A round-up of the key stories across the specialist financial media, including news that Wolfgang Schaeuble is confident that the boosted EFSF will help control the debt crisis, but that Spain needs to reform its labour market.
Euro aid compromise seen as political cover for Germany
German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that efforts to raise the euro-area’s financial backstop will succeed in tempering the debt crisis, as he urged Spain to press ahead with plans to reform its labour market.
Investment banks face the prospect of another disappointing year as companies put off dealmaking, depressing fees for the first quarter of 2012 to their lowest level for three years.
U.S. companies with junk credit ratings are piling into the debt markets at a record pace, seizing on some of the lowest borrowing costs in history and strong demand from investors craving higher returns.
China’s stocks advance, capping best quarterly gain in a year
China’s stocks rose, capping the benchmark index’s biggest quarterly gain in a year, on better- than-estimated earnings from banks and speculation the government will cut excess capacity to support companies.
Shares in Asia’s largest property developer fell by as much as 15 per cent on Friday after the arrests of Raymond and Thomas Kwok, its co-chairmen, in connection with a Hong Kong corruption investigation.
