Nikkei

UK construction sector hits 6.5 year high, while Asian markets tumble

By:
Published February 4, 2014, in Forex News

Fears over emerging markets, the US economy, and the prospect of another debt ceiling battle in Washington all hit shares hard in Asia. UK construction activity jumps. Nikkei falls 4.2%. Wall Street opens a little higher after Monday’s rout…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “UK construction sector hits 6.5 year high; Asian markets tumble – business live” was written by Graeme Wearden, for theguardian.com on Tuesday 4th February 2014 16.32 UTC

Haldane: EM turbulence caused by countries pushing ‘individual’ policies

Andy Haldane, one of the Bank of England’s brightest and most senior officials, has waded into the emerging markets turbulence by warning that certain countries are pursuing ‘individual’ policies rather than caring about the wider financial system.

In a speech delivered in Oxford this afternoon, Haldane said leaders and policymakers had failed to co-ordinate policies in a better way.

Reuters is there, and reports:

Turmoil in some emerging markets reflects a failure of advanced and developing economies to learn from the financial crisis and coordinate economic policies in a better way, a senior Bank of England official said on Tuesday.

“Individual countries act in their own best interests without taking into account the broader best interest of the financial system as a whole,” said Andy Haldane, the BoE’s executive director for financial stability.

“What is going on with the head-to-head combat is people pursuing policies of individual countries,” Haldane said in a speech at the University of Oxford.”What is at stake is the system as a whole,” he added.

The comments come just a few days after India’s central bank chief, Raghuram Rajan, said international monetary co-operation has broken down as the Federal Reserve tapered, or slowed, its bond-buying stimulus programme – despite the recent upheaval in emerging markets

Haldane’s comments are being interpreted as an nudge to the Federal Reserve too:

Look who’s back — Stephen Hester, the former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, has just been appointed as the new CEO of insurance group RSA.

He’ll succeed Simon Lee, who quit in December as the insurer posted its third profit warning.

Running RSA will be a challenge, given the recent discovery of problems at its Irish division. But I guess it’ll be less hassle than cleaning up Fred Goodwin’s mess, being lambasted by the media over the Libor scandal and PPI misselling, and apologising for RBS’s tech problems.

Hester might even get to keep a few bonuses, having surrendered most of his during his time at RBS….

A couple more interesting points from George Osborne – asked whether the UK recovery is sustainable, he told the Lords economics committee that potential risks include “the weakness of some eurozone countries”, adding that some US economic data in the last couple of weeks has been “a little bit soft”.

The chancellor added that it’s “also worth having on one’s radar the problems in some emerging markets”, as a problem in an emerging market can cause ructions in other parts of the financial system.

Osborne also indicated he had little time for the ‘secular stagnation’ theory being pushed by former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers (with whom Osborne had an entertaining dust-up at Davos).

Updated

UK chancellor, George Osborne, is being questioned by the House of Lords economic affairs committee now — he’s started by telling their lordships that Britain is leading Europe on shale gas, and denying that the government isn’t showing leadership over the issue.

It’s being streamed live here.

 

Our politics liveblogger Andrew Sparrow is tracking all the action here: George Osborne questioned by Lords eocnomic affairs committee: Politics live blog

Here’s a flavour:

Q: If shale drilling takes off, will that have an impact on gas prices?

Osborne says he thinks it will have some impact. But it won’t be as dramatic in the US, he suggests. He says the gas market in the UK is more open, and so the gas price in the UK tracks the world price. But if the gas price overall came down, Britain would benefit.

Just in — US factory orders fell by 1.5% in December, which is actually a better result than expected.

The decline was mostly due to a big drop in transportation orders – strip that out and orders were up by 0.2%, which may calm fears of a US slowdown (although no promises!)

Shares moved a little higher on the news, with the FTSE 100 now up 8 points and the Dow Jones 60 points higher, or 0.4%.

Reuters correspondent Blaise Robinson reports that the emerging market wobbles have made some investors appreciate the virtues of good old Europe:

Over on Wall Street, shares are inching higher in early trading as investors try to put yesterday’s heavy selloff behind them.

The Dow Jones index is up 39 points at 15413, +0.3%, with the other indices also slightly higher.

Hardly a bounce-back, though after the biggest one-day fall in seven months — investors may be sitting tight having seen the Asian selloff earlier today, where the Nikkei slumped 4.2% and the Hang Seng fell over 2% into an official correction (10% off its recent peak).

New Microsoft boss takes Wilde swing

Microsoft’s new chief executive, Satya Nadella, wins instant brownie points by quoting Oscar Wilde (sort of), in his letter to staff this morning

Here’s a flavour:

What do we do next?

To paraphrase a quote from Oscar Wilde — we need to believe in the impossible and remove the improbable.

This starts with clarity of purpose and sense of mission that will lead us to imagine the impossible and deliver it. We need to prioritize innovation that is centered on our core value of empowering users and organizations to “do more.” We have picked a set of high-value activities as part of our One Microsoft strategy. And with every service and device launch going forward we need to bring more innovation to bear around these scenarios.

Next, every one of us needs to do our best work, lead and help drive cultural change. We sometimes underestimate what we each can do to make things happen and overestimate what others need to do to move us forward. We must change this.

Finally, I truly believe that each of us must find meaning in our work. The best work happens when you know that it’s not just work, but something that will improve other people’s lives. This is the opportunity that drives each of us at this company.

Many companies aspire to change the world. But very few have all the elements required: talent, resources, and perseverance. Microsoft has proven that it has all three in abundance. And as the new CEO, I can’t ask for a better foundation.

[end]

• – the actual Wilde quote is “Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable” (see Collins Dictionary)….

….Not to be confused with Conan Doyle’s “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth“.

Updated

Satya Nadella becomes Microsoft CEO

The long search for Microsoft’s next chief executive is over – with the software giant announcing that (as rumoured) Satya Nadella will take the helm.

Nadella had been running Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise computing division, and will succeed Steve Ballmer to become only the third CEO in the company’s history. In another switch, Bill Gates is shifting from the chairman’s role to become ‘technology advisor’ — meaning he’ll spend more time with the company’s staff.

Nadella faces a tough task, given Microsoft’s loss of influence as the technology world in the post-PC world.

In a video message, Gates said Nadella is the “tough leader” the company needs.

In it, Gates declares that “The opportunity for Microsoft is greater than ever before”, from making Office more interactive to perhaps building a new Cloud platform to connect to “all sorts of different devices”.

Speaking of the Anglo Irish Bank trial, here is a mural of the busted financial institution’s uncompleted HQ that never was, down in Dublin’s docklands.

The painting comes complete with images of the tapes that recorded some Anglo executives laughing, joking and even singing about how Irish and German taxpayers were going to rescue themselves and their bank from the abyss.

This anti-Anglo Irish Bank image close to the iconic Ha’penny Bridge on the river Liffey is a 15 minute stroll north towards the criminal courthouse where some of the other Anglo Irish executives stand trial tomorrow morning (from Sean O’Neil and Henry McDonald).

The price of Brent crude oil has dropped through the trading session, as this week’s disappointing US and Chinese manufacturing surveys suggested weaker demand for energy.

Brent is currently down 0.4 of a cent per barrel at $105.6.

Updated

BP sounds alarm on Scottish vote

After reporting falling profits this morning, BP has also waded into the issue of Scottish independence by warning that the issue raises “big uncertainties”.

Speaking to the BBC this morning, Bob Dudley said he was concerned by the “question mark” over whether an independent Scotland would keep the pound. He said:

“We have a lot of people in Scotland. We have a lot of investments in Scotland. My personal view is that Great Britain is great and it ought to stay together.”

Last week, Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned that an independent Scotland would have to give up some control over fiscal policies if it wanted to keep using sterling.

Updated

Over in Ireland, a petrol bomb attack was launched at the company once run by the country’s former richest man, Sean Quinn, last night – a day before the start of a huge trial into the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank.

The attack brought down telephone and broadband links around the headquarters in County Fermanagh, cutting of around 200 people (there’s a photo here).

Our Ireland correspondent, Henry McDonald, reports:

Ireland’s one-time richest man Sean Quinn is one of 800 people who is scheduled to give evidence in Dublin at one of the biggest financial crime trials in European history.

Ex-billionaire Quinn became bankrupt after borrowing billions from the now defunct Anglo Irish Bank when he started to play the global property casino.

Quinn’s gamble spectacularly backfired after the world property crash left him owing billions and resulted in him losing control of his other businesses.

The case against three senior Anglo Irish Bank executives begins on Wednesday morning at Dublin’s Central Criminal Court and could last up to six months (here’s our preview)

Ahead of what will eventually be a momentous day when Sean Quinn finally gets called to the witness box, the former tycoon has other worries today about his old business base in Co.Fermanagh.

Two petrol bombs were thrown close to the headquarters of the former Quinn family business on the Ballyconnell Road in Derrylin close to the border with the Irish Republic. The damage done last night has cut off phone and broadband coverage in the rural area where Quinn was once king.

The petrol bomb attack is the latest in a string of incidents where properties belonging to the Quinn family were damaged.

Last month, a bus was set on fire at the entrance to three of its businesses in Rakeelan, Ballyconnell, across the border in County Cavan.

In December, a fuel tanker was set on fire after being driven into the former headquarters of the Quinn Group in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It was renamed Aventas last November.

HMcD

Updated

Two small earth tremors in 2011 haven’t deterred shale gas firm Cuadrilla with pushing on with its fracking activities in the picturesque Lancashire countryside.

Cuadrilla announced this morning it would dig up to eight wells at two sites in the county – at Roseacre Wood, near Elswick, and to the west of the delightfully named village of Little Plumpton.

From our environment desk, Adam Vaughan reports that Cuadrilla is promising to be a good neighbour as it blasts the bedrock with high-pressure fluids to release gas.

However, Friends of the Earth’s north-west campaigner, Helen Rimmer, said:

“These plans will be met by stiff opposition from local people rightly concerned about having the UK’s first attempted multiple-well fracking operation under their feet.

Cuadrilla claims to be a good neighbour, but it still hasn’t cleared up the mess from the botched fracking operation that caused earth tremors only a few miles from one of the proposed sites.”

 

Here are the key quotes from the FCA’s Martin Wheatley to MPs this morning, on its investigation into allegations that foreign exchange rates have been rigged by traders:

“I would be surprised if we got to conclusions within this year. I hope that we will next year.

“We are still in the investigation phase … The allegations are every bit as bad as they have been with Libor,”

FCA: FX rigging ‘every bit as bad’ as Libor

Back in parliament the head of the City watchdog, Martin Wheatley, has told MPs that claims that foreign exchange traders collaborated to fix currency bench markets are just as serious as the Libor rate-rigging scandal.

Wheatley said the Financial Conduct Authority was taking allegation of FX benchmark-rigging very seriously, calling them “every bit as bad” as the Libor affair. He said the allegations had cast doubt on the reliability of foreign exchange rates, and also said the regulator is probing other benchmarks…..

However, he wouldn’t give clear details about how the FCA investigation was proceeding — and indicated we might not get results until 2015, or even later.

 

 

Many major banks have suspended foreign exchange traders since the news broke last autumn that the daily ‘fixes’ (which determine the official exchange rate between currencies) could have been manipulated.

HSBC and Citigroup both suspended traders last month.

After yesterday’s 326-point tumble, the Dow Jones industrial average is expected to stagger back off the mat with a small rise when trading resumes later today.

David Madden, market analyst at IG, says the Asian tumble and the prospect of another US debt ceiling fight continues to cast a shadow over the City.

Stocks are offside, but holding up relatively well considering the massive selloff in Japan overnight as fears over emerging-market exposure echoed around the world. Traders are treading lightly, not wanting to get stung if there is a sudden exodus from equities into cash or bonds.

The US debt-ceiling deadline is approaching again and, as on the past two occasions, dealers are anticipating downgrade speculation and a slide in stocks.

BP is still suffering from the Gulf of Mexico disaster, and the oil titan’s asset-stripping programme may be topping up the compensation pool but is it is taking its toll on production levels. Ocado’s deal with Morrisons helped to increase the former’s revenue, but was not enough to stop it delivering a loss for 2013.

The FTSE 100 is currently down 27 points, but there are deeper losses in Germany where the DAX has dropped 100 points, or 1.1%.

The Treasury Select Committee is grilling the Financial Conduct Authority’s John Griffith-Jones and Martin Wheatley about the regulator’s performance since taking over from the FSA. My colleague Sean Farrell is following events:


USA 

US shutdown: Congress reconvenes after weekend of choppy talks – live

By:
Published October 14, 2013, in Forex News

Senate leaders join struggle to find passable bill. Stock markets only mildly perturbed. “Reneging on its debt obligations would make the U.S. the first major Western government to default since Nazi Germany 80 years ago,” Bloomberg reports…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “US shutdown: Congress reconvenes after weekend of choppy talks – live” was written by Tom McCarthyin New York, for theguardian.com on Monday 14th October 2013 15.31 UTC

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, whose quixotic campaign to “defund” Obamacare was the stick in the spokes that got us here, could – could – cause a default all by himself, Joshua Green reports in Bloomberg BusinessWeek:

How could this happen? Because the Senate can move quickly when necessary–but only by unanimous consent. Let’s say Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell strike a deal today (that’s looking unlikely). Cruz surely won’t like it and has said repeatedly, “I will do everything necessary and anything possible to defund Obamacare.” If he’s true to his word, he could drag out the proceedings past Thursday and possibly well beyond. “If a determined band of nut jobs wants to take down the global economy, they could do it,” says Jim Manley, a former top staffer for Reid. “Under Senate rules, we are past the point of no return–there’s not anything Reid or McConnell could do about it.”

Read the full piece here. There’s no indication that Cruz is that crazy?

“Reneging on its debt obligations would make the U.S. the first major Western government to default since Nazi Germany 80 years ago,” Bloomberg reports.

Updated

Congress won’t act until markets panic, they say. Comforted by the implication that Congress can and will act, markets don’t panic. But Congress won’t act until markets panic. Comforted by…

Anatomy of a deal

How might an eventual deal look? What are the sticking points?

Congress must decide how long to extend the debt limit and how long to fund the government for. Legislators must also decide the level at which to fund government – whether or not to retain the deep “sequester” cuts that took effect on March 1, and for how long.

Republicans would like a shorter debt limit extension in order to maintain leverage in budget negotiations. Democrats would like a shorter-term funding bill in order to accelerate the end of the sequester, which chunked $85bn off the budget between March and October.

At the end of September, Senate Democrats passed conciliatory legislation that would have funded the government at sequestration levels through November – but the bill was rejected by House Republicans. Token Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat retold the history in a recommended Twitter lecture on Sunday:

But now the “original” potential deal to keep government open over the short term at sequester levels is gone, and everything seems back in play. The distance between the two sides on the debt limit extension and the term of the spending bill is a matter of months, NBC’s John Harwood reports:

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent sees a possible deal by which Democrats would demand the destruction of the debt ceiling as a counterweight to Republican demands on spending:

So here’s what Dems should do. If Republicans refuse to budge off their insistence on lower spending levels, Dems should call their bluff by demanding a permanent disabling of the debt limit as an extortion tool as part of any short-term compromise. (Yes, Republicans will say No. But bear with me.)

If, somehow, a deal is reached this week in the Senate that involves Republicans giving ground on spending levels, Dems should make the push for a permanent disabling of the debt limit a key goal in the next round of formal, long term negotiations.

In the short term, if Dems accept sequester level spending into early next year in exchange for permanent disabling of the debt limit, it would not be an awful outcome.

Read the full piece here.

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a centrist Democrat, offered a relatively optimistic view of the negotiations this morning on CNN. Talking Points Memo caught the spot:

“I think we’re 70-80% there, putting the extra 20-25% to it,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said Monday on CNN.” “When should the (continuing resolution) come due, when should the debt ceiling come due, and does that give that time for the budget conference, the budget committees to sit down and work through this? Those are the details that have to be worked out.”

Updated

Leaders of the World Bank and IMF warned at a meeting in Washington DC Sunday of the disastrous consequences of a US default, the New York Times reports. Some damage has already been done, as borrowing costs for the United States – over the short term, at least – are creeping up.

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned of “massive disruption the world over” if the United States plunges into default. At the start of the month she said it is “‘mission-critical’ that [the US default risk] be resolved as soon as possible.”

From the Times report on the Washington meeting:

Participants at the meetings remained on edge, given the gravity of the threat. Ms. Lagarde said “that lack of certainty, that lack of trust in the U.S. signature” would disrupt the world economy.

Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, issued his own urgent appeal. “The fiscal standoff has to be resolved without delay,” he said in a statement released by the I.M.F.

Read the full piece here.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average opens the day down just a bit, about a half-percent. The bets are still on, for now.

President Obama spoke yesterday with House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, and the two party leaders in the Senate – Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Mitch McConnell – have been holding talks through the weekend that were expected to resume this morning.

Talks between the president and the House Republican leadership – so hopeful as of Friday evening – foundered on Saturday. “No deal” Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan told reporters at the Capitol.

The needle they’re collectively trying to thread is legislation raising the debt ceiling that would be acceptable to both Senate Democrats and House Republicans. The current legislation thought to be under discussion would also provide for reopening government and settle a budget through the New Year.

If a catchall deal proves unworkable, Congress may have to pass the debt limit bill separately. However it may actually be easier to pass a catchall deal, because there are more variables and thus more room for negotiation – and compromise.

Guardian Washington correspondent Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) is tracking the action:

Democrat majority leader, Harry Reid, appeared briefly in the Senate to say he had a “productive and substantive” discussion with Republican Mitch McConnell and was optimistic about a deal, but suspended public proceedings until 2pm on Monday while his backroom talks continued.

The only outward sign of movement from the White House came in a Sunday afternoon phone call with House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, in which President Obama reiterated his insistence on Republicans agreeing to end a government shutdown and extend the debt ceiling before he would negotiate any budget concessions.

Read the full piece here.

Early Halloween.

Good morning and welcome to our live blog coverage of yet another moment of truth in Washington. If the nation’s legislators can’t cut a deal soon – they have a day or two; just exactly how long is a matter for debate – then we get to find out if Warren Buffett was just being a hysterical ninny when he compared default to “a nuclear bomb”.

Negotiations through the weekend failed to produce a deal, or clear a pathway to a deal. Since Friday, talks between House Republican leaders and the White House have fallen apart, and talks between the party leaders in the Senate have sprung up. The House is scheduled to convene today at noon, the Senate shortly thereafter.

The top priority for Congress is to pass legislation that would raise the debt limit sufficiently to fund the Treasury’s accounts payable. They also need to pass a bill to reopen the federal government, which has been partially shuttered for 14 days now (it closed on 1 October). In the current environment, having the government closed is only Code Orange. The debt limit is the Code Red bit.

Investors are holding their breaths to see what the stock market will think of the weekend’s dithering. Knowledgable analysts have suggested that a stock market crash may be the most likely spur to get Congress to actually act. The bond market is closed Monday for the Columbus Day holiday, but stocks are open. The Dow still was relatively unbothered by the crisis on Friday.

The Treasury has said the “extraordinary measures” it has taken since May to cover expenses will be exhausted Thursday, at which point the government will be operating on about $30bn cash on hand and a prayer, with neither expected to last long

Updated

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Senate Republicans meet with President Obama for shutdown talks – live

By:
Published October 11, 2013, in Forex News

Meetings intensify as shutdown enters 11th day. Public blames unpopular Republicans, poll shows. Negotiations thought to include larger budget issues. Senate majority leader Harry Reid proposed to vote on a bill to extend the debt ceiling until the end of 2014…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “Senate Republicans meet with President Obama for shutdown talks – live” was written by Tom McCarthy, for theguardian.com on Friday 11th October 2013 16.00 UTC

No votes are scheduled in the House today. But it’s open. They could ramp up any time.

In the Senate, majority leader Harry Reid moved Thursday evening to vote on a bill to extend the debt ceiling until the end of 2014. That legislation, or a version of it, could work its way into a broad agreement between the sides, although Republicans have rejected the idea of adding so much headroom.

The headroom, lest anyone needs reminding, is currently running out fast:

What’s a “spending cut”? 

Updated

The Republicans have arrived to the White House, CBS News reports.

Anatomy of a deal

The White House has said repeatedly that the president will not enter budget negotiations until Congress reopens the government. Those negotiations now appear to be happening.

The question is, if a deal emerges, will it require Republicans to pass the stopgap spending bill the Senate passed on 27 September with no add-ons pertaining to Obamacare or anything else – “clean,” as they say?

And what will the Republicans require in return for doing so? “We need to get something for the [continuing resolution] and something for the debt ceiling,” Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho has explained.

One of the leaders of the negotiations on the Republican side is Paul Ryan, the former vice presidential candidate and reputed budget wonk. “Suddenly a man who seemed in danger of being eclipsed as the face of his party has re-emerged as essential to its rescue,” New York Times congressional reporter Jonathan Weisman writes. So what does Ryan want?

Ryan laid out areas for negotiation in a Wall Street Journal editorial Tuesday. They are Medicare (means-testing for relatively affluent recipients); federal pensions (cutting them) and taxes. He also alluded to the Keystone pipeline which would connect Canada “tar sands” oil deposits to the Gulf coast with dire environmental implications.

Ryan did not mention Obamacare, significantly, meaning a plan he brokers could encounter resistance from the hard-right House faction for whom destroying the law is a top priority. The health care law is partially paid for by a tax on medical devices. The deletion of the tax as part of a deal would allow the Tea Party to claim it had dealt the law a blow.

Democrats have been insisting all week that even a “clean” stopgap spending bill is not great for Democrats because it extrapolates from base spending levels that take into account the “meat-cleaver” sequester cuts. When sequestration becomes part of the new normal, there’s an argument to be made that the Republicans have won, no matter how bad their numbers are.

The chairman of the House appropriations committee said Republicans will test the president on his vow only to cut a budget deal on the condition that government reopens, Bloomberg Business week reports (via @robertcostaNRO):

Obama “would like the shutdown stopped,” Representative Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, said after the White House session. “We are trying to find out what it is he would insist upon” in a spending measure to open the government.

What will they get?

Guardian Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts says Senator Ted Cruz, the grandstanding outspoken Tea Party standard-bearer, will be among Senate Republicans attending today’s meeting with the president.

Invited to horse-trade with the president. Not bad for someone who’s only held national elected office for 10 months.

Welcome to our live blog coverage of renewed activity on Capitol Hill to end the government shutdown and lift the debt ceiling. 

They seem serious this time. A meeting Thursday afternoon between House Republican leaders and the president produced late-night talks on what could be a broad deal. Big budget questions appeared to be on the table, in addition to the two emergencies. A pair of influential House Republicans, the chairmen of the appropriations and budget committees, said publicly that the talks had legs. The White House said the president “looks forward to making continued progress.”

Shelved was the Republican “offer” of Thursday morning to temporarily raise the debt limit. Gone was the notion that the Tea Party would redouble its fight to cripple Obamacare. House Republicans left a Friday breakfast talking about passing a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government, according to Robert Costa of the National Review. That step previously seemed beyond reach because of the strength of hard-right resistance.

Coincidentally, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal released one of their regular polls Thursday evening showing that the Republican party had, through the shutdown and default brinksmanship, achieved its worst rating in the history of the poll: 24% positive, 53% negative. The poll said the public blames Republicans more than the president for the shutdown by a margin of 53-31. The poll showed that Obamacare is rising in popularity.

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Why Australia should fear a US government default

By:
Published October 7, 2013, in Forex Outlook

In May, the US treasury was able to employ some “extraordinary measures” to keep borrowing. These measures run out on 17 October. If the USS America goes down, little HMAS Australia will find it tough not to get sucked into the vortex…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “Why Australia should fear a US government default” was written by Greg Jericho, for theguardian.com on Monday 7th October 2013 07.34 UTC

The current US government shutdown has little impact on Australia, but if the US hits the debt ceiling Australia will feel the consequences of a bitterly partisan US political system.

One of the more ironic aspects of the US government shutdown is that if it goes on for much longer, the government won’t be able to calculate its economic impact because it won’t be able to collect the data.

Last Friday was supposed to be the most recent release of US jobs figures, and yet those logging on to the BLS website would have seen this:

During the shutdown the BLS won’t be able to collect the data to calculate the employment figures. Similarly the Bureau of Economic Analysis is also shut down, which rather makes collating data for the GDP figures a tad tricky.

But for Australians the big issue is not so much the shutdown. Costly as it is to the American economy – wiping about 0.1% of GDP growth each week – it does not have a great direct impact outside its borders. After all there are not many Australians employed by the US government or about to go to a US national park this weekend. The real bitter pill for the rest of the world (and US) comes in a couple weeks when the US reaches its debt ceiling.

The debt ceiling is often lazily referred to as the US government’s credit card limit, but it is not about giving the US government the right to spend more, but the ability to borrow to pay off spending it has already undertaken.

The debt ceiling is currently at $US16.699tn, and was actually reached in May but the US treasury was able to employ some “extraordinary measures” to keep borrowing. These measures will run out on 17 October.

At that point the US will no longer be able to borrow money to pay its bills. In the short run that is OK, because the US government gets enough cash from tax revenue to cover its expenses. But on 1 November it gets a bill for US$67bn for social security, medicare and veterans benefits. By 15 November the US government will be short about US$108bn. And that means defaulting on its payments.

No one really knows what will happen if the debt ceiling is not raised. Views range from, it’ll be fine, to it’ll be Armageddon. The US Treasury for its part has put out a paper that paints a pretty scary picture.

After looking at what has occurred in 2011 when the US nearly reached the debt limit, it concluded that a debt default “could have a catastrophic effect on not just financial markets but also on job creation, consumer spending and economic growth”.

It also noted that “many private-sector analysts believing that it would lead to events of the magnitude of late 2008 or worse, and the result then was a recession more severe than any seen since the Great Depression”.

And just in case you are a glass-half-full kind of person and you still have some optimism, the report ends on this less than upbeat note: “Considering the experience of countries around that world that have defaulted on their debt… [the] consequences, including high interest rates, reduced investment, higher debt payments, and slow economic growth, could last for more than a generation.”

Cheery.

Thus far the markets have been rather sanguine. The US Treasury 10-year bond yields are lower now than they were a month ago – suggesting investors are not too spooked about the long-term US economy. There is also a sense that investors are a bit jaded – the debt ceiling fight is now becoming an annual event.

But in the past few days, investors have become very worried about holding US treasury bonds which mature in the next month.

The spread of the six-month to one-month treasury bonds fell off a cliff, to the point where investors are now demanding a higher return for buying a one-month US treasury bond than for a six-month.

Should the default actually occur you could expect those jaded investors would suddenly get very alert. A US government default would put the world economy into uncharted waters. Around 87 % of all foreign exchange transactions involve US dollars. If the US government can no longer guarantee it will pay its bills (even for a short time), that rather upsets the integrity of the entire system.

In 2011 when the debt ceiling was almost breached, the US’s credit rating was downgraded to AA. It hurt US confidence, put a big hand brake on economic growth, and the turmoil on financial markets reduced American household wealth by around US$2.4tn.

For Australia, in 2011 our dollar at the time soared to US$1.10 as the American currency lost value. With the value of our dollar already rising the last thing our manufacturing sector needs is for the dollar to be given a boost.

For the moment most expect congress to back down and raise the debt ceiling (or perhaps even suspend it for a few more months like they did last year).

But Australians should hope that the US gets its act in order soon. While it is nice to think that we are now bound to China, a look over the past 20 years shows that aside from extraordinary circumstances – such as the dotcom bubble and September 11 attack, and our mining boom in 2006 – Australia and the US’s GDP growth is quite closely linked.

Our economy is like a dinghy in the ocean of the international economy. If the US scuttles itself though political intransigence, without another mining boom, little HMAS Australia would find it tough not to get sucked into the vortex as USS America goes down.

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Is Mark Carney’s forward guidance a step backwards?

By:
Published October 7, 2013, in Forex Research

Bank of England governor’s move to persuade markets that interest rates will not immediately rise has provoked skepticism. His first 100 days as Bank of England governor have been a noisy medley of speeches, impeccably tailored photo-calls and pzazz…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “Is Mark Carney’s forward guidance plan a step backwards?” was written by Heather Stewart, for theguardian.com on Monday 7th October 2013 14.00 UTC

If Mark Carney was going to live up to his billing as a “rock star central banker” – and his £874,000 a year pay package – he had to arrive in Threadneedle Street on a crashing crescendo. His first 100 days as Bank of England governor have been a noisy medley of speeches, impeccably tailored photo-calls and pzazz.

From the need for more women on banknotes to his love of Everton football club, Carney has had plenty to say on a range of subjects since his appointment on 1 July this year. However, it’s the Bank’s new policy tool of forward guidance that has provoked the most interest, and a good measure of scepticism, among seasoned Bank-watchers.

Honed by Carney in Canada and adopted by the US Federal Reserve and the ECB in different forms, forward guidance is a way of signalling to the public and financial markets how the Bank will respond to shifts in the economy. In this case, the monetary policy committee has pledged to keep interest rates at their record low of 0.5% at least until the unemployment rate falls to 7%.

“Forward guidance is an attempt to persuade the markets that interest rates are not immediately going to go up,” says John Van Reenen, director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. “It’s one more tool in the toolbox.”

However, as implemented by Carney and his colleagues in the UK, guidance is hedged about with three separate “knockouts” – rates would rise if inflation, financial stability or the public’s inflation expectations got out of control. Moreover, the governor has stressed that the 7% unemployment rate is not a trigger for a rate rise, but a “staging post”, which will not necessarily prompt tighter policy.

During a somewhat fraught hearing with MPs on the cross-party Treasury select committee last month, in which Carney sought to clarify the policy, chairman Andrew Tyrie expostulated that it would be a hard one to explain “down the Dog and Duck”.

Financial markets have also been less than convinced. The yield, or effective interest rate, on British government bonds – partly a measure of investors’ expectations of future interest rates – has risen rather than fallen since the Bank’s announcement. That is partly because the latest data suggests the economic outlook is improving, but rapidly rising bond yields can be worrying because they tend to push up borrowing costs right across the economy. Carney, though, has insisted he is not concerned.

Meanwhile the pound has risen almost 4% against the dollar since Carney took the helm – again signalling markets expect rates to rise sooner than the Bank is indicating. Last week sterling hit a nine-month high, although it came off that peak as investors began to question if the UK’s recovery could continue at its current pace.

“I don’t think in practice forward guidance is very successful,” says Jamie Dannhauser of Lombard Street Research. He believes Carney has failed to convince the City he means business, because he has failed to back up forward guidance with action, such as the promise of a fresh round of quantitative easing – the Bank scheme that has pumped £375bn of freshly minted money into the economy.

“[Forward guidance] doesn’t work if you’re not willing to take on the markets if you don’t get your way,” says Dannhauser.

David Blanchflower, a former member of the MPC, is more blunt: “He looks already, within a hundred days, to have lost control. Bond yields are rising, the pound is rising like mad, and they’ve got no response.”

He argues that the hedged nature of the new policy is likely to reflect “horse-trading” between Carney and his fellow MPC members. Unlike in Canada, where what the central bank governor says goes, decision-making on the MPC is by vote. With a recovery now under way, its various members are known to have differing views on what are the most pressing risks to the economy.

Another former MPC member said: “Had I been on the MPC I would have let him do it [forward guidance], because I don’t think it does any particular harm; but I don’t think it does much good either.”

It’s not just the Bank’s approach to monetary policy that has changed on Carney’s watch. When outgoing deputy governor Paul Tucker, who missed out on the top job, leaves for the US later this month, it will mark the latest in a number of personnel changes that are starting to make Carney’s Bank look quite different from Lord (Mervyn) King’s.

Blue-blooded banker Charlotte Hogg joined as the Bank’s new chief operating officer, a post that didn’t exist under the old regime, on the same day as Carney. Meanwhile Tucker will be replaced by former Treasury and Foreign Office apparatchik Sir Jon Cunliffe. With long-serving deputy governor Charlie Bean due to leave early in 2014, Carney will be given another opportunity to bring in a new broom.

Insiders say the atmosphere in the Bank’s Threadneedle Street headquarters has already changed. Carney is often seen eating lunch in the canteen or showing visitors around. His approach is less hierarchical than that of King, who was derided as the “Sun King”, by former chancellor Alistair Darling – though Carney is said to be no keener on intellectual dissent than his predecessor.

He will need all the allies he can get both inside and outside the Bank, if he is to deal successfully with what many analysts see as the greatest threat facing the economy: the risk that an unsustainable bubble is starting to inflate in Britain’s boom-bust housing market.

Carney and his colleagues on the Bank’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC), the group tasked with preventing future crashes which partly overlaps with the MPC, have new powers to rein in mortgage lending if they believe a bubble is emerging, and the governor has said he won’t hesitate to use them.

But the FPC is untested and largely unknown to the public, and bubbles are notoriously hard to spot. Using the FPC’s influence to choke off the supply of high loan-to-value mortgages, for example, would be hugely controversial at a time when large numbers of would-be buyers have been frozen out of the market. Meanwhile, the government’s extension of the Help to Buy scheme, with details to be laid out on Tuesday, is likely to increase the demand for property, potentially pushing up prices.

Van Reenen warns that if property prices do take off, Carney could find himself in an unenviable position. “We have this terrible problem in this country that house prices have got completely out of kilter with incomes. I would be very reluctant to see interest rates start pushing up. Using other methods, such as being tougher on Help to Buy, and trying to do things through prudential regulation is better – but the fundamental thing is lack of houses, and Carney can’t do anything about that.”

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China warns United States over debt ceiling, as markets fall again – live

By:
Published October 7, 2013, in Forex News

Chinese finance minister: US must act fast. US Treasury secretary: Congress is ‘playing with fire’. Goldman Sachs: 4.2% wiped off US GDP without debt deal. The US AAA credit rating was downgraded by S&P two years ago after the last debt ceiling standoff…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “China warns US over debt ceiling, as markets fall again – live” was written by Graeme Wearden, for theguardian.com on Monday 7th October 2013 14.40 UTC

Oil price drops

The oil price is down today, with a barrel of Brent crude dropping by over one dollar to $108.44.

That doesn’t look to be related to the US standoff, though. Instead, it reflects relief that Tropical Storm Karen weakened over the weekend. That means oil work in the Gulf of Mexico is resuming, having been suspended a few days ago as Karen approached.

China’s warning to America to raise its debt ceiling swiftly comes as the issue becomes intertwined with Congress’s failure a week ago to agree a budget for the new fiscal year (triggering the partial government shutdown).

Terry Morris, senior vice president of National Penn Investors Trust Company in Pennsylvania, says the deadlock is a growing worry, telling Reuters:

Now you’ve got not only the budget but the debt ceiling and time is running out and everybody knows it..

The longer this goes on, the more the uncertainty, the closer the deadline and the more nervous investors are going to be.

Gold has risen to a one-week high, with the spot price gaining 1.3% to $1,327 a ounce.

Updated

Although shares are down on Wall Street, there’s no sign of panic in the US stock markets over the budget and debt ceiling deadlock.

Todd Horwitz of Average Joe Options is telling Bloomberg TV that traders don’t like the uncertainty caused by the ‘blowhards in Washington’, saying:

It’s not a panic selloff, it’s very controlled.

Horwitz added that trading volumes are light at the moment, but could pick up as the debt ceiling deadline approached

The closer we get to the 17th [October], the more action we’ll see.

Wall Sreet open: Dow falls

Shares are falling in New York as the echoes from the Wall Street opening bell fade away.

The Dow Jones industrial average is down 140 points in the first few minutes to 14931, a drop of almost 1%.

The other indices are also down, matching losses in Europe.

• FTSE 100: down 51 points at 6403, – 0.8%

• German DAX: down 73 points at 8549 ,- 0.85%

• French CAC: down 28 points at 4136, -0.67%

Reaction to follow

Business is underway in Washington DC, with White Officials sticking to their position that President Barack Obama will not negotiate with congressional Republicans under the threat of a debt default.

Via Reuters:

“There has never been a period where you have a serious faction or a serious strategy by one political party … to use the threat of default as the main tactic in extracting policy,” White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling said at a Politico breakfast on Monday.

On asset class isn’t suffering from the looming debt ceiling today – US sovereign debt.

The price of 10-year Treasury bonds has actually risen this morning, showing stronger demand for America’s debt.

One-month bills are slightly weaker today, but are still changing hands at a yield (or rate of return) or just 0.147%. That doesn’t suggest bond traders are frantically dashing to sell them.

US debt is still being treated as a a place of safety, even though it’s at the centre of this particular storm.

Nick Dale-Lace, senior sales trader at CMC Markets, comments:

Ironically it seems one beneficiary of a risk off morning is US treasuries, with investors continuing to flock to the very bonds that are apparently at risk of default.

The ramifications of a default on bond markets are not clear cut, with much confusion about what the fallout would be given the dependency of the financial world on US debt markets. What are the legal triggers of such a default and are they irreversible? With every minute passed we edge closer to the unknown, and that is rarely good for the markets

US politicians get their chance to heed China’s chiding over the debt ceiling, when Congress returns to work today.

Both the House and the Senate will be in session, with votes scheduled for the afternoon.

However, none of the legislation on the table amounts to the ‘clean’ budget bill (stripped of cuts to the Affordable Care act) which the Democrats are demanding.

CBS’s News Mark Knoller is tweeting the state of play:

China warns US on debt ceiling crisis

China has raised the pressure on the US today, warning that time is running out to raise its debt ceiling.

Vice finance minister Zhu Guangyao told reporters in Beijing that America needs to take decisive steps to prevent hitting its debt limit in a fortnight’s time. The intervention came as European stock markets remained lower, on the seventh day of the US shutdown.

In the Chinese government’s first public comments on the deadlock, Zhu also urged Washington politicians to “learn lessons from history”. A reminder that the US AAA credit rating was downgraded by S&P two years ago after the last debt ceiling standoff.

Zhu said (quotes via Reuters):

The United States is totally clear about China’s concerns about the fiscal cliff.

We ask that the United States earnestly takes steps to resolve in a timely way before October 17 the political [issues] around the debt ceiling and prevent a U.S. debt default to ensure safety of Chinese investments in the United States and the global economic recovery

This is the United States’ responsibility.

As the biggest single holder of US debt, China would be in the front line to suffer if Treasury prices fell – and would obviously be hit if the US were to stumble into a technical default.

Beijing must have watched the deadlock in Washington with growing alarm (yesterday, Republicans continued to demand healthcare cuts as the Treasury Secretary warning Congress was playing with fire).

Analysts were already concerned about the lack of progress (round-up here). with Goldman Sachs warning of drastic cutbacks if America breaches the debt ceiling (details here).

Zhu’s warning added to the jitteriness in the City. Shares remain down across Europe’s trading floors, with the FTSE 100 down 50 points at 6402, a fall of 0.8%. The German and French stock markets are both down around 1%. Here’s a round-up:

Alastair McCaig, market analyst at IG, says there is an increasing ‘fear factor’ in the City as America moves closer to its debt ceiling:

The news that US politicians have again put self-interest ahead of the greater good of the country by failing to make any progress in sorting out the budget or tackling the debt ceiling will have surprised few.

As yet the US debt markets have remained calm but the closer we get to the mid-October deadline the less likely that is to remain the case.

And as mentioned earlier, the US dollar is still down against most major currencies. The pound has gained almost 0.5% to $1.608 so far today.

Updated

US showdown: What the experts are saying

Here’s a round-up of what City experts are saying about the deadlock in America over its budget talks, and the debt ceiling — which the US will hit on 17 October.

Louise Cooper of Cooper City:

As the disaster that is Washington continues, the world needs bond vigilantes to bring the political class to its senses. Sadly thanks to the Federal Reserve’s endless QE, that restraint and imposed market discipline is no longer in place. And that is dangerous. Without the market check, Washington is risking ruin.

So how are these “bond vigilantes” and how do they impose discipline on the ruling classes? They are simply the mass of investors in government debt who by their actions force governments back to the financial straight and narrow. If they think a Nation is spending too much without enough taxation, resulting in excessive deficits and ballooning debt, they will demand a higher interest rate. That is basic finance; higher risk is compensated by a higher return. So as a Nation’s debt rises rapidly, the nation has to pay higher interest rates. So bond yields – borrowing costs – rise. And that is the restraint imposed upon governments – borrowing becomes more expensive the more fiscally irresponsible the government becomes.

That is the check to stop politicians getting their country overly indebted.

And it is the same mechanism with irresponsible monetary policy too – a higher yield is required by investors to compensate for the loss in monetary value from inflation. So bond investors are really important for financially feckless nations, because they that drag the ruling classes back to sensible economic policies (by demanding higher interest rates).

But the problem is that the Federal Reserve is currently buying $85bn of bonds a month, manipulating America’s borrowing costs lower.

The Fed is the biggest player in the markets and if it wants bond yields down then few will bet they will go up. Thus there is no corrective mechanism. Without the Fed’s QE, the current Washington fiasco would have increased America’s borrowing costs and that would have helped to force politicians back to the negotiating table. It now looks likely that the Fed didn’t taper in September as it was concerned about the impact the shutdown would have on the economy. It is also likely that with no non farm payrolls figure being released on Friday, the Fed will not taper in October either.

Implicitly the Federal Reserve is bailing out the incompetency of Washington. The stick has been removed allowing the political class to play wild and threaten default.

Kit Juckes of Societe Generale

I have no vote and hope I am non-partisan in this debate but I think that this is a row about principles as much as about power, which argues for a drawn-out impasse, though the odds still favour last-minute resolution. A good question (from Joe Weisenthal) was what the Republicans would have used to justify the stalemate if Obamacare wasn’t there to argue over.

And while I am sure the GOP could have found a reason for disruptive politics, it also seems clear that Obamacare is too important to the President’s ‘legacy’ for him to compromise on that, while the right wing of the GOP is opposed on principle as much as anything else. But it’s also clear that the Republicans are
‘losing’ the public relations war. I don’t think that merely reflects my Twitter stream or choice of on-line reading.

The big winner of this mess will be Hilary Clinton. And that, in turn, means that a compromise, with tax cuts elsewhere, is likely to be found to get a deal through that allows the debt ceiling to be increased by 17 October.

Jane Foley of Rabobank

The rallying call of Republican House Speaker Boehner over the weekend that it is “time for us to stand up and fight” looks set to commit the shutdown of the US government into a second week.

The vote by Congress in favour of paying the government workers who has been sent home on leave will offset some concerns about the economic costs of the shutdown. Even so, with the October 17 deadline for a debt default looming, investors are likely to become increasingly nervous with every passing day.

Marc Ostwald of Monument Securities:

Shutdown Day 7 is unfortunately the theme for the day, and quite possibly for the week…

While mutterings ahead of the weekend suggested that Boehner said he would make sure that there was no default, and some hopeful whispers of a few Tea Party aligned members of the House softening their stance, positioning as the week starts appears to be even more entrenched.

The backlog of official US economic data is building quite rapidly with little obvious prospect of anything being published this week. One assumes that the end of week G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank heads may have little else to discuss, though the protests about the US political impasse (assuming it has not been resolved) from other G7 and EM countries will be vociferous.

Elsa Lignos of RBC Europe:

The hard line on both sides has unsurprisingly been taken negatively by risky assets. The Yen and Swiss franc are outperforming, US equity futures are pushing down towards Thursday’s lows, while US Treasuries are still trading sideways.

It is still a case of waiting and watching on developments in Washington. Our US Strategists expect that the longer the government remains dark, the greater the likelihood that the shutdown and debt ceiling issues are resolved together, which would result in a better outcome

Investec Corporate Treasury

Some analysts have estimated that default is likely by November 1st when the Treasury Department is scheduled to make nearly $60 billion in payments to Social Security recipients, Medicare providers, civil service retirees, and active duty military service members.

With such a limited window of time available all eyes will be on the US this week to see if a resolution can be reached. In the meantime expect the US shutdown to dominate currency markets and be prepared for some volatility if a default starts to look more likely.

Updated

Greek budget predicts growth in 2014

Back to Greece, where the government has predicted a return to growth next year after a six-year slump.

The draft 2014 budget, announced this morning by deputy finance minister Christos Staikouras, also forecasts a surplus excluding debt financing costs. This is a crucial target for Athens as it aims to agree further assistance from its international partners.

Reuters has the details:

Greece will emerge from six years of recession next year, its draft 2014 budget projected on Monday, in one of the strongest signs yet that the country has left the worst of its crippling debt crisis behind.

The economy, which has shrunk about a quarter since its peak in 2007, will grow by 0.6% next year thanks to a rebound in investment and exports including tourism, the budget predicted. The economy is set to contract by 4 percent this year. Athens is also targeting a primary budget surplus of 1.6% of national output next year and is on track to post a small surplus this year.

Attaining a primary surplus – excluding debt servicing costs – is key to helping Athens secure debt relief from its international lenders.

“In the last three years Greece found itself in a painful recession with an unprecedented level of unemployment,” Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said as he unveiled the 2014 budget.

“Since this year the sacrifices have begun to yield fruit, giving the first signs of an exit from the crisis.”

These signs of recovery are encouraging hedge funds to buy stakes in Greek banks (see 9.12am) and fuelling rumours that Greece could swap some debt for new 50-year bond (see opening post).

The budget also shows that Greece will run a deficit of 2.4% (including debt costs). This will push its public debt to 174.5% of GDP, despite investors taking a haircut early last year.

How much damage would be caused if American politicians doesn’t raise the debt ceiling before the October 17 deadline?

Goldman Sachs has crunched the numbers, and told clients over the weekend that the Treasury would be forced into a drastic cutback in spending from the end of October which would wipe 4.2% off annualised GDP.

The research note (from Saturday, but still well worth flagging) showed how the Treasury is on track to hit its borrowing limit in two weeks.

After that point, the amount of money coming into the Treasury will equal only about 65% of spending going out, Goldman said. There are various ways that the US could play for time — such as prioritising some payments over others, or delaying payments altogether.

But officials would soon be forced to implement measures that would hurt growth badly, in a bid to avoid missing a debt repayment and triggering a downgrade to Selective Default status.

Here’s a flavour of the note:

If the debt limit is not raised before the Treasury depletes its cash balance, it could force the Treasury to rapidly eliminate the budget deficit to stay under the debt ceiling. We estimate that the fiscal pullback would amount to as much as 4.2% of GDP (annualized). The effect on quarterly growth rates (rather than levels) could be even greater. If this were allowed to occur, it could lead to a rapid downturn in economic activity if not reversed very quickly.

And more detail….

A very short delay past the October deadline—for instance, a few days—could delay the payment of some obligations already incurred and would create instability in the financial markets. This uncertainty alone could weigh on growth.

But a long delay—for example, several weeks—would likely result in a government shutdown much broader than the one that started October 1. In the current shutdown, there is ample cash available to pay for government activities, but the administration has lost its authority to conduct “non-essential” discretionary programs which make up about 15% of the federal budget.

By contrast, if the debt limit were not increased, after late October the administration would still have authority to make most of its scheduled payments, but would not have enough cash available to do so.

US deadlock hits euro investors

The US government shutdown debacle has hit investor confidence within the eurozone, according to the latest data from German research firm Sentix.

Sentix’s monthly measure of investor sentiment dropped to 6.1, from 6.5 in September. Analyst had expected the index to jump to 8.0, but it appears morale has suffered from the deadlock in Washington.

Sentix reported that investors’ current assessment of the United States, and the assessment of prospects in six-months time, has been noticeably damaged by the budget row and the debt ceiling fears. Its headline index for the US dropped to 16.8, from 24.8 last month.

Overall indices for the emerging markets regions rose, while those surveyed remain optimism for Japan’s prospects.

Over in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi is preparing to request a community service sentence, following his tax fraud conviction in August.

Berlusconi, whose efforts to bring down the Italian government (and reignite the eurozone crisis) failed last week, has now turned his attention to his legal troubles.

From Rome, Lizzy Davies has the story:

“Silent and humble manual tasks” are not something to which Silvio Berlusconi has ever felt naturally drawn. Before big business and politics he sold vacuum cleaners and sang on cruise ships.

Now, however, thanks to the Italian legal system, a very different kind of activity awaits him. His lawyer has said he intends to ask to serve his sentence for tax fraud in a community service placement.

Franco Coppi said that barring any last-minute changes, the former prime minister’s legal team would submit the request to the Milan courts by the end of this week. It would be then up to the judges to decide how to proceed.

More here: Silvio Berlusconi to request community service for tax fraud sentence 

Former Greek minister convicted over money-laundering charges

Court drama in Athens this morning, where a former defence minister has been found guilty of money-laundering.

Akis Tzohatzopoulos was one of 17 defendants convicted after a five-month trial. Associated Press reports that Tzohatzopoulos’s wife, ex-wife and daughter were also found guilty.

Tzohatzopoulos was charged with accepting bribes in exchange for agreeing military hardware contracts, in the 1990s and the early 2000s. The court heard that these kickbacks were laundered through a network of offshore companies and property purchases.

Sentences will be handed down tomorrow.

Greek journalist Nick Malkoutzis reckons this is the most serious conviction of a Greek politician in around 20 years.

In March, Tzohatzopoulos was convicted of corruption charges, after lying on his income statements and hiding luxurious spending. He was jailed for eight years following that case.

Updated

Some interesting stories about Greece this morning. First up: John Paulson, the hedge fund boss who made billions of dollars betting against America’s mortgage market before the crisis began, is a big fan of Greek banks.

Paulson is making a serious move into the Greek financial sector, as investors gamble that the worst of its woes are over.

The FT has the details:

Mr Paulson, best known for his successful wager against the US subprime mortgage market in 2007, praised Greece’s “very favourable pro-business government”.

“The Greek economy is improving, which should benefit the banking sector,” Mr Paulson told the Financial Times.

He confirmed his fund, Paulson & Co, had substantial stakes in Piraeus and Alpha, the two banks that have emerged in best shape from the crisis. “[Both] are now very well capitalised and poised to recover [with] good management,” he said in rare public comments.

More here: Paulson leads charge into Greek banks

The US dollar has also dropped this morning against most major currencies. This pushed the yen up around 0.5%, to ¥ 96.9 to the dollar. That won’t please Japanese exporters, who’d rather see the yen over the ¥100 mark.

America’s stock indices are also expected to drop around 0.8% when trading begins in about 6 hours, Marketwatch flags up.

The head of ratings agency Moody’s reckons America won’t default, even if it ploughs into the debt ceiling this month.

Raymond McDaniel told CNBC overnight:

Hopefully it is unlikely that we go past October 17 and fail to raise the debt ceiling, but even if that does happen, then we think that the U.S. Treasury is still going to pay on those Treasury securities.

Markets drop:

Europe’s stock markets have followed Asia by falling in early trading, as investors fret over the lack of progress over America’s government shutdown.

In London the FTSE 100 swiftly shed 46 points, or 0.7%, with 95 of the companies on the index . It’s a similar tale across Europe’s markets, with Germany’s DAX down 0.85% and the French CAC shedding 0.75%

Mike van Dulken of Accendo Markets sums up the mood in the City:

Sentiment is still dampened by USuncertainty as the partial shutdown moves into its second week and the more troubling debt ceiling of 17 October nears. How long will this drag on for? Only the politicians know.

The congressional stalemate shows no signs of progress with House Speaker Boehner adamant that a clean spending bill will not be approved while Treasury Secretary Lew says congress is playing with fire putting the nation’s sovereign reputation at risk, on top of President Obama’s highlighting of the potential impact on Q4 GDP.

It all adds up to another sea of red on the European markets:

Updated

World Bank cuts China growth forecasts

America’s deadlock isn’t the only issue worrying the City today. The World Bank has warned that East Asia’s economic growth is slowing as it cut its GDP forecasts several nations, including China.

In a new report, the Bank said weaker commodity prices means weaker growth in the region. It also urged Chinese policymakers to tackle the consequences of recent loose policy and tighten financial supervision.

Here’s a flavour:

Developing East Asia is expanding at a slower pace as China shifts from an export-oriented economy and focuses on domestic demand,” the World Bank said in its latest East Asia Pacific Economic Update report.

“Growth in larger middle-income countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand is also softening in light of lower investment, lower global commodity prices and lower-than-expected growth of exports,” it added.

It now expects the Chinese economy to expand by 7.5% this year, down from its April forecast of 8.3%. For 2014, the forecast is cut from 8% to 7.7%.

Full story here: World Bank cuts China growth forecasts

US deadlock continues to worry the markets

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the financial markets, the world economy, the eurozone and the business world.

It’s the seventh day of the US government shutdown, and the lack of progress in Washington continues to cast a shadow over the financial world.

Shares have slipped in Asia overnight; in Japan, the Nikkei shed another 1.2%. European markets are expected to fall again.

America seems no closer to a solution to the deadlock, nearly a week after the Federal government began shutting services and sending workers home. It is, though, closer to its debt ceiling — the US is still on track to hit its maximum borrowing limit of $16.7bn on 17 October.

Yesterday, Treasury secretary Jack Lew warned that America would default if the ceiling isn’t raised. Congress, he said, was ”playing with fire”.

Lew said:

I’m telling you that on the 17th, we run out of the ability to borrow, and Congress is playing with fire.

But the Republican-controlled House of Representatives hasn’t blinked — continuing to demand concessions from President Obama.

House speaker John Boehner was defiant last night, saying his side would “stand and fight” for concessions on issues like healthcare reforms.

Boehner told ABC television:

You’ve never seen a more dedicated group of people who are thoroughly concerned about the future of our country.

The nation’s credit is at risk because of the administration’s refusal to sit down and have a conversation.

So the deadlock continues, with investors pondering whether this impasse really could turn into a catastrophic debt default.

Stan Shamu of IG explains that traders are more nervous than late last week:

While Friday’s modest gains in US equities were driven by a glimmer of hope that leaders are getting closer, this seems to have waned over the weekend.

House speaker John Boehner was quoted as saying he wouldn’t pass a bill to increase the US debt ceiling without addressing longer-term spending and budget challenges. This has really rattled markets and is likely to result in further near-term weakness for global equities.

Not much on the economic calendar today, although we do get the latest eurozone reading of investor confidence at 9.30am BST.

In the UK, the row over the Royal Mail privatisation continues, with critics warning that it’s being sold off too cheaply.

While in Greece, there were reports on Saturday that Athens is considering swapping some bailout loans for new 50-year bonds, as part of a third aid package.

Reuters had the story: Greece mulls swapping bailout loans with 50-year bond issue: source

I’ll be tracking all the action through the day….

Updated

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Lagarde demands urgent action over US debt ceiling as markets get jittery – as it happened

By:
Published October 3, 2013, in Forex News

IMF Chief Christine Lagarde says “vital to raise US debt ceiling”. The US Treasury Department also weighed in, warning of dire calamity. US services sector showed growth was slowing, with the PMI coming in at 54.4 in September, down from 58.6 in August…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “Lagarde demands urgent action over US debt ceiling as markets get jittery – as it happened” was written by Graeme Wearden, for theguardian.com on Thursday 3rd October 2013 16.51 UTC

The end

The big story tonight remains the US government shutdown - which my US colleagues are live-blogging here. So here’s a brief summary to finish with.

• Christine Lagarde has piled pressure on America’s politicians to raise the US debt ceiling quickly. The IMF chief said it was “mission-critical” to avert the danger of a US default. The country’s Treasury Department also weighed in, warning of dire calamity.

• Fears over a possible US default hit shares on Wall Street. There were also signs of investors moving money out of short-term US debt, pushing up bond yields. Encouraging US jobs data was cancelled out by weaker service sector growth. Here’s what analysts are saying about the debt ceiling….

• Europe’s private sector has posted its biggest rise in activity in 27 months. Italian firms reported a stronger month, boosting hopes that the country is pulling out of recession. Retail sales also picked up.

• China’s service sector performed well in September too, pushing activity to a six-month high.

• In Greece, the head of the Golden Dawn party is being held in custody ahead of the criminal trial into the party, as the clampdown continues to raise fears over the country’s political stability. Another GD MP appeared in court, as the party raged against the decision to jail its leader.

• A survey of a Cyprus gas field found smaller reserves than hoped, but the government will still push on with exploiting it.

Back tomorrow, hopefully for a more lively day. Goodnight. GW 

An uninspiring day in Europe’s stock markets is over.

The FTSE 100 finished up 11 points at 6449, but the other main markets all lost ground. The French CAC shed 0.7%, the German DAX closed 0.37% lower, Spain’s IBEX is down 0.7% and the Italian FTSE MIB dropped 0.5%. No boost from today’s decent eurozone economic data, while the US debt ceiling deadline gets closer…..

Updated

The Japonica Partners investment fund, which has a big holding of Greek debt, has been holding a conference call for City analysts to explain why Greece’s bonds are actually much better quality than people realise.

Here’s a screengrab of Bloomberg’s news flashes:

FT Alphaville’s Joseph Cotterill is on the call, and flags up that Japonica was asked whether it’s planning to buy Greek state assets with its Greek government bonds. The idea wasn’t ruled out….

Wall Street falls

Those warnings over the US debt ceiling from Christine Lagarde, and from the US Treasury, come as shares fall on Wall Street today.

US traders pushed down the Dow Jones industrial average, as they watched Barack Obama lay into the Republicans in a speech in Rockville, Maryland (details in our US liveblog).

The Dow Jones industrial average is down 130 points, or 0.8%, with 28 of its 30 members losing ground.

It’s not all because of the deadlock on Capitol Hill. A monthly survey of the US services sector showed growth was slowing, with the PMI coming in at 54.4 in September, down from 58.6 in August (anything over 50 shows growth).

There are already fears that the shutdown will cost jobs and hit growth.

United Technologies, which supplies helicopters and jet engines to the U.S. military, has warned that if there’s no deal by Monday it might tell 2,000 workers to down tools. Bloomberg has the details.

My US colleague Tom McCarthy has launched a new liveblog tracking Day Three of the government shutdown:

Government shutdown enters third day after talks fail to break deadlock – live

It includes details of a report from the US Treasury Department which warns that there would be catastrophic consequences if America doesn’t raise its debt ceiling on time.

It certainly sounds scary:

A default would be unprecedented and has the potential to be catastrophic,” the Treasury reported.

“Credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, U.S. interest rates could skyrocket, the negative spillovers could reverberate around the world, and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse.

Surely they’ll get a debt ceiling deal in time, right? Surely….

Heads-up, Alexis Tsipras, head of Greece’s Syriza party, is giving a press conference with European Parliament president Martin Schulz.

It’s being streamed here.

The Golden Dawn clampdown has been raised. Schulz said there was “no place” for those with Nazi views in a democratic society while Tsipras welcomed the EP’s plans for a special session on “Golden Dawn and right-wing extremism”.

Tsipras also slammed the Greek bailout programme, saying: “One shouldn’t be taking new loans to pay off old ones,” according to AP’s Jurgen Baetz.

I don’t think he’s arguing against rolling over sovereign debt….

The IMF are tweeting highlights from the Lagarde speech, where she’s warning about the looming debt ceiling:

Lagarde: Mission critical to resolve US government crisis now

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, urged America’s warring politicians to settle their differences as she warned that an escalation of the budget row would harm the entire global economy, our economics editor Larry Elliott writes:

Speaking ahead of the Fund’s annual meeting in Washington next week, Lagarde said it was “mission critical” that Democrats and Republicans raise the US debt ceiling before the October 17 deadline.

Financial markets have started to take fright at the prospect that America could go into technical default as a result of the impasse in Washington and the IMF’s managing director said the dispute was a fresh setback for a global economy that would take at least a decade to recover from the deep slump of 2008-09.

Lagarde said:

I have said many times before that the U.S. needs to “slow down and hurry up”—by that I mean less fiscal adjustment today and more tomorrow.

She added that the world’s biggest economy needed to put its finances in order, but favoured back-loaded measures to raise revenues and limit entitlement spending that did not jeopardise short-term growth.

Lagarde added:

In the midst of this fiscal challenge, the ongoing political uncertainty over the budget and the debt ceiling does not help. The government shutdown is bad enough, but failure to raise the debt ceiling would be far worse, and could very seriously damage not only the US economy, but the entire global economy.

So it is “mission-critical” that this be resolved as soon as possible.

We’ll have the full story online shortly

Some early snaps from Christine Lagarde’s speech, in which she also warns that America was too eager this year to cut spending and raise taxes:

03-Oct-2013 15:00 – IMF’S LAGARDE SAYS U.S. ECONOMIC GROWTH THIS YEAR WILL BE ‘TOO LOW,’ BELOW 2 PCT, DUE TO TOO MUCH FISCAL TIGHTENING

03-Oct-2013 15:00 – LAGARDE SAYS U.S. GROWTH WILL BE ABOUT 1 PERCENTAGE POINT HIGHER IN 2014 AS FISCAL STRAINS EASE – SPEECH TEXT

03-Oct-2013 15:00 – LAGARDE SAYS U.S. FAILURE TO RAISE DEBT CEILING COULD ‘VERY SERIOUSLY’ HURT U.S. AND GLOBAL ECONOMY, CRITICAL TO RESOLVE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

03-Oct-2013 15:00 – LAGARDE SAYS MARKET TURBULENCE SINCE MAY OVER PERCEIVED END TO U.S. EASY MONEY POLICIES COULD REDUCE GDP IN MAJOR EMERGING MARKETS BY 0.5 TO 1 PCT

Christine Lagarde urges US politicians to end budget row

Breaking: Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, has urged politicians in Washington to act quickly to resolve the government shutdown before the global economy is hurt badly.

Speaking in Washington right now, Lagarde is warning that a failure to raise the debt ceiling could “very seriously hurt” the US and global economy.

It is critical to resolve the crisis soon, she said.

More to follow

Updated

The yield on America’s one-month debt has risen to the highest level in 10 months, suggesting investors are getting worried about the looming debt ceiling and selling bonds which mature at the end of October.

This has pushed the yield up to 0.129%, from just 0.028% a week ago. That’s still a very ‘safe’ level, of course, but it’s a sign that the US budget deadlock is starting to make traders more nervous, with the debt ceiling looming.

The cost of insuring US bonds against default is also up:

Updated

Some reaction to the Cyprus gas drilling results:

Updated

Cyprus gas results are in

Cyprus’s hopes of receiving a huge windfall from offshore reserves of natural gas received a knock today, after new drilling results found there is less recoverable gas at one field than hoped.

The Nicosia government announced the results of exploratory drilling off its coast a few minutes ago. Texas’s Noble Energy, which did the drilling in the Cypriot Aphrodite concession, also updated its shareholders.

And the news is that Noble Energy has estimated there is 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (or between 3.6trn and 6trn) to be recovered at that particular gas field south of the Mediterranean island. That’s a disappointment, as earlier drilling in 2011 indicated there was 7 trillion cubic feet (or between 5trn and 8trn).

The Cypriot government is still pushing on with its plans to exploit the reserves, though:

Cypriot energy minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis told reporters:

It’s important to state from the outset that, despite the lower quantities we announce today compared to those of 2011, the confirmed reserves affirm a particularly important reserve of natural gas.

Keith Elliott, Noble Energy’s senior vice president for Eastern Mediterranean, also remained upbeat:

Results from the Cyprus A-2 well have confirmed substantial recoverable natural gas resources and high reservoir deliverability.

Cyprus has talked about recovering 60 trillion cubit feet of gas from its reserves – although some analysts are skeptical.

Separately, there are reports from Cyprus that the country is considering withdrawing from Eurovision as part of its financial plight.

Can we come too?

Updated

Here’s a handy graph putting today’s US jobs data into some context:

US initial jobless claims rise slightly

The weekly US jobless claims data is out…and it shows a small rise in the number of people signing on for unemployment benefit last week.

The initial jobless claims total rose by 1,000 last week to 308,000. That’s close to the recent six-year low, and better than expected.

The four-week average fell, to 305,000 – which is the lowest since May 2007.

That won’t include the effect of the US government shutdown (as this data runs to 28 September and the shutdown began at midnight on 1 October).

Oil giant BP helped push the FTSE 100 higher this morning, after a US court ruled in its favour in a case about compensation payments following the Deepwater Horizon diasaster.

BP share are up 1.5% in London, and are expected to rise a similar amount in New York. Last night, judges ruled that the company should not be forced to pay billions of dollars in compensation to those not directly affected by the environmental damage following the oil rig explosion in which 11 men died.

Angela Monaghan explains:

The British oil company welcomed a ruling by the US court of appeals which will force a rethink on how compensation claims related to the disaster will be assessed.

The supreme court also ordered that payments must be stopped to people who did not suffer “actual injury traceable to loss” from the spill until cases have been properly heard and decided through the judicial process.

More here: BP welcomes US court of appeal ruling on Gulf of Mexico oil spill payouts

Here’s the situation in Europe’s stock markets this lunchtime:

(I was incorrect to say the DAX was closed today for Germany’s Unity Holiday — but given it’s down 0.02% it may as well be :) )

Plenty of chatter in the City today about whether America will raise its debt ceiling in time.

Gary Jenkins of Swordfish Research reckons Washington DC will get its act together, before the US crashes into the $16.7bn borrowing limit, probably around 17 October.

He writes;

After all, would politicians really be so stupid as to go through a process in which the potential unintended consequences could be so harmful, where there is no precedent for their actions and where there is no clear plan of what exactly they are trying to achieve? (Unless it’s to do with military action…).

Jenkins adds, though, that the US should be careful about appearing so blasé about its priorities:

 If the US were a company and the shareholders were openly discussing whether or not they should pay their bills or not then I find it hard to believe that the agencies would be taking such a relaxed view of the matter.

So, even if the politicians step back from the abyss, unless the debt ceiling dynamic is dealt with we could see a recurrence of current events. I do not know what the unintended consequences will be, but then again nor do the politicians. What I do know is that if I had the major economic and political advantage of having the world’s reserve currency and most wanted debt instrument is that I wouldn’t play around with it.

There’s talk in Washington of carving out a ‘Grand Bargain’ (a wide-ranging fiscal program designed to lower America’s long-term borrowing needs). That’s a tough task, though, especially when the two sides can’t agree to reopen the government.

Louise Cooper of Cooper City reckons any deal will just be a temporary patch-up job

While Ishaq Siddiqi, market strategist at ETX Capital, isn’t 100% convinced Washington will manage a deal in time.

The fact that US lawmakers are tied in a game of political brinkmanship over a fresh budget leaves traders not feeling too confident that lawmakers will be able to find common ground on raising the debt ceiling.

Indeed, failure to do so could see a US default. President Obama warned Wall Street last night that a conservative faction of the Republicans is willing to allow the US to default on its debt, lifting fears in the market that such a scenario could be played out.

The euro has risen around 0.2% against the US dollar to $1.360, while Europe’s stock markets are pretty calm.

Another Golden Dawn MP in court

Back to Greece, another Golden Dawn MP has arrived in court as the courtroom drama over the last two days continues to reverberate.

Michaloliakos’ right hand man, Christos Pappas, was also arrested on charges of overseeing a criminal organisation. His hearing was due to start at 1pm local time, or 11am BST.

Earlier this week anti-terror units discovered “a heap” of Nazi paraphernalia in Pappas’s home, including a book titled “Hitler by my side”.

Golden Dawn itself is furious that judges decided to jail its leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, ahead of a trial over charges that the party is a criminal gang. It issued a statement calling the move “wretched plot” and blaming it on ”foreign centres.”

From Athens, Helena Smith reports:

In a move that has stunned Greeks, Ilias Kasidiaris, the party’s spokesman who emerged from court yesterday kicking and shoving journalists, has now used the media to denounce the imprisonment of Michaloliakos.

“The detention of our general secretary is totally unjust, unconstitutional and has been dictated by foreign centres of power,” he has told reporters gathered outside the court.

Yesterday’s courtroom drama (and the violence seen outside court afterwards) also gets plenty of coverage in today’s newspapers.

Reuters flags up:

“The leader’s in, the gang’s out!” top-selling daily Ta Nea wrote on its front page. “It is the state’s duty to go to the end: The criminals need to be revealed, they need to be tried, and they need to pay,” the newspaper said.

Kathimerini makes an important point. This is a live criminal trial, Due process needs to be followed.

The fact that certain Golden Dawn deputies were released from pretrial custody – conditionally – does not in any way represent evidence of their innocence, just as their being remanded to appear before a magistrate had not meant that they were guilty of the crimes being leveled against them.

Updated

More good news for the European economy: retail sales were much stronger than expected in August.

Eurostat reported that retail sales volumes rose by 0.7% in the euro area, and 0.4% across the wider European Union in August. July’s data was also revised higher, showing consumers weren’t as cautious about spending as first thought.

Eurostat’s data shows that non-food shopping was strong, rising by 0.6% in the eurozone. That covers items such as computers, clothing and medical products.

The data also showed an increase in fuel purchases, suggesting a rise in motor journeys. Spending on “automotive fuel in specialised stores” (that’s petrol stations to you and me) was up by 0.9% across euro members.

Nice result for Spain in the bond markets this morning, suggesting the political tensions in the euro area have eased following yesterday’s Italian confidence vote.

Spain sold its maximum target of debt in a strong auction, in which borrowing costs hit their lowest level in three years.

The auction saw the Spanish treasury shift €1.18bn of 10-year bonds at a yield (the rate of return on the debt) of 4.269%, a drop on the 4.5% paid last month.

Updated

UK service sector on a charge

The UK’s service sector has revival continues, with the strongest quarterly growth in 16 years - driven by the upswing in the housing market.

The monthly PMI survey shows that September was another strong month — with a reading of 60.3, close to August’s seven-month high of 60.5 and deep into expansion territory.

However, firms dependent on consumer spending aren’t doing quite as well as financial firms, it appears….

Reuters handily provides more details:

The sector saw jobs growth in September, something mirrored in surveys of manufacturing and construction earlier this week.

Over the third quarter as a whole, the index – measuring the change in activity, including income and chargeable hours worked, from the previous month – averaged its highest level since the second quarter of 1997, Markit said.

“Growth is being led by financial services – linked in part to increased housing market activity – and the business sector,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at survey compilers Markit.

“Consumer-facing services continue to struggle, reflecting the ongoing squeeze on incomes due to weak pay growth and high inflation.”

Around half of firms surveyed in the service sector – which makes up more than three quarters of Britain’s output – expected even brisker trade in a year’s time, with the outlook index rising to 71.8.

Service providers reported that a jump in new business last month placed strain on resources, with backlogs of work rising at the fastest pace in more than 13 years.The workload, along with firms’ optimism about future business, led to a solid rise in employment and some pay rises.

Updated

Eurozone private sector output hits 27-month high

The eurozone recovery is gathering pace, with its private sector firms reporting the biggest leap in activity since June 2011 last month.

Data firm Markit’s monthly surveys of companies across the single currency showed a solid rise in activity.

New business has picked up, and the rate of job cuts may finally be slowing to a halt.

Markit’s monthly survey of activity came in at 52.2, up from August’s 51.5. Both service sector firms and manufacturers said conditions were better.

Here’s some key factoids from the report (online here)

Ireland: 55.7 2-month low
Germany: 53.2 2-month low
Italy: 52.8 29-month high
France: 50.5 20-month high
Spain: 49.6 2-month low

The news comes hours after China’s service sector output hit a 6-month high.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said the eurozone data showed Europe’s recovery on track, despite Spain’s private firms faltering after a better August.

The final PMI confirms the message from the earlier flash reading that the eurozone enjoyed its strongest quarter of expansion for just over two years in the third quarter. With the rate of expansion picking up in September, the survey bodes well for ongoing growth in the final quarter of the year.

Growth is being led by Germany, but France has also now returned to growth. Even more encouraging are the upbeat survey data for Ireland and Italy, both of which show signs of returning to robust growth, and Spain has also stabilised, as ongoing weakness in the domestic economy is offset by a strong upturn in exports.

But don’t get the bunting out yet — this only suggests a weak recovery.

Williamson explains:

Growth remains only modest – the Eurozone PMI is consistent with GDP rising by just 0.2% on the third quarter, and the political instability that has reared up in Italy is a reminder that there remains plenty of scope for recoveries to be derailed.

Updated

Italian service sector finally growing

Good news from Italy this morning – its service sector has burst back into growth for the first time in 28 months.

This may suggest the Italian economy has finally stopped shrinking, a new boost a day after prime minister Enrico Letta faced down Silvio Berlusconi’s revolt.

Data provider Markit says it’s a welcome sign that the economic recovery could be underway, with the monthly PMI jumping to 52.7 in September, from 48.8 in August. It’s not been over the 50-point mark (which separates contraction from expansion) since May 2011.

Here’s the key points:

• Business activity lifted by increase in new work

• Job shedding continues, but at slower rate

• Future expectations highest in more than two years

Credit Agricole’s Frederik Ducrozet is encouraged:

Phil Smith, economist at Markit, said the data shows “the first signs” of recovery in the Italian economy after some grim months. But without political stability, he warned, it could quickly deteriorate.

He explained:

Should the data hold up, however, there may also be a return to growth in service sector employment, which showed its slowest fall for 16 months in September.

A significant improvement in businesses’ expectations for the year ahead will have no doubt also helped on this front.

The data, alongside those for manufacturing, show Italian GDP at least stabilising in Q3 and perhaps even rising slightly for the first time in more than two years. Political stability is key to this forward momentum being sustained into the later stages of the year and beyond.

Updated

Overnight in Greece, the head of the far-right Golden Dawn party was remanded in custody, hours after three of his MPs were released pending trial.

Another MP, Yannis Lagos, was also detained, as was Giorgos Patelis, the head of Golden Dawn’s local office in the area west of Athens where hip-hop star Pavlos Fyssas was stabbed two weeks ago. <updated, many thanks to reader Kizbot>

All the men faces charges of running a criminal gang, which they deny.

From Athens, Helena Smith reported:

Armed police led Nikos Mihaloliakos away from the courthouse in handcuffs in the early hours of Thursday after testimony lasting more than six hours.

His wife and daughter, also party members, and other Golden Dawn MPs, stood outside the building and shouted words of encouragement to him as he was led away.

“The ridiculous little men, they decided to jail the leader,” said party MP Michalis Arvanitis.

Golden Dawn leader jailed pending trial after Athens hearing

Updated

Just in – Spain’s service sector suffered a drop in activity in last month. Its PMI index has fallen into contraction territory again — at 49.0 in September, down from 50.4 (showing slight growth) in August.

Markit, which compiles the PMI data, also reported that new order growth slowed. On the upside, optimism hit a 41-month high.

Spain’s government ministers have been boldly declaring that the recession is over. This data doesn’t suggest much of a recovery yet.

Andrew Harker, senior economist at Markit, commented:

The Spanish service sector failed to show much sign of a recovery during September as activity fell back in response to weaker new order growth which itself had been supported by further sharp discounting.

One bright spot from the latest survey was that companies were at their most optimistic about the future for nearly three-and-a-half years, suggesting that Spanish service providers are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

Markets edge higher

Shares are edging a little higher in early trading — suggesting China’s strong service sector data is trumping US deadlock woes.

Here’s the early prices: (German’s DAX is closed for a public holiday)

FTSE 100: up 20 points at 6458, + 0.3%

French CAC: up 7 points at 4,165, + 0.18%

Italian FTSE MIB: up 98 points at 18,191, +0.5%

Spanish IBEX: up 21 points at 9,371, +0.23%

Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, reckons there’s some “cautious optimism” in the City this morning, despite the lack of progress in Washington DC. He argues that, with America on track to smash into its debt ceiling on 17 October, there’s little chance of the Federal Reserve turning down its bond-buying stimulus programme soon:

Sentiment is still not quite ignoring, but nor is it pricing in the worst case scenario – which is no agreement until debt ceiling deadline, and possible sovereign default.

The possible assumption is that default won’t be allowed, but the longer the budget takes to sort out, the longer the Fed is held off from tapering. Happy days for easy money policy lovers and risk appetite.

Updated

Michael Hewson of CMC Markets says traders will be hoping for encouraging data from Europe’s service sector this morning:

As we enter the third day of the shutdown of the US government the various positions seem as inextricably entrenched as ever. On the plus side at least we don’t have to worry about the soap opera playing out in Italy as Silvio Berlusconi negotiated what could be politely called a tactical withdrawal and agreed to support Enrico Letta’s government after it became apparent he didn’t have his party’s support with respect to the confidence vote.

While he may have run into a brick wall on this occasion Berlusconi has never lacked the capacity to surprise, so I would doubt that we have heard the last of him in this regard.

In any case while the political uncertainty in Italy may have subsided for now it still remains quite likely that any type of reform is still set to remain slow and problematic.

As for the rest of Europe’s markets while the FTSE may get a slight boost from a positive China services PMI, they continue to have one eye on events in the US, finishing lower yesterday along with US markets, though after yesterday’s non event of an ECB press conference, todays focus is on the latest services PMI data for September for Italy, Spain, France and Germany. All are expected to show positive readings above 50, with the exception of Italy, which is expected to come in at 49.2, raising expectations of a continued recovery.

Chinese service sector output hits six-month high

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the latest events across the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and the business world.

Looks like a mixed day ahead . Growing concern over the US government shutdown have taken the shine of some encouraging Chines economic data earlier today.

While in Europe, Italy is waking up to front pages dominated by Silvio Berlusconi’s humiliating defeat in the Senate yesterday, where prime minister Enrico Letta swept home in his confidence vote. More on this shortly.

First the good news — growth in China’s service sector has surged to a six month high. Activity jumped to 55.4 in September, from 53.9 in August, as measured by the official Purchasing Managers Index (anything over 50 points = growth).

That suggests that Beijing’s efforts to pep up the Chinese economy is bearing fruit this autumn.

Craig Erlam, analyst at Alpari, explained:

This is just another sign that the government’s targeted stimulus efforts, which were announced a few months ago in order to combat the slowing growth in the economy and achieve its minimum 7% growth target, are having the desired effect on the economy.

That might normally give stock markets a boost, especially with more service sector data due from the eurozone and UK this morning.

But now the bad news — Wednesday was another day of deadlock in Washington, despite US bank chiefs urging politicians on Capitol Hill to get a grip before it’s too late.

Obama meets bank chiefs as economists warn of ‘deep and dark recession’ 

So it’s probably going to be a nervy day in the markets….

Updated

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US government shutdown begins as Congress fails to reach deal – live

By:
Published October 1, 2013, in Forex News

House and Senate fail to reach deal before deadline. Estimated 800,000 federal workers told to stay at home. National parks and museums closed, Nasa affected. Signs of splits among Republicans over tactics. The President plans to make a statement today…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “US government shutdown begins as Congress fails to reach deal – live” was written by Tom McCarthy in New York, for theguardian.com on Tuesday 1st October 2013 16.12 UTC

Guardian Washington correspondent Paul Lewis (@PaulLewis) is in the streets of Washington DC, a city in which the government is not just the main employer, but the lifeblood of the city. The impacts of the shutdown were immediately visible, Paul writes:

By mid-morning, downtown Washington DC had the throng of a busy lunchtime, as furloughed workers from all the major government buildings trickled out onto the streets after closing down their offices.

Everywhere from obscure government agencies to the White House was operating on a slimmed-down staff, with all so-called ‘non-excepted’ employees ordered to return home after turning up to work on Tuesday morning.

DC’s mayor, Vincent Gray, immunised many staff working for the city’s government from the shutdown, by declaring them all ‘essential’ workers, a legally contentious measure. But it at least kept the city movement, and guarded America’s capital from less sightly impacts of the last shutdown, in the 1990s, when uncollected trash piled up on the street.

Later we’ll have Paul’s interviews with tourists and federal workers talking about how the shutdown is affecting them.

Updated

Veterans of World War II have stormed their own memorial on the National Mall, barricades be damned, reporter Leo Shane III of Stars and Stripes tweets:

Honor flight vets just knocked over the barriers at the WWII memorial to get inside, #shutdown or no.

No sign of folks leaving. The vets have control of the memorial. #shutdown

John McCain may be trying to make a point by publicizing polling showing Americans oppose the GOP strategy of tying the shutdown to health care cuts, but most national polls on who gets blamed are rather useless in understanding what’s going through the mind of the House GOP, Guardian polling analyst Harry J Enten (@ForecasterEnten) writes.

Harry argues that, district-for-district, Republicans really aren’t vulnerable to voter outrage in midterm elections in 2014 because the districts are rigged:

While there are a number of reasons why House Republicans were willing to shut down the government, no answer is probably as satisfying as the fact that majority of House Republicans don’t live in districts that look anything like the rest of the nation. Thanks to urban packing and gerrymandering, Republicans don’t have to worry about losing to a Democrat.

The average vote share for President Obama in 2012 in Republican House districts was only 40.4%. Only 17 members of the Republican House caucus are from districts that voted for Obama in 2012. More than half of Republicans in the House come from districts that are 10 points more Republican than the nation as a whole. The average Republican district is over a 11 points more Republican than the nation.

The thing that most worries most members is likely a primary challenge, not a general election. The fact that more Republicans support a shutdown to stop Obamacare, as Quinnipiac found, is what’s most important for them.

That analysis leaves open the question on whether blowback from the shutdown represents potential damage to a party’s national brand, with consequences for membership, fundraising, turnout, activism, public support in hard policy fights and more.

Shut down: Tweets from Voyager 2. 

Not to be confused with Voyager 1, which recently entered interstellar space. Voyager 2 is only 15.37bn km away, according to the Nasa site that tracks it, which interestingly is still online here.

Updated

Shut down: the US Census Bureau online. 

You can’t visit the web site here, but you can read a shutdown notice.

(h/t @kennelliott)

Updated

Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who with Ted Cruz of Texas led the charge to tie stopgap spending legislation to changes to Obamacare, is delivering a speech on the Senate floor calling for a focus on people whose livelihoods will be damaged by the government shutdown. “I want to focus our attention in the coming days and hours on those people,” Lee says, gravely.

It turns out however that mostly Lee wants to continue his critique of the Affordable Care Act. “I’d like to turn for a moment to people who are and for a number of months have been already [hurting],” he says. “Obamacare happens to be the No.1 job-killer in the country.”

Threatened by shutdown: airport efficiency(!).

Here’s a question from the comments:

Can someone tell me will airport be affected? Ie will take ages to get through security?

Answer, in short: Yes, expect some delays, but security will remain tight. The Transportation Security Administration, part of the department of Homeland Security, is expected to furlough certain nonessential employees, but those do not include most screeners. Air traffic controllers will report for work as usual.

John McCain, Republican of Arizona, argued Monday against the House Republican shutdown strategy, telling the House to accept fate and pass a “clean” spending resolution.

This morning McCain indulges in a preliminary bit of “I told you so,” directed at Republican colleagues:

From the Bloomberg story:

By 72 percent to 22 percent, Americans oppose Congress “shutting down major activities of the federal government” as a way to stop the Affordable Care Act from going into effect, the national survey from Quinnipiac University found. [...]

A majority of the public, 58 percent, is opposed to cutting off funding for the insurance program that begins enrollment today. Thirty-four percent support defunding it.

Note that the poll featured in the story McCain links to is from last week; while the Bloomberg story is from today, it does not reflect new polling from today.

Updated

Here’s the tabloid view, then and now:

Shut down: Freedom of Information Act requests.

The justice department claims it can’t meet FOIA deadlines in an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawsuit over phone metadata collection because of the shutdown, Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports:

Just hours after the partial government shutdown kicked in, Justice Department lawyers filed a motion Tuesday morning with a federal judge in Oakland, Calif. seeking to postpone all deadlines in connection with a suit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The motion submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (and posted here) says the government will be unable to continue reviewing documents for release because both DOJ lawyers and intelligence community personnel involved in the process are being furloughed.

Read the full piece here.

Senate minority whip John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, says Democrats are “whistling past the graveyard” in asserting that the Affordable Care Act is not negotiable:

“This is the law of the land. It’s perfect. Couldn’t be better,” Cornyn, on the Senate floor, ridicules his Democratic colleagues as saying. “That’s like whistling past the graveyard.”

Then Cornyn accuses Democrats of engineering the shutdown because polls show Republicans will take the blame:

They’re looking at polls…They’re willing to risk shutdown of the federal government just to gain political advantage… The Democrats have doubled down on their strategy, hoping to gain political advantage at the expense of people hurt.

Part of the difficulty this morning for 2m federal workers is that many did not find out until they showed up for work as usual whether they were part of the “essential” core that would be kept on the job. Some were told to stay. Others were sent home.

The Guardian’s Paul Lewis (@PaulLewis) and Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) are watching the shutdown unfold in Washington:

Some federal workers were reportedly instructed to switch off their BlackBerry smartphones to prevent them from working remotely, a disciplinary offence.

From 7am, forlorn-looking commuters could be seen heading to government buildings and agencies across Washington DC, where they would learn their fate. The city, where the government is a huge employer, will feel the impact of the federal shutdown more acutely than anywhere else in the US. The White House said it estimates a one-week shutdown would cost the wider US economy $10bn.

Read the full piece here.

Dan also has the inside story of how the shutdown played out in the halls of Congress last night:

Unfortunately, much of Washington acted as if it had seen this movie before. The metaphorical tumbleweed blowing down the corridors of Capitol Hill reflected not a fear of being caught in the crossfire, but a cynical war-weariness that left many lawmakers on the sidelines until it was too late. After three years of similar standoffs over the federal budget that were resolved at the last minute, no one could quite believe that this one would finish with shots fired.

Read the full story here.

The Senate has killed the House GOP request for a budget conference, again along party lines, 54-46.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid is on the floor of the Senate decrying the House request as a cynical 11th-hour ploy meant to portray the GOP as being serious about making a budget deal when in fact the party has, Reid says, ignored six months’ worth of Senate requests for a conference. Here’s Reid:

Sen. Murray [Patty Murray, D-Washington, budget committee chairwoman] has asked to go to conference 18 times. [McCain] has asked eight times himself. This has gone on for six months.

But it’s a clock tick past midnight… Boehner demanded the very conference they shunned us with for six months.

This display I hope would be embarrassing for House Republicans and Senate Republicans… what a deal!

If the House passes the piece of legislation they have over there… to reopen government, we’re happy to go to conference – why wouldn’t we? We’ve been asking to do that for months and months.

Updated

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, sees the shutdown as a boon to the president because it distracts from the administration’s woes elsewhere:

“Obamacare is going to have a lot of problems in its rollout… the president’s poll numbers are falling in every category,” McCain told MSNBC. “Yet the story to the American people is Republicans are fighting Republicans – that’s not helpful.”

The president plans to make a statement today at 12.25pm ET in the Rose Garden, the White House advises.

As the two parties try to reach a spending agreement, they also are trying to pin the blame for the shutdown on the other side. In a statement in the briefing room yesterday afternoon the president said Republican maneuvers resulting in a government shutdown would be the “height of irresponsibility.” Expect the president to expand on that theme this afternoon.

Last time the government shut down, the Republican Congress caught the blame and the Democratic president emerged the stronger. That fact is not lost on the Obama administration, which is using president Clinton’s playbook, Bloomberg reports:

Five administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and budget director Sylvia Burwell, were central figures during the shutdowns of 1995 and 1996. That two-stage battle pitted a House Republican majority against Democratic President Bill Clinton and resulted in a public relations defeat for the Republicans.

Now, Like Clinton, Obama is casting his Republican rivals as partisan warriors willing to put the country’s economic future at risk to score political points with their base.

While Clinton chided Republicans for putting “ideology ahead of common sense” in a 1995 address, Obama told reporters yesterday that “House Republicans continue to tie funding of the government to ideological demands.”

Read the full piece here.

Updated

Are you a federal employee forced to stay home because of the shutdown? Is one of your family members an essential employee who has to work without pay? We want to hear from you:

* Where do you work? What is your role?

* What have your supervisors told you to expect in coming weeks? Please be specific. How will furloughs or payment delays affect you and/or your family?

* Is there anything you’d say to members of Congress? to President Obama or House Speaker John Boehner? Do you see the shutdown as necessary? Is there a silver lining?

Please share your views in the comments or reach out to us directly at ruth [dot] spencer [at] theguardian [dot] com. We’ll be featuring your comments here. Thanks for writing!

Welcome to our live blog coverage of the partial government shutdown, which went into effect at midnight. America is waking up to shuttered parks, silent call centers for veterans’ services, empty Pentagon offices and skeleton crews in White House and congressional offices. It’s the first government shutdown in 17 years.

The president signed a bill late on Monday defending against one of the most painful effects of a shutdown: the bill ensured there would be no delay in delivering paychecks to active-duty military personnel. The core services of other big government programs, including Medicare and social security, were expected to operate as usual.

The House and Senate played ping-pong on Monday with stopgap spending resolutions that would have kept the government open if they were able to agree on one. The last House resolution retained delays in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act that the Senate leadership had made clear would be rejected. The resolution was rejected, and at about 11.40pm ET the office of management of the budget sent out a memo ordering agencies to “execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations.” Read Jim Newell’s play-by-play of last night’s action here, and Graeme Wearden’s early-morning updates here.

Just before the shutdown, House Republicans made a significant move on the overall budget issue, electing to join a conference with the Senate to cut an actual budget deal, a step the House leadership had been resisting. Senate majority leader Harry Reid said he would not bargain over the current spending measure at a budget conference.

Updated

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Greece’s democracy in danger, Greek reservists call for coup

By:
Published September 26, 2013, in Forex Research

Greece ‘backsliding in democracy’ in face of joblessness, social unrest, corruption and disillusion with politicians, says thinktank. The report, commissioned by the European parliament, noted that Greece was the most corrupt state in the 28-nation bloc…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “Greece’s democracy in danger, warns Demos, as Greek reservists call for coup” was written by Helena Smith in Athens, for The Guardian on Thursday 26th September 2013 19.27 UTC

No country has displayed more of a “backslide in democracy” than Greece, the British thinktank Demos has said in a study highlighting the crisis-plagued country’s slide into economic, social and political disarray.

Released on the same day that judicial authorities ordered an investigation into a blog posting by an elite reservist group linked to Greece’s armed forces calling for a coup d’etat, the study singled out Greece and Hungary for being “the most significant democratic backsliders” in the EU.

“Researchers found Greece overwhelmed by high unemployment, social unrest, endemic corruption and a severe disillusionment with the political establishment,” it said. The report, commissioned by the European parliament, noted that Greece was the most corrupt state in the 28-nation bloc and voiced fears over the rise of far-right extremism in the country.

The report was released as the fragile two-party coalition of the prime minister, Antonis Samaras, admitted it was worried by a call for a military coup posted overnight on Wednesday on the website of the Special Forces Reserve Union. “It must worry us,” said a government spokesman, Simos Kedikoglou. “The overwhelming majority in the armed forces are devoted to our democracy,” he said. “The few who are not will face the consequences.”

With tension running high after a crackdown on the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, a supreme court public prosecutor demanded an immediate inquiry into who may have written the post, which called for an interim government under “the guarantee of the armed forces”.

The special forces reservist unit who issued the social media call – whose members appeared in uniform to protest against a visit to Athens by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel – said Greece should renege on the conditions attached to an international bailout and set up special courts to prosecute those responsible for its worst financial crisis in modern times. Assets belonging to German companies, individuals or the state should be seized to pay off war reparations amassed during the Nazi occupation.

Underscoring the social upheaval that has followed economic meltdown, the blog post argued that the government had violated the constitution by failing to provide adequate health, education, justice and security.

Insiders said the mysterious post once again highlighted the infiltration of the armed forces by the extreme right. This week revelations emerged of Golden Dawn hit squads being trained by special forces commandos.

Fears are growing that instead of reining in the extremist organisation, the crackdown on the group may ultimately create a backlash. The party, whose leaders publicly admire Adolf Hitler and have adopted an emblem resembling the swastika, have held their ground in opinion polls despite a wave of public outrage over the murder of a Greek rap musician, Pavlos Fyssas, by one of its members. Golden Dawn, which won nearly 7% of the vote in elections last year and has 18 MPs in Athens’ 300-member parliament, has capitalised more than any other political force on Greece’s economic crisis. “Much will depend on how well it will withstand the pressure and they are tough guys who seem to be withstanding it well,” said Giorgos Kyrtos, a political commentator.

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Eurozone Crisis Live: Greece pleads for more time over public sector reforms

By:
Published September 24, 2013, in Forex News

Athens government seeks two-month extension. University of Athens ‘suspends operations. Germany’s firms more confident as recovery continues. UK mortgage approvals hit highest since Dec 2009. Long slog expected over German coalition…

 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “Greece pleads for more time over public sector reforms – live” was written by Graeme Wearden, for theguardian.com on Tuesday 24th September 2013 17.06 UTC

Italian PM Enrico Letta is discussing the future of Telecom Italia, after Spain’s Telefonica announced plans to take a much larger stake in its parent company (up to 70%).

Fab Goria tweets the key points:

And here’s more details of the University of Athens’ decision to suspend operations, because (it says) public sector job cuts have made it impossible to continue: University of Athens, NTUA Suspend Operations

Updated

Greek government pleads for more time over public sector layoffs

Over in Greece our correspondent Helena Smith reports that the government has appealed for more time to press on with the troika’s most controversial of demands yet: public sector dismissals.

Inspectors from the EU, ECB and IMF have yet to respond, on a day in which Greek public workers protested again.

And in another worrying development, the University of Athens has suspended all its operations, saying it cannot keep functioning with so many staff laid off.

Helena writes:

Barely two days after negotiations with visiting troika representatives began, prime minister Antonis Samaras’ coalition government has upped the ante asking for yet more time to implement reforms.

At a meeting with mission heads from the EU, ECB and IMF, the administrative reform minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis appealed for a two-month extension to the deadline Athens presently has to transfer some 12,500 civil servants into a so–called mobility scheme where employees would see their salaries drastically reduced before being moved, if lucky, to another government department.

Insiders at the ministry described the atmosphere of the talks “as very positive” – in sharp contrast to the environment outside where thousands of demonstrators gathered to issue howls of protests.

To underline that point about a positive atmosphere the meeting was even cut short, apparently by a good 40 minutes. But a source close to the troika was not so confident.

He said:

They [auditors] made it clear that they would come back with an answer Friday.

Yes, Greece has made progress but there is a feeling that what we are seeing is yet more stalling of the inevitable with the government once again biding time.

After a mad dash scramble the ministry managed to complete the first phase of the scheme – identifying 12,500 civil servants who could be transferred to the programme by the end of the month. Most are from the education sector and have included teachers, administrative staff and school guards.

But the effects of the crude fiscal logic that has often guided those decisions has not been without consequence.

Earlier today the University of Athens repeated that with layoffs making its “educational, research and administrative operation … objectively impossible” it regretted to inform the public that it was “forced to suspend all of its operations.”

“There is a possibility that the next six months could be lost but the bigger issue is not to lose the university altogether,” its rector Theodosis Pelegrinis said. The academic insisted the dismissals had been handled “in an excessive manner” without foresight or any proper review.

Describing the job losses as “incomprehensible” the university’s senate said the cuts would lead with mathematical precision to “undermining higher education and the young generation of Greece, the only real hope for overcoming the social and economic crisis in the years to come.”

Syriza, the radical left main opposition party that has spurred on protests, announced that its leader Alexis Tsipras would hold talks with school teachers tomorrow.

A bad day for cruise firm Carnival, which has been keelhauled to the bottom of the FTSE 100.

Carnival shares fell by 5.6% today, after it warned that bookings are sharply lower this year.

As my colleague Nick Fletcher explains, Carnival spooked the markets by reporting a 30% fall in third quarter earnings after problems with a number of its ships. Most famously, Costa Concordia, which was finally refloated last week after crashing in early 2012.

Bookings for the rest of 2013 and the first half of 2014 are down on the previous year, the company admitted.

It admitted it could take three years for the Costa brand to recover its reputation, following the Concordia disaster in Italy and another setback involving Costa’s Triumph vessel which stranded passengers for five days. Mechanical problems have dogged some of its other vessels.

Video: Top banker under fire over Libor answers

The Libor scandal has taken another twist this afternoon. 

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Alex Wilmot-Sitwell, a former top UBS executive, is under fire over the testimony he gave to Parliament in January, regarding attempts by traders to fix the rate at which banks would lend to each other.

Wilmot-Sitwell told MPs on the Treasury Committee that he didn’t recall Tom Hayes, one of the traders at the heart of the scandal. But the WSJ’s David Enrich has discovered that Wilmot-Sitwell was included on various emails which discussed Hayes — who was charged over the Libor affair in June.

Mark Garnier MP, a member of the Treasury Committee, says Wilmot-Sitwell has “questions to answer”.

Here’s the full email chain

And here’s the WSJ’s story: Ex-UBS Executive Under Fire Over Libor Testimony

Greece threatened with demotion, again

FTSE Group, the stock market index company, has again threatened to expel Greece from its list of Developed Markets, and rank it as an Advanced Emerging market.

In its Annual Country Classification Review, published this afternoon, FTSE said it was leaving Greece on its Watch List, for yet another year. Greece was first placed on Watch for a possible downgrade in 2006. 

  • Argentina: Possible demotion from Frontier
  • China ‘A’ Share: Possible inclusion as Secondary Emerging
  • Greece: Possible demotion from Developed to Advanced Emerging
  • Kazakhstan: Possible inclusion as Frontier
  • Kuwait: Possible inclusion as Secondary Emerging
  • Mongolia: Possible inclusion as Frontier
  • Morocco: Possible demotion from Secondary Emerging to Frontier
  • Poland: Possible promotion from Advanced Emerging to Developed
  • Qatar: Possible promotion from Frontier to Secondary Emerging
  • Taiwan: Possible promotion from Advanced Emerging to Developed

Morocco and Qatar are new entries, while Ukraine has been booted off the list. It had been lined up for “possible promotion to Frontier market status”, but FTSE is now worried about:

…continuing delays in market developments and no timelines as to when the market developments regarding regulatory oversight, capital controls, treatment of minority shareholders and settlement will be implemented.

Updated

If you’ve not seen it already, do check out this article on Comment Is Free today about Greece’s neo nazi Golden Dawn party, and the investigation into links between the party and the Greek police.

Here’s a flavour:

For a period, Greece’s experience of general strikes, occupations and social movement protests came close to insurrection. This is as near to what Gramsci called a crisis of authority as one can get. The political control of the state has been breaking down. It is this breakdown of authority – which reactionaries blame on immigration, foreign control and communist agitation – that fuels Golden Dawn’s support.

The situation is toxic. Austerity has not run its course, any more than the recession, or the social misery engendered by it. The only recourse of the left is to render Golden Dawn useless by incapacitating it, obstructing its activities and shutting it down as an effective street-fighting fascist organisation.

More here (where regular reader Kizbot had been putting the world to rights in the comments):

Golden Dawn’s rise signals breakdown of the Greek state’s authority

Updated

A weak start on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones index dropping 55 points in early trading to 15345, –.35%.

Once again (again) traders are fretting over the question of when the Federal Reserve will start tapering its QE programme.

There are some big risers, though — particularly in the tech sector. Facebook are up 4% to a new lifetime high after an upgrade from Citi and predictions of a new access deal in China, while Yahoo’s up 3% to a six-year high.

No rush for the Bank’s probing Paul Tucker

Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker has joined the chorus of policymakers and it would appear he is singing from the same hymn sheet on forward guidance, reports my colleague Katie Allen.

She’s swiftly digested Tucker’s lunchtime speech (see 1.57pm for the snaps), and explains that Tucker’s speech matches other pronouncements from BoE policymakers this week, all defending the Bank’s new approach.

Katie writes:

Fellow Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member David Miles said earlier today that he believed the Bank’s promise to keep interest rates low until the recovery is well entrenched could help nurture the nascent upturn.

On Monday, their colleague Ben Broadbent defended tying policy to the unemployment rate.
Tucker’s view is that forward guidance can be particularly useful during a period when the recovery is beginning to take hold. And he wants people to know the MPC is in no rush to take away its economic crutches.

According to the text of his speech to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME), he said:

Saying more about the committee’s approach to policy in this way might be particularly valuable during a period when signs of recovery have become more apparent. These are conditions in which it would be very easy for the financial markets, businesses and households to jump to the mistaken conclusion that monetary stimulus will soon begin to be withdrawn. Given the slack in the economy, the Committee is not in a rush.

On the question of the Bank’s credibility when it comes to keeping inflation in check, Tucker draws a contrast with the pre-independence era. He argues that it was precisely that credibility of the independent BoE’s commitment to keeping inflation in check that “enabled us to provide such exceptional monetary support to help the recovery.”

Tucker adds:

It is unimaginable that, prior to Bank independence in 1997, any government would have been able to hold the policy rate at effectively zero and make a further monetary injection of £375bn without inflationary expectations – and government financing costs – spiralling out of control.

Still, he does concede that just having a 2% inflation target – that keen UK data watchers will know has been missed for 45 successive months now – is not a license to endless money printing.

Tucker again:

Credibility is not to be taken for granted. Even we cannot provide stimulus without limit, without a wary eye to inflation expectations.

And there is a further note of caution on that long-standing puzzle for the Bank, productivity:

Tucker says:

Let’s be clear: we do not understand why productivity has been so weak. And that means that we are highly uncertain about the amount of slack in the economy currently and prospectively; uncertain about the extent of the consequent downward pressure on domestically-generated inflation; and, thus, uncertain about the path of output and employment consistent with non-inflationary growth.

And where does all that leave policymaking?

Tucker sums it up: “Provide stimulus; pause to see whether inflation expectations remain anchored; if, but only if, they are and more stimulus is needed, provide it etc. A ‘probing’ approach.”

Another resignation in Germany… this time at the Pirate Party, where leader Bernd Schlömer has reportedly told party members that he won’t run again.

Not a surprise, given the Pirates captured just 2.2% of votes.

Updated

Paul Tucker, the Bank of England’s outgoing deputy governor with responsibility for financial stability, is giving a speech on monetary policy in London.

We’ll have full details shortly. In the meantime, here’s the newswire snaps:

24-Sep-2013 13:45 – BANK OF ENGLAND’S TUCKER SAYS BOE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHY UK PRODUCTIVITY SO WEAK, TAKING “PROBING” APPROACH TO POLICY

24-Sep-201313:45 – BOE’S TUCKER – MPC APPROACH HAS BEEN TO PROVIDE STIMULUS; PAUSE TO SEE IF INFLATION EXPECTATIONS STAY ANCHORED; IF, THEY ARE AND MORE STIMULUS IS NEEDED, THEY PROVIDE IT

24-Sep-2013 13:45 – BOE’S TUCKER – IF RECOVERY DOES GAIN TRACTION, MPC WILL NEED TO AVOID MISPERCEPTIONS ABOUT LIKELY COURSE OF POLICY

24-Sep-2013 13:45 – BOE’S TUCKER – BY ADOPTING A PROBING APPROACH MPC CAN PROVIDE BROADLY THE RIGHT DEGREE OF STIMULUS WITHOUT DILUTING COMMITMENT TO PRICE STABILITY

24-Sep-2013 13:45 – BOE’S TUCKER – FORWARD GUIDANCE DOES NOT COMMIT MPC TO KEEPING POLICY LOOSE BEYOND THE POINT THAT WOULD BE PRUDENT

24-Sep-2013 13:45 – BOE’S TUCKER – AS DATA COMES IN, BOE UNEMPLOYMENT FORECASTS MORE LIKELY TO CHANGE THAN FORWARD GUIDANCE 

Speaking of Germany, finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has warned that Angela Merkel’s next government (once formed) will not change its approach to Europe’s economic problems.

Schäuble told the “Leipziger Volkszeitung” newspaper that Merkel will continue to push for rigorous budgetary discipline across the eurozone.

Appeals for countries to be allowed to relax their deficit targets and borrow more to stimulate growth will not be granted, insisted Schäuble, adding:

I’m also in favor of more growth and more jobs

But I believe that only through budget consolidation and accompanying structural reforms can you get there.

At this stage, though, it’s not clear whether Schäuble will remain as finance minister in the next administration. It all depends on the coalition talks….

More here.

The fallout from Germany’s election continues. Jürgen Trittin, co-leader of the Green Party, has announced that he won’t run for the leadership again.

Trittin added that he and co-leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt would continue to hold “exploratory talks” with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

From Athens, our correspondent Helena Smith reports that today’s protests were “quite raucous”.

Photos from the scene show the usual array of anti-Troika slogans, calling for an end to Greece’s austerity programme.

As expected, today’s 48-hour strike has hit many public services. Associated Press flags up, though, that some local services kept running. Here’s AP’s early take:

Greek civil servants walked off the job Tuesday at the start of a 48-hour public sector strike, the second in as many weeks, to protest job cuts required for the country to continue receiving international rescue loans.

State school, tax office and hospital workers joined the strike, while ambulances services were to run with a reduced staff. Journalists joined in with a three-hour work stoppage, pulling any non-strike related news of the air.

But participation appeared low, with many services remaining open in central Athens, including post offices and some schools and tax offices.

Thousands of people marched peacefully, chanting anti-austerity slogans through the center of the capital and in the country’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki in the north.

Updated

Back in the markets, the Italian stock markets is the best performer this morning.

That’s after Spain’s Telefonica announced plans to take a bigger stake in Telecom Italia’s parent company.

Here’s the lunchtime prices:

David Madden, market analyst at IG, says traders are still pondering when the Federal Reserve might start to taper its bond-purchase scheme, and fretting about Germany.

He also flags up the comments from ECB senior policymakers today, and yesterday, about the possibility of another round of cheap loans for euro-area banks (see 11.07am for details)

The Federal Reserve is trying to keep investors in the dark as to what its next move will be. The decision to keep the bond-buying programme unchanged at $85 billion per month pushed equities higher, but speculation is mounting about what the next meeting will bring. As always, the Fed members are divided: James Bullard is hinting at tapering, while William Dudley isn’t convinced the US economy is strong enough yet.
Just as the Fed is looking to ease up on its stimulus package, the ECB stated it is on standby to pump cash into the banking system if required. Traders are becoming too dependent on stimulus packages, but they can provide a boost to equities in the short term.
Mineral extractors have lost the most ground today, due to softer commodity prices. Meanwhile, European equity traders are sitting on their hands while Angela Merkel puts together a new coalition government.

Back in Greece, one demonstrator is carrying a flag with a German slogan on it — clearly looking for an overseas audience (see below – it’s the blue banner in the background) .

It reads “Nein zu Spardiktaten und Nationalismus” or “no to austerity diktats and nationalism”

Here’s the full details of the OECD’s warning about the eurozone, from Reuters:

 The European common currency area remains “a considerable source of risk” even though the systemic risk from its debt crisis is scaling back, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s chief economist said on Tuesday.

The OECD’s Pier Carlo Padoan told a conference in Lisbon positive economic growth in the euro zone should return only in 2014, expecting growth to be still negative this year despite a recovery in many countries, including Portugal.

He said that while pursuing structural fiscal consolidation in 2014, euro zone countries should allow automatic stabilisers to work and focus on fighting high unemployment rates.

OECD chief: global economy is slowly recovering

Some quotes from the OECD’s chief economist, Pier Carlo Padoan, just flashed up on the Reuters screen.

He’s warning that the eurozone economy is still poses significant risks to the global economy, but also sees signs of recovery:.

11:15 – OECD CHIEF ECONOMIST SAYS GLOBAL ECONOMY SLOWLY EXITING RECESSION, BUT FAR FROM SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

11:16 – OECD CHIEF ECONOMIST SAYS EURO AREA “STILL REMAINS CONSIDERABLE SOURCE OF RISK” 24-Sep-2013

11:20 – OECD CHIEF ECONOMIST SEES EURO AREA ENTERING POSITIVE GROWTH IN 2014, 2013 STILL SEEN NEGATIVE 

11:22 – OECD CHIEF ECONOMIST SAYS GROWTH IS COMING BACK FOR MANY COUNTRIES INCLUDING PORTUGAL 

Greek photojournalist Nikolas Georgiou is tweeting some photos from today’s protests. Here’s a couple:

The European Central Bank could help the eurozone banking sector with a third injection of ultra-cheap loans, ECB governing council member Ewald Nowotny said this morning.

Speaking in Venice, Nowotny (who’s also the head of Austria’s central bank) said it was too early to consider stopping the ECB’s ‘non-standard’ stimulus measures.

Asked about the prospects of another Long Term Refinancing Operation (in which the ECB would offer huge quantities of low-priced loans to banks), Nowotny replied:

It is certainly important to show all that we have in the way of instruments, which are flexible.

The ECB offered almost a trillion euros to eurozone banks in two LTROs, at the end of 2011 and in early 2012. Yesterday, ECB president Mario Draghi told MEPs that a third LTRO was a possibility, if conditions required it.

Updated

Greek public sector workers have marched towards the country’s parliament in Athens, at the start the 48-hour strike that began this morning. Syntagma metro station has been temporarily closed.

The public sector ADEDY union has declared, as it’s said so many times before, that the protest is an attempt to push the government to change course.

We call on the workers … the self-employed, the unemployed, the pensioners, the youth and everyone affected by these policies to give their resounding presence.

But the Greek government is more worried about the Troika’s visit this week. There are murmurs from Athens that the debt inspectors are pushing for progress on privatisations, where Greece is already facing a €1bn shortfall this year.

Kathimerini explains:

During a meeting at TAIPED’s headquarters, the mission chiefs of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund called for more action so that this year’s revenue shortfall, amounting to 1 billion euros, can be covered in 2014.

At the troika’s focus were the privatizations of ports, water and sewage companies, and Hellenic Post. According to plans drawn up in January, these sell-off projects should have started in the second quarter of the year, while the aim now is for them to get started in the last quarter, given that the third will be over in a week’s time.

Another reason for optimism about this morning’s IFO survey — it’s the best reading of German business confidence since April 2012.

Here’s AP’s take:

A closely watched index of German business optimism rose for the fifth month in a row in September, reflecting the improved prospects for Europe’s largest economy.

The IFO institute’s index edged up to 107.7 points from 107.6 in August. Market analysts had expected it to rise slightly more, to 108.0

The index is based on a survey of 7,000 companies about how they think the situation is now, and how they see things going in the coming months. It’s a leading indicator, meaning it suggests where the economy is going in the months ahead.

Germany’s economy expanded 0.7% in the second quarter, helping the 17-country euro currency union return to growth after six quarters of shrinking output.

Reminder — there’s analyst reaction here.

Updated

UK mortgage approvals at highest since December 2009

Just in: UK mortgage approvals have hit their highest level since December 2009, in another sign of a revival (some would say a boom) in Britain’s housing market.

A total of 38,228 loans were approved in August, up from 37,428 in July. That’s nearly a 26% jump on a year ago, according to the British Bankers Association.

Last week, chancellor George Osborne insisted that Britain isn’t gripped by a housing boom. But clearly the market has been revived by signs of economic recovery, and by Osborne’s Help To Buy scheme.

Prices are particularly rampant in the UK capital. As the FT’s Alphaville site points out, the average house price increase over the last 12 months (£38,729) is bigger than the average net income of a London household (£38,688).

Houses beating households, London edition

Those income figures include people who can’t afford to get on the housing ladder, of course:

Updated

IFO: What the experts say

Here’s that reaction to the news that Germany’s IFO business conditions index rose this month, if only marginally (see last post).

Analysts broadly agree that Germany is on the road to recovery, particularly as firms are more optimistic about future prospects.

However, there’s also a little bit of concern that the current conditions index fell (from 112 to 111.4), showing that firms are finding life a little harder.

I’ve taken the quotes off the Reuters terminal:

Thomas Gitzel, VP Bank:

“The somewhat worse conditions index reading is offset by the improved expectations index. Everything is pointing to a faster pace of growth for Germany in the coming months. But what is especially pleasing is that the improved indicators in Germany are based on a more positive international climate. These include improved prospects for the stricken euro zone countries, the recovery in the U.S. economy and the brightening situation in China.”"This leads us to conclude that the current upward movement can be seen sustainable.”

Ralf Umlauf, Helaba:

This is good news. The German economy is gaining speed and growth in the third quarter should again be robust. It’s a little disappointing that the rise in the business climate is only due to higher expectations. The European Cental Bank is likely to feel confirmed in its wait-and-see stance. On the political side, it’s now important to form a government able to act in order to prevent potential strain on the mood from a cliffhanger.

Christine Volk, KfW

German growth is on course for recovery, with business expectations brightening. Europe, as Germany’s most important export market, is beginning to stabilise after a very long lean period and Germany is benefiting from that. Growth in 2014 could even reach 2 percent.

We are less optimistic about Europe. There is a lack of growth stimulus and the debt sustainability of some countries is still in doubt. Here there is potential for disappointment.

Ben May, Capital Economics

The further rise in German Ifo business sentiment confirms that the economy is recovering, but we continue to expect growth to be reasonably sluggish. The rise in the headline business climate indicator was a touch smaller than the consensus forecast, but it left the index at its highest level since April 2012.

Updated

German business climate improves, but misses forecasts

German firms have reported that the business climate improved slightly in September, but they’re not as upbeat about the situation today as economists had expected.

That’s the top line from the monthly IFO survey, which was released a few minutes ago.

The IFO German Business Climate index came in at 107.7 in September – up from 107.6 in August, but lower than the 108.2 which the City had expected.

The Current Conditions index missed expectations, at 111.4 versus a consensus of 112.5. That’s also a fall compared with August’s reading of 112.0.

And IFO’s Future Expectations index came in at 104.2, just above the 104.0 that was pencilled in.

So, a mixed picture in Europe’s largest economy.

A year ago, the IFO business climate index was just 101.4 — so today’s 107.7 does show how the situation’s improved now Germany has left recession. But the fact firms aren’t as confident about current conditions as expected may show that growth this quarter will be a little weaker than hoped (although still quite robust)

Reaction to follow….

Updated

The most interesting corporate story this morning involves Spain’s Telefonica and Telecom Italia, whose shares jumped 4% in early trading.

Last night, Telefonica announced that it would raise its stake in Telecom Italia’s parent company, Telco, to 66%, and then eventually to 70%. It’s a complicated deal (see here) , but the upshot is that Telefonica will have a rather tighter grip on its Italian rival.

And as mrwicket flags up in the comments, the Italian press see it as a Spanish takeover:

Morning all.

The Italian papers are leading with ‘Telecom Italia becomes Spanish’. The deal was announced at midnight but seems a little more complicated than it appears.

At another midnight meeting, in a hotel in Palermo that used to be owned by the Graviano brothers, the Democratic Party decided to withdraw its support of its Governor of Sicily, Rosario Crocetta. Eleven months after the historic victory which ended the centre-right/mafia domination of the island, they pulled the plug.
Crocetta is openly (and genuinely) anti-mafia and a grass has said a boss has ordered his killing.

European stock markets have inched higher this morning, as traders await developments in Germany, or more clarity over when the Federal Reserve will start to slow its money-printing stimulus.

  • FTSE 100: up 12 points at 6569, +0.2%
  • German DAX: up 27 points at 8663, +0.3%
  • French CAC: up 18 points at 4190, +0.4%
  • Spanish IBEX: up 13 points at 9122, +0.14%
  • Italian FTSE MIB: up 48 points at 17962, +0.25%

Today’s public sector walkout in Greece is the second 48-hour strike in as many weeks.

It’s expected to hit schools and hospitals, and is timed to coincide with the Troika’s visit to Athens. As before, the unions are protesting about the government’s ‘mobility scheme’, part of the drive to cut thousands of public sector jobs.

The private sector GSEE union has called a four hour stoppage, from 11am local time (9am BST) – so it’ll be joining a protest rally in Athens.

While workers march through the streets, officials from the IMF, ECB and EU will be taking a close look at Greece’s budget for 2014. Greece’s Kathimerini newspaper reckons the Troika don’t share the Athens government’s optimism:

High-ranking Finance Ministry sources said that while the representatives of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund agree that Greece will produce a primary surplus at the end of the year, they think it will be minimal. The troika is also skeptical about Greek projections for a primary surplus of 1.5 percent of GDP at the end of next year.

It is thought that one of the reasons Greece’s lenders are downplaying the possibility of Athens producing a sizable surplus is that they are alarmed by the debate in Greece about how this amount will be allocated and whether social spending could be increased.

With regard to the 2014 budget, the troika still has doubts about the effectiveness, in terms of revenue raising, of the unified property tax. Next year will be the first time the levy, which combines several property taxes into one, is applied.

Jürgen Baetz, AP’s man in Brussels, agrees that an alliance between Angela Merkel and the Greens looks increasingly unlikely.

Merkel’s coalition struggle

Looking at the German newspapers, Der Speigel has an interesting article about how Angela Merkel will find it difficult to reach a deal with the Green party, the only plausible alternative to a Grand Coalition with the Social Democrats.

It explains that some of Merkel’s advisors would prefer a Black-Green alliance, rather than a Black-Red deal with the SPD. But Horst Seehofer, party chief, is strongly opposed to a deal [Here's Spiegel's piece (in German)].

Seehofer told reporters last night that:

I have not heard anyone today calling on me to talk to the Greens.

Which leaves the SPD. But they remain nervous of another alliance with Merkel, having been burned by their first partnership eight years ago. That led to them posting their worst election results since the second world war in 2009.

Having seen history repeat itself last weekend when the Free Democrats were given the order of the boot from the Bundestag, the SPD may not want to risk it again.

As Bloomberg puts it:

The SPD, the second-place finishers in the Sept. 22 vote, may be reluctant to try again, picking up what its chairman suggested yesterday was a poisoned chalice.

The SPD won’t stand in line or make an application after Merkel ruined her current coalition partner,” Sigmar Gabriel told reporters yesterday in Berlin.

Updated

Caution over German coalition talks

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the financial markets, the world economy, the eurozone and the business world.

Uncertainty abounds today, as Europe hunkers down to await progress on Germany’s coalition talks and Greece continues to told talks with its lenders in an atmosphere of tension and strife.

Ongoing confusion over the US Federal Reserve’s plans to slow its bond-buying stimulus programme (maybe next month? Maybe not until 2014?) are also casting a shadow over Europe, just when we’d hoped for some real clarity and progress.

As Michael Hewson of CMC Markets puts it:

If investors had been hoping that the latest Fed meeting and the result of the German elections would help bring much needed clarity to the uncertainty that has bedevilled markets for weeks now, the events of the last few days have soon dispelled that notion with the result that the current state of affairs is becoming quickly like the proverbial itch that you just can’t scratch.

This has inevitably meant that investors have become much less inclined to take on risk and has seen them start to once again err on the side of caution, pulling stocks down from recent all-time highs.

As we covered yesterday, the German coalition talks are going to be a long grind. Angela Merkel reached out to the Social Democrats yesterday, but their leadership group aren’t expected to meet until Friday.

This process could take several weeks, as the SPD is sure to drive as hard a bargain as it can in return for supporting Merkel’s CDU party

We’ll be watching for any developments in Germany through the day.

We’ll get another insight into the state of the German economy this morning, with the release of the monthly IFO survey. Due at 9am BST, it will show how confident businesses are about current conditions, and future prospects.

While in Greece, public sector unions have called another anti-austerity strike for today — with the usual protests in the streets of Athens.

There’s also a platoon of central bank officials holding speeches today — including no fewer than five members of the European Central Bank’s governing council. That’s Ewald Nowotny, Yves Mersch, Jorg Asmussen, Vitor Constancio and Benoit Coeure.

Two members of the Fed’s governing council are also due to speak later today – Sandra Pianalto and Ester George.

Updated

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