Saturday Papers: US growth falls back to 2.4% - other news

Financial Times

* US growth slowed to an annualised rate of 2.4% in the second quarter, according to preliminary gross domestic product estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis; consumption growth fell to 1.6% from 1.9%.

* The FTSE All-World index is down 0.2% and the S&P 500 index closed up a fraction after a session spent mostly in negative territory; France’s Cac 40 index was down 0.2%, while the UK’s FTSE 100 index was down 1.1%; Germany’s Dax was up 0.2%; the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong slipped 0.3% and the Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.4%; Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was lower by 0.7%.

* Spain’s besieged caja sector has concluded a week-long roadshow of European investors, as the public-sector savings banks seek to drum up interest in funding their revival.

* Nationwide is increasing foreign currency charges on its FlexAccount bank card.

* Investment trusts, which hold billions of pounds of private investors’ capital, are being forced to cut pay-outs or dip into their reserves to fill the hole left by the suspension of BP’s dividend.

* Just over 400 investors owned up to secret bank accounts in Liechtenstein in the six months to March.

* Eurozone inflation has risen to a 20-month high while unemployment in the 16-country region has stabilised at 10% of the workforce.

* Sweden’s economy grew at its fastest pace for more than three years in the second quarter; Surging exports to China and other emerging markets helped lift growth by 3.7% from last year.

* China closer to becoming second-largest economy.

* Geron, a US biotech group, has been given the all-clear by the Food and Drug Administration to conduct the world’s first treatment based on human embryonic stem cells via a clinical trial within the next two months.

* Nigeria is poised to adopt radical laws to transform its troubled oil and gas industry and said that it would delay a parliamentary recess August to pass them.