A round-up of the key stories across the specialist financial media, including how investment banks are lowering expectations and cutting costs in Asia, which has been a region crucial to in recent years
Big banks lower outlook for Asia
Bowing to increased competition and weaker markets, investment banks are lowering expectations and cutting costs in Asia, a region that has been a crucial source of growth for the industry in recent years.
Japanese stocks began their 2012 journey on a positive note Wednesday as investors got their first chance to react to an upbeat start to global markets, while Chinese stocks struggled to rise amid lingering concerns about tight liquidity.
The US Federal Reserve will start to publish forecasts of its own interest rates for years into the future, in a permanent shift in how the world’s most important central bank conducts monetary policy.
MF Global sold assets to Goldman before collapse: sources
MF Global unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of securities to Goldman Sachs in the days leading up to its collapse, according to two former MF Global employees with direct knowledge of the transactions. But it did not immediately receive payment from its clearing firm and lender, JPMorgan Chase & Co, one of the sources said.
Equity strategists see smaller S&P 500 gain in 2012
Forecasters at securities firms are more conservative on U.S. stocks than any time in seven years, predicting the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will rise 6.4 percent in 2012 as budget deficits around the world limit gains.
