Quick Overview

• Spanish unemployment rose for a 12th consecutive quarter to 20.09%, its highest level since the end of 1997 and up from 20.05% in Q1.

• The U.S. Commerce Department said gross domestic product expanded at a 2.4% annual rate, less than the 2.5% analysts expected.

• Japan’s unemployment rate rose to 5.3% in June from 5.2% in May.
• Japan’s household spending rose 0.5% in June on a yearly basis
• Japan’s inflation was flat MoM and down 0.7% YoY•
• Japan’s industrial production fell 1.5%.

• EU CPI rose to 1.7% in July
• EU unemployment at 10% in June.

• Italy’s PPI rose 3.4% YoY.
• Italy’s CPI rose 1.7% YoY

• UK’s consumer confidence index fell to -22 in July

• German import price of iron ore increased by 38.9% YoY and was up 18.1 MoM.

• Germany’s wheat harvest, Europe’s second-largest, may fall as much as 8.7% on dry weather and “extremely high” temperatures, Alfred C. Toepfer International GmbH said

• Canada’s GDP rose 0.1%

• Germany’s unemployment rate was 7.6% up 0.1% MoM. A total of 3.192 million people were registered as unemployed.

• The European Union's top court ruled that Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB-InBev) may not register "Budweiser" as a trademark in the bloc, ending a 14-year legal battle over the name with a Czech brewer.

• German retail sales fell 0.9% MoM but rose 3.1% YoY

• YoY Intermodal rail traffic increased 19.2% last week, the Association of American Railroads said.

Quick Overview

• U.S. initial jobless claims dropped by 11,000 in the week ended July 24 from a revised 468,000

• EU economic sentiment indicator for the 16-nation currency area rose to 101.3 in July, a 28-month high, from an upwardly revised 99.0 in June.

• Profits of China's industrial enterprises climbed 71.8% Yoy to hit 1.61 trillion yuan (237.5 billion U.S. dollars) in the first six months, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said

• Exxon's second-quarter income nearly doubled to $7.56 billion.

• Shell’s second-quarter profit rose 94 per cent to $4.53bn

• Total wheat export sales of 919,900 tons for the week ended July 22 topped estimates of 250,000 to 450,000 tons.

• New Zealand hiked its key lending rate by 25 basis points to 3.00%.

• US economic activity has ‘continued to increase’ over the past seven weeks but there are signs of a slowdown, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book survey.

• Swedish consumer confidence rose to a 10-year high of 23.3 up from 22.0 MoM

• (Skilling) Chicago area established the city's longest string of consecutive above 80-degree highs since weather records began 140 years ago.

Research says climate change undeniable
Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the UK’s Met Office, said the research based on a total of 11 indicators painted a clear picture of all of the earth’s important climate systems: “The fingerprints are clear... The glaringly obvious explanation for this is warming from greenhouse gases

Quick Overview

• Australian consumer prices rose by less than expected. QoQ Australia’s consumer price index rose 0.6%, and 3.1% YoY.

• U.S. durable goods orders fell 1% in June after a revised 0.8 % fall in May, making the decline the largest since last August. Analysts had forecast orders rising.

• German consumer prices rose 1.1%YoY and 0.2 % MoM. 

• The DOE said:
• Supplies of crude oil rose 7.31 million barrels to 360.8 million in the week ended July 23. More Than expected
• Gasoline inventories rose by 100,000 barrels to 222.2 million barrels
• Demand for gasoline rose 2.1 % YoY
• U.S. refineries ran at 90.6% of total capacity.
• Supplies of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 900,000 barrels to 167.5 million barrels.

• YoY Chile's industrial output rose 2.9%

• White House budget chief Peter Orszag said it would be "foolish" to cut the U.S. deficit while economic growth was still frail, but it would be equally foolish not to significantly curb the deficit by 2015.

• Russian wheat production estimates are falling daily! Yesterday’s temperature in Moscow was the highest since Russia began keeping records 130 years ago.

• The London Metal Exchange on Wednesday merges its two regional steel futures contracts Mediterranean and Far East to create a global one, aiming to generate more business in Asia, where metals trading is on the rise.

• Containerized imports at the Port of Seattle exploded last month, increasing 93.3 % YoY

• Intel Corporation today announced an important advance in the quest to use light beams to replace the use of electrons to carry data in and around computers. The company has developed a research prototype representing the world's first silicon-based optical data connection with integrated lasers. The link can move data over longer distances and many times faster than today's copper technology; up to 50 gigabits of data per second. This is the equivalent of an entire HD movie being transmitted each second.

Quick Overview

• India raised rates.  Repo rate and reverse repo rate move up to 5.75 percent and 4.5 percent, from 5.5 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

• (Reuters) Russia on Tuesday denied market talk it was restricting grain exports, pulling European wheat prices back from contract highs but not ending concerns about the impact of Russia's worst drought in years.

• (Bloomberg) Corn prices will average about 9 percent more in the first three months of 2011 than they have since July 1 because smaller crops in Europe, Russia and Ukraine will boost demand for U.S. exports to Asia, according to Rabobank Group.

• The Conference Board’s U.S. confidence index fell to 50.4 from a revised 54.3 in June

• Improvement in India’s monsoon showers has given hope for above normal rains in August-September, a weather official said.

• Australia's leading economic Index increased 0.3% and the Coincident Economic Index rose 0.2% in May.

• Japan’s corporate service prices fell 1.0% in June.

• Germany’s import prices rose 0.9% MoM. YoY import price index rose 9.1%

• Germany’s consumer confidence index rose to 3.9 in August, up from a revised 3.6 in July

• (Arlan Suderman) Local reports suggest that up to 20% of Argentina's wheat may go unplanted due to dryness

• DP World said it handled 23.7 million 20-foot equivalent container units at its 50 operating terminals in the first half of 2010, an increase of 16 percent on the same period last year and ahead of the 2008 figure

• YoY the S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values rose 4.6 % in May -- the biggest YoY gain since August 2006

Shipping Bottoming as China Steel Rebound Lifts Ore (Update2)
(Bloomberg) -- The smallest profits in the commodity shipping market in 18 months may be ending as a rebound in steel and iron-ore prices signal improving Chinese demand that will ease the transport glut

Quick Overview

• YoY Japan’s exports rose 27.7% in June. Shipments to Asia, which account for more than half of Japan's total exports, rose 31.7 %.

• South Koreas GDP rose 1.5% QoQ

• The Commerce Department said sales of new U.S. single-family homes jumped 23.6% to a 330,000 unit annual rate from a downwardly revised 267,000 units in May.

• Japan's government needs to weaken the yen and adopt more expansionary monetary policies to beat deflation, according to the leader of a small opposition party which is being seen as a possible government ally

Quick Overview

• Rylko, director of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, said it was likely that Russia is going to harvest only 80 million tonnes of grain in 2010, compared with 97 million last year.

• (Mcclatchy Newspapers) The nation's farmers could face severe restrictions on the use of pesticides as environmentalists, spurred by a favorable ruling from a judge in Washington state , want the courts to force federal regulators to protect endangered species from the ill effects of agricultural chemicals.

• The U.S. economy is not likely to slip back into recession but letting tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire is necessary to show commitment to cutting budget deficits, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Sunday.

• China's port box volumes up 7.3 - 13.9% in first half of 2010

The Death of Paper Money
As they prepare for holiday reading in Tuscany, City bankers are buying up rare copies of an obscure book on the mechanics of Weimar inflation published in 1974.

Quick Overview

• Microsoft (MSFT) and ARM (ARMH) announced that they have signed a new licensing agreement for the ARM(R) architecture

• Adverse weather is slashing production of wheat in Russia and Canada, two of the world’s four-biggest exporters.

• (Reuters) - Seven of 91 European banks have failed stress tests and show an overall capital shortfall of 3.5 billion Euros, the organizers of the tests said on Friday.

• General Electric (GE) is raising its quarterly dividend by 2 cents.

• Russia produced 1.837 million metric tons of refined sugar from imported raws from Jan. 1-July 19, up 25.39%

• Yesterday, Starbucks (SBUX) raised its dividend to 13 cents per share from 10 cents

• Existing-home sales fell by 5.1% to an annual rate of 5.37 million, the
  National Association of Realtors said Thursday

Quick Overview

• (Dow Jones)--Investors' reaction will be negative to Hungary's failure over the weekend to reach a deal with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union that would allow it to draw on the remainder of its existing EUR20 billion IMF/EU standby credit line.

• Wow... the Baltic Dry Index broke a run of 35 straight down days by closing a modest 20 points higher at 1720 on Friday.

• June London Retail sales rose 14.4% YoY.
  
  

Quick Overview

• Japan's Tertiary industry index fell  0.9%  in May.

• MoM The University of Michigan’s consumer confidence index fell to 66.5  from 76

• Ex Fed chief Greenspan thinks Congress should let the tax cuts enacted by  Bush expire for all Americans in order to address the widening deficit.

• MoM the US CPI fell 0.1% -- the third straight monthly decline. However, the annualized rate came in better than expected at 1.1%.

• Citigroup fell 4% to $3.99 after reporting second-quarter profits dropped 38%.

• GE reported a 16% increase in quarterly profit -- ending a streak of nine down quarters.

• Google reported second-quarter profits that missed analysts’ estimates.

• YoY the US cocoa grind rose 12% in Q2 to 117,657 MT

• Assets held in Japan’s first exchange-traded funds backed by gold and other precious metals may increase eight-fold in a year as investors seek to protect their wealth in the country with the world’s biggest public debt -- said Osamu Hoshi, deputy general manager at Mitsubishi Trust and Banking

• U.S. senate passes financial reform bill -- Obama wants to sign it next week.

• India's M3 money supply rose an annual 15.3%, up from 14.5% in June

• China's July soybean imports will be 5.8 million metric tons, up 32% YoY, China's Ministry of Commerce reports Thursday.

• U.S. Lawmakers are considering lowering a tax credit for ethanol blenders from 45¢/gall to 36¢.

• (Reuters) - The world is enduring the hottest year on record, according to a U.S. national weather analysis, causing droughts worldwide and a concern for U.S. farmers counting on another bumper year.
  For the first six months of the year, 2010 has been warmer than the first half of 1998, the previous record holder, by 0.03 degree Fahrenheit, said Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at the federal National Climatic Data Center.
  
  
  
  

Quick Overview

• US producer prices fell 0.5% in June, signaling a slow economy.

• China's CPI, the country's key inflation gauge, rose 2.9% YoY, but fell 0.6% MoM. The decline from the previous month was mainly due to falling food prices.

• (RealtyTrac) US Banks took control of 269,962 properties in the second quarter, up 5 % from the prior quarter and a 38 % spike from the second quarter of last year -- Repossessions will likely top 1 million this year. From January through June one out of every 17 households in Nevada received a foreclosure notice.

• The Bank of Japan left rates unchanged but raised its economic forecast for the current fiscal year.

• Japan revised June machine tool orders up 139.5%.

• Novartis says Q2 profit up 19%

• Wheat contracts hit a seven-month high as 14 regions of the Russian federation declare a state of emergency, with 11 of them seeing half their sown land destroyed. The ongoing drought in Russia is reported to have "killed 52.3 percent of grain seedlings in the Ulyanovsk region," according to a news report by news agency TASS.
  
  
  
  Overnight weather models are warmer and drier for the Midwest

• (Reuters) - India's monsoon rains, vital for farm output gains after last year's drought, were 24 percent below normal in the past week and unlikely to rebound in the week ahead, the weather office said, raising fears of crop loss..

• Manufacturing in the Philadelphia region cooled to 5.1 this month as orders fell for the first time in a year, signaling the expansion is slowing.

• U.S. industrial output rose 0.1% in June.

• The number of people submitting unemployment insurance benefits fell to 429,000 last week, the lowest level since August 2008

• J.P. Morgan (JPM )said its second-quarter net profit rose 76%

• FG/Agro said Brazil’s’ main center-south is expected to crush 588 million metric tons of cane in the ongoing 2010-11 crop season. This compares to the earlier estimate in March of 595 million MT.

• (Reuters) Drought caused by a hot spell over the past month has hurt rice fields in central Vietnam, with nearly 100,000 hectares (247,100 acres) destroyed or partly destroyed, a state-run newspaper reported on Thursday.

Baltic dries up FOR most of the past two decades the main measure of shipping costs has been used as a guide to what is happening to world trade. So the fact that the Baltic Dry Index—which measures the rates charged for chartering the giant ships that carry coal, iron ore and grain—has fallen by almost 60% in its longest streak of consecutive declines for nine years (34 days running as of July 14th) has won attention.

Quick Overview

• U.S. retail sales fell 0.5% last month, with consumers cutting back for a second straight month.

• U.S. business inventories rose 0.1%, the highest since June, following a 0.4% increase in April.

• Demand for home purchase loans fell to a 13-year low last week, and refinancing demand also slid despite near record-low mortgage rates, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.

• EU area annual inflation was 1.4% in June, down from 1.6% MoM

• EU Industrial output rose by 0.9% MoM and was up 9.4% compared to May 2009

• Brazilian retail sales rose 1.4% MoM

• Australian consumer confidence rose 11.1% during July, compared with a previous reading -5.7% in June.
• Ports in China posted a 19% growth in throughput to 3.18 billion tonnes in the first five months. The container freight volume increased 22.5% to 56.3 million TEU.
  
  The DOE said:

• Supplies of crude oil fell 5.1 million barrels (Analysts had expected a drop of 2.6 million barrels)
• Supplies of gasoline rose 1.6 million barrels
• Supplies of heating oil and diesel rose 2.9 million barrels
• Refineries operated at 90.5% of capacity

• U.S. wheat futures rose to a six-month high on Wednesday, gathering strength from hot, dry weather in Europe that has led to cuts in crop forecasts. Forecasts for wheat crops in Germany and Ukraine were lowered, while drought in Russia and excessive wetness in Canada also point toward smaller crops.

• Corn and soybeans rose to a three-month high on speculation that a heat wave may damage crops in the US

• Goldman Sachs has upped their 3-month price forecast for grains:
  
  GS sees corn reaching $4.15 vs. their previous estimate of $3.75 per bushel.
  
  6-months out, corn prices are seen reaching $4.50 vs. $4.00.
  
  Soybean 3-month outlook seen at $9.75 v. $9.25,
  
  6-month out GS sees prices reaching $9.50 vs. $9.00.
  
  Wheat 3-month outlook is seen at $5.20 v s. $4.75.
  
  6-month out wheat is seen reaching $5.50 vs. $5.00.

• (Bloomberg)Sugar exports from Thailand, the world’s second-biggest shipper, may plunge 20 percent next year as delayed rain lowers yields and increasing domestic consumption slashes export availability, an official body said

• Cocoa hits its highest since September 1977 after data show consumption by European confectioners growing at its fastest in a decade
  

Quick Overview

• Intel reported the best quarter in its history. (FT)

• QoQ Singapre's GDP expanded at a 26% annual pace

• China's leading credit rating agency has stripped America, Britain, Germany and France of their AAA ratings, accusing Anglo-Saxon competitors of ideological bias in favor of the West.

• The Chinese government said it will “strictly enforce” policies enacted to quash real estate speculation -- driving developers and lenders lower.

• U.S. Earnings season starts with strong Alcoa, CSX results. The companies had nothing but good things to say, making it harder to find evidence of this double-dip recession.

• U.S. trade gap unexpectedly widens to $42.3 billion in May, up from $40.3 billion in April

• (Bloomberg) Rubber tumbled for a third day to the lowest level in more than a month on concern that slower car sales growth in China may signal weaker demand, while supplies from Thailand increased.

• (Bloomberg) China, the world’s biggest consumer of vegetable oils, may import about 200,000 metric tons of soybean oil each month from July to September, the portal Grain.gov.cn said in an e-mailed report.

• Japanese consumer confidence improved to 43.5 in June from 42.8 in May, the highest level since September 2007.

• The chief executive of the world's biggest copper producing company, Codelco, says he expects to see continued demand for the metal from China to fuel the country's industrial boom

• (Reuters) - U.S. researchers have created a primitive artificial lung that rats used to breathe for several hours and said on Tuesday it may be a step in the development of new organs grown from a patient's own cells.

Chinese rating agency strips Western nations of AAA status

The US falls to AA, while Britain and France slither down to AA-. Belgium, Spain, Italy are ranked at A- along with Malaysia.

Quick Overview

• Greece cuts deficit by 46% YoY -- beating target

• YoY India’s industrial output rose 11.5% in May

• FO Licht raised World 2010-11 corn output to 804.20M Tons

• FO Licht lowered World 2010-11 wheat output to 656.37M Tons

• (Dow Jones)--Uranium prices could soon be driven higher by the largest Asian atomic expansion in three decades, with China seen buying unprecedented amounts of uranium this year.

• China's June exports exceeded imports by $20.02 billion, up from May’s $19.5 billion trade surplus and April's $1.68 billion surplus.

• U.K services output ffell 0.3 pct in April

• U.K.'s economy grew 0.3% in Q1

• Brazil recorded a trade surplus of US$7.9 billion in the first half of the year, down from US$13.9 billion YoY -- exports rose by 26.5% to $89.2 billion.

• China has replaced the United States as Brazil's top trading partner after Chinese imports rose 57.7% in the first half of the year.

• Malaysia's palm oil stocks fell to a 10-month low, a sign that heat stress to trees may have been more severe than projected.

• (Reuters) - Revived monsoon rains in India accelerated the planting of rice, oilseeds and cotton last week.

Quick Overview

• Google climbed premarket as China renewed its Internet license.
  
  

• The USDA's U.S. 2010-2011 ending stocks estimate for:
  Corn was lowered from 1.573 to 1.373 billion bushels.
  Soybeans were kept at 360 million bushels.
  Wheat was raised from .991 to 1.093 billion bushels.
  Sugar was raised from 764,000 to 952,000 tons.
  Cotton was raised from 2.80 to 3.50 million bales.
  
  

• The USDA's world 2010-2011 ending stocks estimate for:
  Corn was lowered from 147 to 141 million tons. Versus the average analyst estimate of 1.404 billion bushels and the June estimate of 1.603 billion bushels.
  Soybeans were raised from 67 to 68 million tons.
  Wheat was lowered from 194 to 187 million tons.
  Cotton was raised slightly from 49.6 to 49.9 million bales.
  It estimates the 2009-2010 OJ crop unchanged at 134 million boxes -- juice yield was raised from 1.55 to 1.56 gallons
  

• Korea lifted its key policy rate by 25 basis points to 2.25%, its first tightening since August 2008

• (Reuters) - Thailand, the world's No. 2 sugar exporter, will tender to buy sugar for the first time next week in a bid to tackle a domestic shortage.
  The tender on Tuesday will be for the purchase of 100,000 tonnes of white sugar with options of three delivery periods.
  Although Thailand's output typically exceeds consumption by around 4-5 million tonnes, some dealers said many trade houses had committed export sales before the new crop in November .
• India may export at least 1 million metric tons in the year starting Oct. 1, as domestic production jumps 34 percent, said Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd., the country’s biggest refiner.

EMU break-up risks global deflation shock that would dwarf Lehman collapse, warns ING A full-fledged disintegration of the eurozone would trigger the worst economic crisis in modern history, devastate every country in Europe including Germany, and inflict a deflationary shock on the US. There would be no winners, warns the Dutch bank ING in a new report "Quantifying the Unthinkable".

Quick Overview

• U.S. jobless claims fell 21,000 last week to 454,000
  

• The International Monetary Fund upgraded its 2010 global growth forecast from 4.2% to 4.6%. For 2011, they are expecting growth of 4.3%.
  

• Australia’s unemployment rate out at 5.1%. The currency rose on the stronger-than-expected employment data and improving investor confidence.
  

• The EU and the Bank of England both kept interest rates unchanged
  

• U.K.'s manufacturing index rose 0.3% MoM and up 4.3% YoY
  

• During the first five months of this year net imports of coal in China rose to 60.11 million tons from 38.44 million tons last year.
• (NYT) The weather page of the New Beijing News gives lots of helpful advice. But, in one of the most polluted cities in the world, it doesn't mention something really important: how clean is the air?
  

• (Reuters) - The global private banking sector has the potential to grow by 60 percent if it can get hold of about $10 trillion in untapped wealth, held back by depressed returns and lack of investor trust, Scorpio Partnership said.
  

• MoM German exports rose by 9.2 % in May.

• Russia cut its forecast for this year's grain output to 85 million tonnes from 90 million as 14 key growing regions declared a state of emergency due to severe drought.

• (Bloomberg) -- China, the world’s second-largest corn consumer, may give up efforts to be self-sufficient in the commodity and boost imports 10-fold by 2015 to feed livestock, said a researcher at Japan’s biggest grain trader.

TEXT-China spells out gold reserve policy

Finally, increasing the gold reserve will not help much in diversifying China's foreign exchange reserves. In the past few years, we increased the gold reserve by more than 400 tonnes. Our country's gold reserve has already reached 1,054 tonnes. Even if we double the amount, it can only diversify between $30 billion to $40 billion of the foreign exchange reserves, and the proportion of gold reserve in our foreign exchange reserve will only increase by one or two percentage points.

Quick Overview

• GDP in the EU rose 0.2% in Q1 and 0.5% YoY
  

• (Bloomberg) Sugar rose in New York on speculation India, the world’s second-biggest grower, will keep supplies from the world market to meet domestic demand.
  

• (DJ) Depressed iron ore demand from Chinese steel mills has been pressuring shipping rates over the last month, with iron ore a key ingredient in steel production and the main product in dry bulk shipping. Chinese spot iron ore prices are near $US125 per tonne, a steep discount to the all-in cost of having it shipped from Australia, which is at $US155 per tonne.

Quick Overview

• The Institute of Supply Management's index of services fell from 55.4 to 53.8 in June
  

• Australia kept its interest rate unchanged at 4.5%. The Reserve Bank of Australia says that despite recent caution, it is confident about growth in China and the region.
  

• Canada’s building permits fell 10.8% MoM
  

• Retail sales volume in the EU-27 rose 0.4% in May.
  

• 'Very dry conditions' in Thailand may see world's second-ranked sugar exporter suffer a fall of more than 1m tonnes in output in 2010-11, Rabobank.
  

• India's south-west monsoon rains have covered the entire country, about 10 days earlier than the normal date, the country's weather office said.
  

• An area of disturbed weather over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico could strengthen into a tropical storm later this week, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Monday.

• MoM global chip sales rose 4.5%

• Greenpeace levelled new accusations of rainforest destruction against Indonesian agribusiness giant Sinar Mas and urged retailers Carrefour and Walmart to stop buying their products.
  

Andy Grove: How America Can Create Jobs Our fundamental economic beliefs, which we have elevated from a conviction based on observation to an unquestioned truism, is that the free market is the best of all economic systems—the freer the better. Our generation has seen the decisive victory of free-market principles over planned economies. So we stick with this belief, largely oblivious to emerging evidence that while free markets beat planned economies, there may be room for a modification that is even better.

Quick Overview

• Rabobank estimates U.S. corn stocks at 9.1% of consumption - the lowest for 15 years.
  

• Rabobank said that Thailand's sugar production could fall by 10-15% in 2010-11 from the previous year's 6.9m tonnes.
  
• The International Sugar Organization says the sugar market outlook suggests a global surplus of around 2.5 million tonnes in 2010/11 after a deficit of 8.5 million tonnes in 2009/10.
  
• India will decide before October on whether to re-impose an import tax on the sweetener to protect the local industry.
  

• Wheat is climbing on concern that hot, dry weather in northwestern Europe and Russia will hurt production

With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932 Perhaps naively, I still think central banks have the tools to head off disaster. The question is whether they will do so fast enough, or even whether they wish to resist the chorus of 1930s liquidation taking charge of the debate. Last week the Bank for International Settlements called for combined fiscal and monetary tightening, lending its great authority to the forces of debt-deflation and mass unemployment. If even the BIS has lost the plot, God help us.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. lost 125,000 jobs in June as temporary census workers exited the labor force. The private sector added 83,000 jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 9.5%.
  

• U.S. Factory orders fell 1.4% in May
  

• EU unemployment rate stayed at 9.6% in May.
  

• China's GDP rose 9.1% in 2009. Goldman Sachs. cut its growth forecast for China this year to 10.1 % from 11.4 %.
  

• Sugar prices may rise 30 percent this year on increasing demand, low yields and transportation delays for sugar-cane crops in Brazil, said Copersucar SA, a Brazilian cooperative that sells more sugar overseas than Thailand.
  

• Orange-juice gained for the third day in a row on concern that storms may damage the crop in Florida
  

• (Bloomberg) India, the world’s second-largest cotton grower and exporter, will end curbs on overseas sales in the new crop year amid forecasts for a record harvest, said a government official.
  

• Germany's lower house of Parliament approved a watered-down bill banning "naked" short-selling of all stocks and some euro currency derivatives

Quick Overview

• U.S. jobless claims rose 13,000 last week to 472,000, more than expected
  
• U.S. Pending home sales fell 30% MoM and down 16% YoY
  
• U.S. Manufacturing fell from 59.7 to 56.2 in June
  
• U.S. construction spending fell 0.2% MoM and down 8.0% YoY
  

• Manufacturing in the Euro zone fell from 55.8 to 55.6 in June
  

• Swedenraised its interest rates from 0.25% to 0.50%
  

• Manufacturing in the U.K. fell from 58.0 to 57.5 in June
  

• Japan's Tankan survey rose from -14 to +1
  

• Thailand's government plans to buy back sugar from traders to meet rising local consumption, an industry group said.
  

• India’s gold imports may fall as much as 36% this year as higher prices and volatility slows demand -- the Indian Bullion Market Association said.
  

• (Bloomberg) -- Commodity shipping costs measured by the Baltic Dry Index extended their longest losing streak in almost five years on a surplus of ships for hire.

• The dollar extended losses against the euro and yen after data showed U.S. jobless claims rose, pending home sales fell and manufacturing activity slowed all signaling weakness in the U.S. outlook.