FT Alphaville " Markets Live transcript 18 Jul 2012 Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:18 on 18 Jul 2012. Good morning everyone. Welcome to another Markets Live. FT Alphaville's ......... markets live thing. back again as Murph's stand in hugely amused by the standard diary item yesterday mentioning our little ramble about the FT checking out alternative HQs despite the fact the quotes appeared to be lifted from a transcript...the quotes were transposed... Note to Simon English: I'M BRYCE. well i guess glass houses and all...but it is quite something to be able to do that (I assume it's Simon English anyway. No blame line on diaries.) Also, while we're doing formalities ..... Thanks to Lisa for stepping in on yesterday's session. And yellow card to @Titleist3 for claiming it was a better session than usual. Ok. That's that done. Let's kick on. Flat flat flat flat flat. the markets that is..not how sharp you are attired that this morning but we have a lot to talk about as usual FTSE less than 2 points to the better at 5631. Credit Suisse capital raising, MPC, job rates, HSBC and of course Diamond Bob BOE minutes and bouncing copper pushed us as high at 5656 early on. sometimes working on the main news desk, it feels like i am working on a serial of crimes and misdeamors... There's definite overlap. the daily mill of scandals, punishment, inquriries and lynchings (in the case of G4S) my favourite film btw of woody allen - crimes and misdemeanors @Titleist: Lisa has a day job, and we cannot expect her to descend to our level each morning. sorry ..where should we start HSBC was kind of striking... The popular papers take their usual calm view of HSBC this morning. HSBC allowed "Mexican drug cartels to launder billions of dollars through its banks," reveals scathing report from US senators That's the Mail. And the splash puts it rather more punchilly. how does that work? a Mr Sinaola goes up to the counter and says i want to know your long-term deposit rates for $7bn? HSBC compliance boss quits in hearing By Shahien Nasiripour in Washington ©Bloomberg HSBC's chief compliance officer resigned from his post during a US Senate hearing following publication of a damning report alleging that Britain's biggest bank may have inadvertently allowed the laundering of Mexican drug money. There's an element of "you can use a telephone to plan a murder ... Ban telephones," going on here. (Which isn't to say that HSBC did no wrong. They were just lax.) amazing..i know HSBC is a bit more paternalistic in its employment practices than some banks, but the compliance head remains at the bank what do you have to do at HSBC to get fired completely? well there was a good line by Mike Trippitt on the financial implications Following the US Senate's condemnation of HSBC's Mexican anti-money laundering controls, it is not the potential fines which concern us. Rather, it is the risk that historic failures in the North America business reduce the regulator's inclination to allow re-deployment of capital from the US runoff business. Stranded capital in the North American business (28% of group RWAs) generating a sub-economic return will frustrate realisation of management's strategic ROE target (at least 12% by the end of 2013). you must think HSBC must wish John Bond had never met Felix Rohatyn and bet the bank on the US with Household or were the problems with the Republic bit That is one good thing Stuart Gulliver does seem to be doing as CEO - breaking down the federal structures of HSBC Ok - fair enough. We should note that shareholders are unfussed. HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBA:LSE): Last: 543.60, down 3.8 (-0.69%), High: 549.30, Low: 543.20, Volume: 7.03m Which is surprising for two reasons. First the uncertainty of litigation coming back to the fore But secondly this rather sparky comment from Michael Helsby Merrill Lynch bank scribbler Who has a reputation of sorts of an HSBC watcher, having called their rights issue correctly. (Then he changed his mind. But still.) As we set out in our recent report 9 reasons we are bears of HSBC, we think consensus is c. 10% too high and whilst we believe management is doing a good job, revenue headwinds mean that its efforts to move toward targets could begin to look increasingly ambitious. With HSBC now a delivery stock, we think risk of disappointment is running high. We reiterate our Underperform rating and preference for StanChart (XTSDF; INR100.75; B-1-7), which has a superior capital position, is a purer play on emerging markets, has less execution risk and is cheaper on a P/E, in our view. We forecast U/L PBT of US$12.1bn in 1H12. This excludes a negative FVOD of US$2.6bn and gains on sale of US branches and cards of US$3.7bn and compares to company collected consensus on the same basis of US$12.7bn. For more details on our estimates see Table 1. 2Q12 could have seen some sizable headwinds The first quarter at HSBC is typically strong. This was the case in 1Q12, as HSBC benefited from a strong bounce in GBM revenues, gilt gains, positive movements in non qualifying hedges (as bond yields increased) and the usual positive seasonality from HFC bad debts. Bad debts in Europe and HK were also running well below what is normally expected, in our view. With markets turning negative in 2Q12, we estimate GBM activity should have fallen and balance sheet management revenue should be a lot lower. With bond yields now below FY11 levels we believe a reversal of the NQH positive moves in 1Q should be expected and more. Given US seasonality, low levels of 1Q12 bad debts in Europe and comments from StanChart that bad debt was up in Asia, we think impairments could also be a headwind. FX has also been a particular feature in 2Q, with big movements in the Real and Rupee. With the outlook for 2H12e looking increasingly uncertain we think consensus forecasts look at risk and we reiterate our Underperform rating. So - consensus ~10% too high. FVOD? that is a new one on me in broker jargon why don't they write english The acronym soup is tremendously annoying, I agree. anyway while Mr Helsby is bit more bearish on the numbers, isn't that the consensus on HSBC - management doing reasonably well but big legal legacy to deal with Yeah - it's a big beast that'll take a long time to turn around, but (it seems) is being turned around. ... Providing there's not something from left field, such as massive spike in Chinese non-performing loans. a lot of the structures of HSBC badly needed an overhaul..some of it had not really changed since colonial times..with country managers running their own patch pretty independently anyway should we move on... Credit Suisse..the story of the day really? Brady must certainly hope it takes the question of the strength of capitalisation off the table the market has responded positive to that.... Up 5.3% at pixel time. XYzed..extremely interesting point on CS...how is it generous? (@urgeview: ha! Hahaha! A-ha hahah ha hahahaha HA!) so the shares are still down from the level before the Swiss National Bank said the banks had to raise capital and down 37 per cent in a year have you seen any reaction yet Bryce? Sure - though it mostly states the obvious. Here's Credit Agricole. First take: CS pre-announced its Q2-11 results reporting a CHF1.1bn pre-tax profit for the quarter, roughly CHF100m ahead of the latest co gathered consensus, driven by better IB and WM. In addition CS announced that it reached its CHF2bn run rate cost savings and is targeting an additional CHF1bn in cost savings by YE2013. On the capital side CS has announced measures that will improve capital by CHF8.7bn - the main elements being a CHF3.8bn Mandatory Convertible and a CHF1.7bn exchange of Hybrids into CoCos - the Mandatory Convertible is fully underwritten by strategic investors (conversion price CH16.29) and half is open to existing investors (but also underwritten). Total dilution will therefore be 18pct of 8pct if existing shareholders participate. Additional capital measures including disposals should add CHF6.6bn to capital by year end. Management confirms its 15pct ROE target with additional cost savings expected to offset the impact of higher capital. The co expects to move beyond a 10pct CET1 Ratio in 2013 and is committed to returning excess capital beyond this level. Measures should reassure markets on capital levels and dilution should be limited and partially offset by additional cost measures. Positive. In total, Credit Suisse has announced CHF 9.4 bn of additional Basel III common equity capital and a further CHF 4.0 bn increase in other Tier 1 capital. The actions are about 20% dilutive to share count. As a result of the actions, today Credit Suisse has a fully phased in Basel III common equity tier 1 ratio of 6.3% with the figure increasing to 8.6% by year end (versus our previous forecast of 7.0%). As a result, by year end, we think Credit Suisse's capital ratios will be in the range of peers. Credit Suisse reported underlying pre-tax profit of CHF 1,287mn as compared to consensus forecasts of CHF 1,138mn. On a divisional basis, both wealth management and investment banking are roughly 5% better than expected with asset management missing forecasts. Perhaps more importantly, while the segment has been restated, making analysis difficult, it appears that in wealth management both net new money (CHF 5.5 bn) and gross margin (115 bps) look OK. As a reminder, this was an area of disappointment in Q1. ... Assuming ~20% share dilution, Credit Suisse is trading slightly below tangible book value and on 6-7x earnings. We find the shares attractive on both valuation metrics and reiterate our Buy. thank you XYZed..that is not exactly a vanilla structure Not been following this closely, I admit, but market looks to have been braced/prepared/softened up for the dilution. yes...a bit of relief factor after the past month does this mean UBS follows suit ... Possible. Though it's fair to say that we can now start the game of "who's next." slowly we seem to be moving up to 9 per cent base level for bank for capital adequacy...that is what Enria of the European Banking Authority was signalling the other day if you have not seen it Sebastian Mallaby was very good this morning on why banks really hate raising equity capital vs debt Ah - thanks for that. I'm also going to note that, across the sector, earnings remain in the wrong direction. Cheers. Meanwhile, I had a vague impression that bank earnings had stabilised. But it seems not. At least according to Natixis. Since the start of the year, the 12e EPS for the Stoxx Banks have been adjusted by -15%. Growing concerns on the economic momentum in the euro zone (chart 1), the US and China suggest that risk of downward revision to 12 EPS, notably via the rise in the cost of risk, remains high. In this context, we still prefer stocks generating a sound level of GOP, which should allow them, if need be, to better absorb the rise in the cost of risk. Reading the GOP/provisions ratio (table 1), we confirm our Buy stance on BNPP, UBS, KBC, ISP and SG. Against a backdrop of concerns as to the resolution of the sovereign debt crisis in struggling countries in the euro zone, the IMF confirms its expectations of a recession of 0.3% in 2012 and has cut its growth forecasts in 2013e by 0.2% (+0,7%). This adjustment arrives at a time when lead economic indicators have been in the doldrums for some months, and following the announcement on 4 July by the IFO, INSEE and ISTAT that they expect a recession in the euro zone in Q2 and Q3 12. Given a correlation of 59% (see chart 2) between loan loss provisions and changes in economic growth, we believe the continued downward revision in 2012e EPS of the Stoxx Banks index is likely to be mainly driven by the deterioration in the quality of assets, in particular in distressed countries (Italy, Spain, Greece) but also in France (banks are reporting a slow rise in the cost of risk). Not the ideal environment to raise capital via tricksy structures. well the banks had better hope that earnings have stabilised i was struck by this factoid in Goldman's earnings yesterday Return on equity - an important gauge of the bank's profitability for investors - has fallen to 5.4 per cent from an average of about 27 per cent between 2004 and 2007. 5.4 per cent ROE...that is terrible really... Sums up where IBs are. Ok - midsession already. We'll come back to the BOE. But first, some movers I think. Homeserve PLC (HSV:LSE): Last: 192.10, up 25.1 (+15.03%), High: 195.80, Low: 173.20, Volume: 2.09m is this the company with the mixed track record in sales practices as it were We can use the word "misselling." They do. Telegraph reports the following. Homeserve knocks back private equity approach The embattled company at the centre of a mis-selling scandal is understood to have been approached by buy out groups Cinven, KKR and Apax. Over the last two months, Homeserve's shareprice has halved in price after admitting it was being investigated by the Financial Services authority over allegations of potential mis-selling. Which has triggered a rather absurd statement from the company. Homeserve Plc Statement re Press Statement Statement re press statement ............ The Board of HomeServe plc ("HomeServe" or the "Company") notes the recent press reports. HomeServe wishes to clarify that it has not, nor is currently, engaged in any discussions which could lead to a possible offer for the Company. but the shares are still up Well, it has not engaged in discussions. Telegraph didn't say it had. In fact, Telegraph said it hadn't engaged. That was the point of the story. So, it's not a denial at all. If anything, it's a confirmation. you have to question whether it is worth trickery and semantics to avoid saying what is really going on anyway a private equity group owning a group with a Miss-selling track record..what could possibly go wrong But it's cheap. Whether it's cheap for a reason is open to question. We continue to view HomeServe's international growth opportunity, supported by its low capital intensive model with a high recurring income base to present an attractive business model. However, the FSA investigation brings HomeServe further material risk of reputational damage and a lengthier than expected review process. While an FSA review also presents an opportunity for regulatory resolution, until that outcome looks certain we continue to view the risk profile as high. Our 210p fair value is materially above the current volatile share price, but there remains a wide range of possible regulatory outcomes hence we expect the shares to continue trade below the perceived inherent value of the business, particularly now that we know management are not willing to entertain any opportunistic approach for the Company. The shares trade on a cal. We retain a Neutral rating. I have to issue a clarification. Sources close to Simon English at the Evening Standard deny any involvement with yesterday's diary. Sources close are pointing the finger rather ungallantly at Gideon Spanier. never mind..again people in glass houses MPC and the jobs data shall we Decision to boost QE not unanimous By Sarah O'Connor, Economics Reporter The Bank of England's interest rate setting committee was not unanimous this month in its decision to restart the printing presses, minutes of the meeting show, with two members voting against another round of quantitative easing. Talking about a rate cut is interesting. well the consensus view is that minutes were dovish here is Vicky Redwood of Capital Economics Although not all members voted for more QE at this month's UK MPC meeting, the minutes just released still have a pretty dovish tone. Spencer Dale and Ben Broadbent voted against the increase in asset purchases, which they thought was unnecessary given the other measures recently taken to reduce bank funding costs. But the other members thought that the case for doing more was "compelling" and even discussed doing £75bn more QE (rather than the £50bn actually decided on). What's more, members signaled that a rate cut was still possible further ahead, although only after the effects of the funding for lending scheme become apparent. With inflation likely to fall much further than the MPC expects, we still think that QE is likely to be extended further before the end of the year. Meanwhile, the labour market data continue to paint a mixed picture. Employment is still rising surprisingly strongly given the recent return to recession. But claimant count unemployment rose again in June, while pay growth remained very weak. People telling me the market's priced in a circa 60% chance of a 25bp rate cut before November As in, when QE's finished. even despite the strong job data this morning And the minutes suggest a rather slower approach to whether QE has worked or not. Surprised if this is being read positively, frankly. What was the unemployment reading? thelympics boost for UK jobs market By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor Unemployment in the UK fell by 65,000 to 2.58m in the three months to May, amid indications that the drop may have been driven in part by the creation of jobs linked to the Olympics. It was the fourth month in succession in which unemployment has fallen - a phenomenon that has puzzled analysts when the economy is supposedly in a double-dip recession, though it is a lagging indicator and many believe it will eventually start rising again. t The unemployment rate was 8.1 per cent of the workforce, down 0.1 percentage points on the February-April period. "Thelympics" ... I might call it from that now on. G4S must be accounting for some of that increase in jobs... Was at a broker lunch yesterday. Every single person round the table, covering every single sector, said: "Olympics? Could be good, could be a disaster. Just dunno. Anyway, that's an aside. Here's HSBC to sum up the minutes for us. There was little guidance on other forms monetary easing might take, should they run out of conventional gilts to buy. For now it seems that the MPC is pinning its hopes on the FLS and the latest round of QE to raise aggregate demand. But the minutes did note the possibility of a Bank Rate cut, which they discussed and rejected at their previous meeting in June. They thought the arguments had not changed this month, although they would revisit potential effectiveness once the impact of the FLS was clearer. This, and last month's comments by the Governor and David Miles, still leads us to think that the MPC will be reluctant to cut rates except as a last resort. We think Bank Rate will stay at 0.5%. Regarding further QE, the tone was very much one of waiting and seeing the impact of policy measures that are already in the pipeline. This could take time. So we think today's minutes add support to our view of no further gilt purchases this year. and here is Howard Archer from Global Insight on the jobs data - i believe it is de riguer to quote him on such things here The big question is can the labour market remain resilient given the economy's ongoing weakness and the current very worrying and uncertain outlook? Indeed, we suspect that unemployment is headed higher later this year and in the early months of 2013 as a consequence of extended soft economic activity, heightened business caution, and public-sector jobs being pared substantially. Unless the economy starts showing sustained decent improvement, pressure will increase on firms to release some of the workers that they have been holding on to. Reinforcing concern over the labour market outlook, the June survey from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG showed that the number of permanent placements fell at its sharpest rate for nearly three years. It also showed that overall vacancies increased at the slowest rate for five months. We suspect that the number of unemployed on the ILO measure will reach 2.82 million by mid-2013 which would see the unemployment rate reach 8.8%. Labour market resilience is clearly being supported by ongoing very low earnings growth. Indeed, headline earnings growth was limited to just 1.7% in May, thereby maintaining a squeeze on consumers" purchasing power given that consumer price inflation was 2.8% that month. At least with consumer price inflation dipping to 2.4% in June, the squeeze on consumers is easing. Chris Giles, our economics editor, tweeted an interesting chart on the job growth..showing sharp it is...quite dramatic does make you wonder about when the correction will come Ok - since it's about the only comment we've had today. SuperGroup PLC (SGP:LSE): Last: 472.25, up 60.25 (+14.62%), High: 473.75, Low: 410.50, Volume: 409.22k Nearly back to the flotation price. What can we say. We can say that there's very little free float and there was a huge short position betting on the last numbers being a profit warning. re the comments on the right on an Indian jv, as a former Mumbai correspondent, anyone has high hopes for a quick return from the indian retailing sector as a foreign company, is more than a little optimistic Yeah, yeah. Indian JV. Blah blah. Good luck. So there's 13% of SGP's free float out on loan, which is about two-thirds of the stock available to borrow. That's down from about 75% at the day of the non-profit-warning numbers. If you're looking for a reason for the rally, that's probably it. Dull, I know, but sometimes dull reasons are the obvious ones. Oh - speaking of smallcap retail. Is Kate Bostock about to join? I bow to Singer Capital Markets for this observation. ASOS - Robert Bready (Product Director) sold 143,125 shares yesterday leaving him with 788,604 shares under the incentive scheme, half of which vest in Sept"12. The sale raised £2.6m gross proceeds. This sparked further speculation that Kate Bostock, who has left M&S, might move to ASOS thereby creating duplication with Bready. Bostock could help the group lift the profile and scale of ASOS own label at a time when it is clearly of strategic importance to the international drive. ASOS responded in trade press by saying that Bready isnt leaving and remains heavily incentivised. In a revealing statement the CEO did say however that they are considering creating a new Retail Director role for someone with "considerable pedigree" who Bready would report to. This still leaves the door open for a major hire, e.g. Bostock. do you want some macro stuff....Andrew Garthwaite of CS cutting forecasts for the S&P? Garthwaite always worth reading. We marginally reduce our end-2012 S&P 500 target from 1,440 to 1,425. While tail risks remain high (Euro, US fiscal cliff), we stay overweight equities: Macro surprises are close to their typical trough points - and in the past as they have troughed so have economic momentum and equity markets. Global excess liquidity is rising by 5.5% year-on-year (consistent with a 20% re-rating). Markets have tended to peak six weeks after the end of QE. Valuations: we revamp our ERP to adjust for the fact that margins are at all-time peak levels. The adjusted ERP is 6.6% on our earnings estimates, above our warranted ERP (based on ISM/credit spreads) of 6%. The P/E on global trend earnings is 12.6x (close to the bottom end of its range). Many factors suggest the ERP should be lower: corporate balance sheets remain much healthier than those of governments; inflation expectations have remained high (and have a higher correlation with equity valuations than earnings revisions); and realised volatility of equities is close to the pre-2008 average (and it seems to have peaked relative to that of bonds). Positioning remains cautious, despite surveys highlighting client optimism on equities as an asset class in the longer term. What are the risks? Our 2013E US EPS forecast of $106 is 9% below consensus (12% below in Europe; we take our 2012E US EPS forecast down $1 to $99.6). Consensus EPS revisions are falling sharply, but when earnings revisions have been this bad, markets have rallied two thirds of the time. Macro: global lead indicators are consistent with 2.7% global GDP growth (versus Credit Suisse 3.2%, IMF 3.5%), but we think they might be close to a trough. Europe: the probability of a Euro-area break-up over the next 12 months remains 10%-over the summer, news flow should not disappoint already low expectations; China: but a growth slowdown to c6.5-7% is manageable, in our view; worries about the US fiscal cliff could postpone US capex to Q1 13 from Q4 12, but we doubt that actual 2013 fiscal tightening will be more than 1.5% of GDP, only slightly more than that in 2012. The US economy appears to be on a better underlying footing; and Other investment opportunities: emerging market debt and US investment grade corporate debt. Andrew's colleague M.Rana also has downgraded some forecasts for europe Our economists recently revised down Euro area growth forecasts. We now expect growth of -0.5% (previously -0.1%) in 2012 and 0.5% (previously 1.5%) in 2013. We expect Euro area GDP growth to be much weaker in the second half of 2012 (-0.75%) compared to the first half (-0.35%). With such lackluster expectations, we are struck that bottom up consensus estimates still incorporate some reasonably robust revenue growth numbers in the second half of this year, and 2013 in general. Consensus EPS growth for the Euro area is still 2.2% for 2012 and 11.8% for 2013 compared to top-down expectations from our strategy team of -1.0% and 2.0% respectively. Consensus numbers for 2012 have come down to an extent, but clearly remain stubbornly high for 2013 Hence, we conduct a stress test scenario for cyclical sectors. (1) We have asked our analysts to reassess earnings in a world where sales growth for H2 2012 is half their current estimates, and (2) to then re-run it with sales growth that is flat into 2013. We compare the resultant PE multiples under this earnings scenario to the average multiples of the last 10 years and previous trough multiples. Under this scenario analysis, we find sectors most exposed to potential earnings downgrades and de-rating are airlines, chemicals and steels. Sectors that look most insulated from negative earnings revisions are capital goods, oil services and media. Stocks that appear most at risk from earnings downgrades and that show valuation vulnerability under this scenario include Peugeot, Autoliv, Scania, Croda, Heidelberg and Clariant. Stocks that look most insulated from negative earnings revisions include LVMH, Michelin, Solvay, Swatch and Vinci Ta for that. If nothing else, it'll give @TommyTenToes something to tell his clients. Ih, haven't mentioned Reed Elsevier quickly. Leading us lower right now. Reed Elsevier PLC (REL:LSE): Last: 521.50, down 11.5 (-2.16%), High: 536.00, Low: 521.00, Volume: 1.97m EU plan for research to hit publishers By James Fontanella-Khan in Brussels The European Union, which controls one of the world's largest science budgets, said on Tuesday it would give free access to all research funded by European taxpayers, in a move that could hit the profits of scientific publishers such as Reed Elsevier, Wiley and Springer. Plans by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to release for free and to a wider audience articles usually held by expensive academic journals would benefit innovation, but would force publishers, which currently generate about $8bn in revenues, to revolutionise their business models, analysts said. we should note Reed is a competitor of Pearson A competitor of sorts, yes. didn't this follow a UK move...so how new is it? It's not, particularly. And, much like the UK proposals, it's rather unthreatening. Quite surprised at the REL price, actually. Here's Exane with a summary. the real story is probably in the footnotes Yesterday, the EU Commission published its Open Access policy for the 2014-2020 period The EU Commission has expanded an Open Access (OA) pilot initiated in 2007 from 20% to 100% of its c.EUR12bn annual funding for public research under Horizon 2020. From 2014 onwards, grant holders will be asked to publish their articles in a Gold Open Access format or, alternatively, to deposit their articles in an OA repository after an embargo period of six months for hard sciences and 12 months for social sciences. No impact from this policy on STM journal publishers" revenues in the next five-ten years In our view, this policy is unlikely to have any impact on STM publishers" revenues in the next ten years. The EU is a small player in global research funding - it funds an estimated 8% of all public research spending in the EU27, or less than 3% of global scientific literature. We estimate that its funds lead to the publication of around 70,000 articles annually out of more than 1.5m globally. In addition, we note that the pilot project covering 20% of the EU research budget did not have any impact over the last five years. The new policy will apply to grants awarded from 2014 onwards (and hence on articles published from 2016 onwards) and reach 100% compliance only in 2020. The current compliance ratio on older mandates (NIH, Wellcome) is below 60% as scientists do not see it as their role to self-archive their articles. Finally, while gold OA fees (paid by authors) are eligible for reimbursement by the EU, we believe that - like in the UK - the absence of dedicated funding for OA fees is likely to slow down the take-up of that scheme. These developments are in line with our DCF assumption, which sees OA dominating in 2022 and having no impact before. Even in an OA-dominated world, publishers would continue to generate profit on the value they add to scholarly communications (managing the peer review process and article formatting). In an unlikely worst-case scenario, where the OA pricing pressure is not offset by volumes - Elsevier currently monetizes only one-third of the articles it receives as two-thirds are not accepted for publication - we estimate the market is missing at least 50p per share of value for journal assets. We remain Outperform ahead of likely solid H1 12 results due on 26 July. BBB+ absolutely agree Of course, Reed has bigger problems. Which could be solved by flogging its legal business to ... say .... i thought they were buying the FT according to the standard story actually we have no idea about that...Pearson not a seller Well, the Borg are building opposite Walbrook. And the FT's considering the future of its Southwark offices, as we know. We could end up across the street from Bloomberg. Wouldn't that be nice? Anyway, as to Reed. Obvious break-up candidate. Doubt it'll happen without management change. So we're waiting for management change. I wonder how long we'll have to wait? Q2 net income of $2.5bn. just thinking back...wonder if should have talked a little more about Merv it is really striking the differences between Bernanke and Merv on Libor - when the problems arose and when concerns were raised Merv and Paul Tucker are under lot of pressure on this... and it is not as though Merv has a great record to fall back on... how many banks fell over on his watch? how long has inflation been higher than target under his watch? how long does he have to go in his tenure at the bank? i guess with a new regulatory structure to be bedded down, there is unlikely to be an sudden changes before July next year but not a great way to go out in the last 12 months... anyway enough rambling... I'll tell Merv you're displeased next time I run into him in Holland Park. Should we wind up now? so you picnic with central bankers... No, I merely spy on them from the bushes. Really, it's a sight. He looks exactly like something from Kenneth Grahame. it is a sad world being a financial journalist anyway should we end on a fun note Lisa and Kate's hugely amusing post on an Diamond Bob op ed for the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs @Swedes: LOL-yellow. want to guess the topic? how much he loves barclays? the joys of little england? Getting along with regulators? It must be his deep and abiding love for Caja Canary Wharf, surely. Simplifying your accounts? nope..of course it was citizenship why it is a good thing but some selected quotes anks will be judged by their actions. and then Lisa and Kate's paragraph for balance Well I for one wish to salute Capt'n Bob's courage, strength and indefatigability. And on that note, let's close. Thanks all for your comments today. yes..thanks for having me again... and thanks to those on the right i will be in tomorrow again... Thanks again Tony. Same time Thursday, hopefully with a bit more stocks news. This entry was posted by support on Wednesday, July 18th, 2012 at 11:00 and is filed under Uncategorized.