Wednesday Papers: Solid start to US earnings season trumps China worries - other news

Financial Times

* The FTSE All-Word equity index was up 1.5 per cent; Wall Street’s S&P 500 was up 1.5 per cent; the FTSE Asia-Pacific index lost 0.3 per cent, with Shanghai declining 1.6 per cent; Hong Kong fell 0.2 per cent; the Nikkei 225 finished down 0.1 per cent.

* In a big shift in philosophy, the FSA will intervene directly to ensure that borrowers can afford their mortgages and sales incentives do not lead to mis-selling of financial products.

* The eurozone’s €440bn sovereign rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, will be operational by the end of the month and expects to be awarded a coveted triple A credit rating in August, its new head, Klaus Regling, has said.

* Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC, on Tuesday stressed the importance of international collaboration when reforming the financial services industry; he was speaking at the annual British Bankers’ Association conference.

* The coalition government on Tuesday pushed forward with its plans to impose a £2.5bn tax on bank balance sheets, publishing a consultation on how best to structure the tax.

* UniCredit has launched a new hybrid bond that will comply with the upcoming European Union regulations; the bond will allow for interest payments to be suspended and its value to be written down should the bank’s capital fall below pre-determined levels.

* European groups spend £800m on carbon credits.

* A former European commissioner on Tuesday accused Greece’s central bank of facilitating naked short selling by a decision last November to extend the settlement period for transactions on its electronic bond trading platform.

* Greece on Tuesday raised €1.62bn in six-month treasury bills.

* Democratic senators in the US are calling for an investigation into BP’s business interests in Libya, accusing the British oil company of being part of a deal to free a convicted terrorist in return for oil licences.

* US trade gap grew by 4.8 per cent to $42.3bn amid surge in imports from China.