, while the Shanghai Composite index rose 0.5 per cent, its fourth advance in a row. In spite of the renewed strength in equities, highly rated government bonds attracted demand, with the German market helped by a strong auction of five-year debt. The yield on the 10-year German Bund fell 3 basis points to 1.27 per cent, while that on the equivalent US Treasury was 1bp lower at 1.77 per cent after a tepid auction of 10-year paper.” (Financial Times)
Watchdog swoops on asset managers: “The UK’s new City regulator is swooping on the London offices of the world’s biggest banks and asset managers in a new probe aimed at a lucrative City business – helping pension funds make big changes to their investment portfolios.” (Financial Times)
Doubts over gas price benchmark: “Key energy companies, trading houses and banks have stopped submitting European natural gas quotes to price-reporting agencies, raising questions about the benchmarks that underpin billions of dollars in trading and household energy bills. Officials at Statoil of Norway, the second-largest supplier of natural gas to Europe, two top Swiss-based commodities trading houses and several banks told the Financial Times that they have stopped sharing gas price data with companies including Platts, Argus and Icis Heren.” (Financial Times)
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac leak tips off US banks to Harp loans: “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have inadvertently tipped off US banks and other big mortgage investors to more loan data than the two housing groups intended, resulting in some of the banks using the information released to identify and analyse Harp loans. The two US mortgage finance groups have been told by their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), to release data on the home loans they guarantee in an effort to encourage private investors to assume more of the risk in the mortgage market.” (Financial Times)
Russia reforms fail to win over investors: “For the past four years, the Kremlin has been pouring time and money into turning Moscow into an international financial centre and, in principle, ticking all the right boxes. It has merged Moscow’s two exchanges, created a central securities depositary, reduced settlement time for trades and is in the process of selling off stakes in state companies, including Sberbank, as part of a sweeping privatisation programme.” (Financial Times)
FURTHER FURTHER READING
- Why haven’t more bankers gone to jail?
- Kevin Roose spends a day at SALT.
- A call to end the Troika in European crises.
- How Amazon and Google compete in product search.
- On the geographic distribution of the US recovery.
- The financial crisis cannot be blamed on cocaine.
- Hipsters don’t much like bankers creeping onto their turf.
- Get an economics PhD, if any.
- Mass honey bee deaths are a serious problem for US agriculture.
- Make sure you really know what Big Data is before claiming that you have it.