Homeowners are borrowing against their properties at a rising rate.
Wall Street Journal
A rebound in house prices and near-record-low interest rates are prompting homeowners to borrow against their properties, marking the return of a practice that was all the rage before the financial crisis.
shared by @Convertbond, Calculated Risk, @ReformedBroker, @IvanTheK
 

Tranquil markets are enjoying too much of a good thing
Financial Times
Something peculiar is happening in western capital markets. This month almost every measure of volatility has tumbled to unusually low levels.
shared by Naked Capitalism, Marginal Revolution
 

Big investors replace banks in $4.2tn repo market
Financial Times
Big investors, including hedge funds, mutual funds and real estate trusts, are replacing banks as the biggest users of the overnight funding market that played a key role in the financial crisis.
shared by Naked Capitalism, @FGoria, @nasiripour, Reformed Broker, @Fullcarry, @IvanTheK
 

Mom and pop investors return to municipal bonds
Wall Street Journal
Municipal-bond prices have come roaring back, reversing last year’s rout despite enduring financial challenges facing U.S. cities and states.
shared by @cate_long, @munilass
 

Second Verse, Same as the First
The Reformed Broker
Okay can we be honest for a second? The similarities between now and the pre-crisis era are sickening at this point. There, I said it.
shared by Abnormal Returns, @cullenroche, @Pawelmorski, @SconsetCapital
 

Piketty: Addendum to Technical Appendix – Response to FT
ens.fr
shared by @charlesforelle, @mark_dow, @markgongloff, @foxjust
 

Capital in the 21st Century
Financial Times
Further debate on many of these items is difficult because Prof Piketty accepts he makes still undocumented adjustments to his data from his original sources, but says they are appropriate because any alternative would not be plausible. The sources he has appear to be secondary to Prof Piketty’s prior expectations of what the data needs to show.
shared by @tylercowen, @JustinWolfers, @TimHarford, reddit/Economics
 

Thomas Piketty Responds to Criticism of His Data
New York Times
The economist doesn’t give an inch on the methodology for his book on inequality.
shared by Marginal Revolution, @mattbish, reddit/Economics
 

Piketty, Chris Giles and wealth inequality: it’s all about the discontinuities
theguardian.com
A Financial Times piece criticising the data underlying Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, sparked off a heated debate. Economist Howard Reed argues that data discontinuities play a major role in the discrepancies.
shared by @Noahpinion, @paulmasonnews, Here Is The City, @D_Blanchflower
 

U.S. Said to Seek More Than $10 Billion Penalty From BNP
Bloomberg
BNP Paribas SA fell the most in 15 months in Paris trading after a person familiar with the matter said U.S. authorities are seeking more than $10 billion to settle federal and state investigations into dealings with sanctioned countries including Sudan and Iran.
shared by Business Insider, Here Is The City, Naked Capitalism, @JohnLothian, @grossdm
 

Justice Department pushing BNP Paribas to pay over $10 billion to resolve criminal probe.
Wall Street Journal
The U.S. Justice Department is pushing BNP Paribas to pay more than $10 billion to resolve a criminal probe into allegations it evaded U.S. sanctions against Iran and other countries for years.
shared by @LaurenLaCapra, NYT Dealbook, @finansakrobat, @HamzeiAnalytics
 

U.S. Solar Power Rises 79% as Home Panels Beat Warehouses
Bloomberg
Homeowners and developers installed 1.33 gigawatts of solar panels in the first quarter, the second- largest total on record, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
shared by @hblodget, @pkedrosky, @Noahpinion, @ReformedBroker, Reformed Broker
 

Fed’s George wants rate hikes soon, and not too gradual
Reuters
Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Esther George said Thursday she is open to leaving the U.S. central bank’s balance sheet big even as it withdraws accommodation.
shared by Credit Writedowns, reddit/Economics, @hedgefundinvest
 

BEA 2014: Can Anyone Compete with Amazon?
publishersweekly.com
The standoff between Amazon and Hachette is once again showing just how much leverage the online giant enjoys in the book marketplace. With the showdown dominating talk at BookExpo America this week, many industry insiders are wondering whether anyone can challenge Amazon.
shared by @ryanchittum, @hblodget
 

Drugs and prostitution add £10bn to UK economy
Financial Times
Prostitutes and drug dealers are set to give Britain a £10bn boost as the country revamps the way it measures its economy. Britain said on Thursday it would include prostitution and illegal drugs in its official national accounts for the first time.
shared by NYT Dealbook, @davidmwessel, @Ian_Fraser