Quick Overview

• Yields on German short-term debt fell below zero last week, meaning investors accept a negative return for debt from Deutschland, after S&P confirmed downgrades for France and Austria to double-A-plus. S&P also lowered Italy and Spain two notches, to triple-B-plus and single-A, respectively.
• Could the euro zone’s bailout fund, EFSF, now lose its AAA rating, after France, the fund's second-largest guarantor, lost its top-notch rating.
  
  
  
  

• Fed: The decline in U.S. house prices has wiped out $7 trillion in home equity. 1 in 5 U.S. homeowners is still under water.

• Alan Krueger: "The increase in the share of income going to the top one percent people from 1979 to 2007 exceeds the total amount received by the bottom 44 percent households," he noted, adding that "as the consequence of the shift, the middle class has shrunk".

• Bloomberg: Companies in the S&P 500 will raise dividends by 11.5% on average this year.

• Bloomberg: Earnings for the S&P 500 are forecast to climb 10.7% to 105 in 2012.

• Ernst & Young slashed Britain’s 2012 GDP growth forecast from 1.5% to just 0.2%.

• Spain’s Consumer prices rose by 2.4% YoY in December.

• Mainland China imported almost 102.8 metric tons of Gold in November, valued at about $5.4 billion.
• The opulent, gold-garnished menu concocted for guests at the Golden Globes awards ceremony in Beverly Hills today (NZT) has already prompted some observers to choke.