News: 2014-02-10

Markets

Taper time-bomb hits US high-yield debt – FT.com 

“Late last week, Lipper, the mutual fund performance analysis service, said investors had pulled another $972m from the funds and ETFs betting on junk bonds in the week ending February 5, bringing total withdrawals so far this year to $1.4bn. Investors instead favoured funds investing in corporate bonds with higher credit quality and US Treasury securities.”

Junk Yield Premiums Soar on China’s Looming First Default – Bloomberg

Noahpinion: Does trend-chasing explain financial markets?

GoPro Files for IPO Confidentially

 

Europe

ekathimerini.com | Greece does not need third bailout, Samaras tells Bild

ekathimerini.com | Car sales up 18 pct in January compared to a year earlier

ekathimerini.com | Greek industrial production index up by 0.5 pct in December

Europe to review ties with Switzerland after immigration vote | Reuters

Germany’s constitutional court has strengthened the eurosceptics – FT.com

” If you read past the first 15 pages of procedural jargon, you find the court concludes that OMT violates the German constitution. It accuses the ECB of making a power grab by extending its own mandate. It says the scheme endangers the underpinnings of the eurozone rescue programmes. Worse, it says OMT undermined deep principles of democracy. Were it to be used, it would deprive the German parliament of its fiscal sovereignty by forcing it to accept any losses the scheme generated. The ruling considers OMT to be debt monetisation, whereby a central bank prints money to finance sovereign debt. It is hard to think of any act short of a military coup that could violate so many important constitutional principles all at once.”

Second Week With Italy’s on ECB Support

 

Japan

Ultranationalist Candidate Gets Strong Support in Tokyo Vote – Japan Real Time – WSJ

Japan’s December Current-Account Deficit Widens to Record – Bloomberg

Abe’s nationalism takes a worrying turn – FT.com

Japan Digs Out After Heavy Snow – Japan Real Time – WSJ

 

Emerging Markets

Emerging markets output growth slows to 4-month low in January: HSBC | Reuters

Coutts Says Emerging-Market Crisis ’Talk’ as Wealthy Buy – Bloomberg

Why Emerging Markets Should Look Within – NYTimes.com

Brazil’s government has set the favelas and middle classes against each other | Nicole Froio | Comment is free | theguardian.com

 

Technology

Yahoo to Partner With Yelp on Local Search – WSJ.com

How-to: Setup and Use Chromecast to stream your content from a Mac and iOS device

Quest Software Will Restate Results After Options Probe – WSJ.com

Why I Did Not Go To Jail – Ben’s Blog 

Lessons learned from a beverage spill on a MacBook Pro

Snowden Used Low-Cost Tool to Best N.S.A. – NYTimes.com

Thousands of Barclays customer files stolen and sold to scammers – report | Business | theguardian.com

Ezra Klein on His New Vox Media Venture — New York Magazine

Carl Icahn 2.0: an icon of ’80s greed is back to shake up Silicon Valley | The Verge

How 6 Months With Chromecast Changed Me – ReadWrite

HTTPS Everywhere for Firefox for Android Secures Your Mobile Browsing

 

Bitcoin

How the World’s Richest Nations Are Regulating Bitcoin

Protesters smash iPhones after Apple bans Bitcoin app – FT.com

Russian authorities say Bitcoin illegal | Reuters

Bitcoin fortfarande ickefråga i riksdagen – DN.SE

For the Swedish central bank, the use of bitcoin is still so small that it does not have any impact on financial stability or the payments system. So it has not been an issue for the central bank to make a statement on.

Kriminella köper droger med bitcoin

This Swedish paper shows that bitcoin was a fundamental part of at least six narcotics cases in Sweden last year.

Why Mt. Gox, the World’s First Bitcoin Exchange, is Dying

 

North America

How Economics PhDs Took Over the Federal Reserve

How When Harry Met Sally Explains Inequality – Business – The Atlantic

The Robots That Saved Pittsburgh – Glenn Thrush – POLITICO Magazine

Where Are All the Self-Employed Workers?

For Many Older Americans, an Entrepreneurial Path – NYTimes.com

Which middle class, which squeeze? – FT.com

The Debt Crisis in Puerto Rico: Why Is It Not More Newsworthy? | New Economic Perspectives

Canada Jobs Rebound Provides Decent Start to the Year – Canada Real Time – WSJ

 

Elsewhere

Memory is Not Like a Video Camera: Rather The Present Can Be Spliced into the Past — PsyBlog

What Should Austrian Macroeconomics Resemble? | askblog

finance news