Fiscalists vs market monetarists, a bloggy taxonomy: As Cardiff informs us that the "fiscalists vs market monetarists" is a breakout skirmish between rivalrous, unnatural allies whose common antagonists are in retreat. But on the post-crisis intellectual battlefield, they have mostly been on the same side - or at least stayed out of each other's way. It's a debate about the best way to accelerate the recovery and return to pre-crisis trend growth while interest rates are at the zero lower bound. Doubling down on the Nikkei: David picks up on Nomura's latest call which predicts the Nikkei has the potential to move towards 18,000 from it's current bear-wrought 12,500 or so. Good luck to them on that. Evaluating the EM sell-off: Could this time really be different? Izzy wonders to what degree the EM bond-market sell-off may be down to an incorrect interpretation of the Fed's tapering signal. In that sense, is this just another widow maker in the making? RBS shares tumble as Hester heads for exit: Investors were responding to the imminent departure of the state-controlled bank's chief executive, Stephen Hester, and a fresh bout of restructuring and job losses at its investment banking arm. Shares in RBS were down 6 per cent at 305.3p in morning trading, having fallen as much as 8 per cent at one stage. Record crops to push grain prices lower, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday: Cereal prices shot up last year after the US, the world's leading exporter of agricultural commodities, suffered the worst drought in 50 years. Financial Times. Over in India, the world's second-largest grower, rice output is expected to climb to a record as early arrival of monsoon rains over the biggest growing regions spur planting, potentially boosting exports. Prada slides on slower quarterly profit growth: Prada, the Italian luxury-goods maker, fell the most in three weeks in Hong Kong trading after reporting first-quarter profit growth that decelerated to the slowest pace in at least a year. WTI falls as World Bank cuts outlook: West Texas Intermediate crude fell for the third time in four days as speculation that fuel demand would falter outweighed concern about the possible threat to supplies from Middle Eastern unrest. Markets: Japanese stocks fell into bear market territory and the yen rose to its strongest level against the US dollar since the Bank of Japan launched a huge package of measures to stimulate the economy.