QUICK OVERVIEW

• Purchases of new U.S. homes fell 13.4 % in July, the most in more than three year.

• Consumer confidence in both the euro area and the European Union (EU) rose in August, from minus 17.4 in July to minus 15.6.

• German economy expanded by 0.7% in Q2 of 2013 compared with the previous.

• QoQ Britain's GDP rose by 0.7 % Eurozone PMI rises to 51.7 in August

• Soybeans are focused on current weather forecasts (dry) and the perceptions that US production potential is sliding. More upside potential exists, but it is based on weather development.

• On 8/12/13 Kochi Japan hit 41C (105.8F). That's the hottest temperature ever recorded in Japan.

• India’s July exports rose 11.6% YoY

• The Singapore-based Cocoa Association of Asia said that processing rose 2% to 153,792 metric YoY. Analysts and traders expected a decrease.
• The European Cocoa Association said on July 15 that grindings rose 6.1% in Q2. Cocoa Demand will exceed output by 119,000 metric tons in the 12 months starting in October, the first shortage in four years, according to Macquarie Group. However, hedge fund bets on higher prices are near a five-year high..

• The World Gold Council sees Q2 Global gold demand at 856.3 tons - down 12% YoY to a 4-year low on liquidation from gold ETFs.

• (Spiegel) Most in Britain seem unconcerned about the mass surveillance carried out by its intelligence agency GCHQ. Even the intimidation tactics being used on the Guardian this week have caused little soul-searching. The reason is simple: Britons blindly and uncritically trust their secret service.

Next Update July 25

Wall Street's Biggest Institutions Are Testing Quantitative Software for Non-Quants

"You literally press a button, say 'run the study,' and then [Robotrage] uses cloud computing capacity – it allocates to you that capacity – and it runs the study for you,

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The US economy added 162,000 jobs in July, slightly below expectations, but the unemployment rate fell to 7.4 %.
• U.S initial claims for jobless benefits fell by 19,000 to 326,000, the fewest since January 2008, from a revised figure of 345,000 for the previous week.
• U.S. economy grew 1.7% in Q2 U.S. personal income rose 0.3 % in June, after a 0.4 % gain in May
• U.S. personal consumption expenditures rose 0.5 % in June, after an increase of 0.2 % in May.
• U.S. savings rate, personal saving as a % of disposable personal income, edged down to 4.4% in June from 4.6% in the previous month, but remained well above the 2.1% average savings rate for all of 2007 before the financial crisis.

• The United States Trade Representative (USTR), to whom the White House has delegated the authority to veto ITC rulings, has decided to veto an early-June ITC ruling, which would otherwise have taken effect on Monday, to ban the importation of older iPhones and iPads into the United States market over a Samsung declared-essential patent

• China's PMI for the manufacturing sector improved slightly to 50.3% in July from 50.1% in June, above the boom-bust line of 50% for 10 months in a row.
• China's non-manufacturing PMI rebounds to 54.1 % in July

• An advanced computer numerical control (CNC) machine tool was shipped to Germany from China in the country's first export of cutting-edge equipment to a developed economy.

• Eurozone jobless rate remains at record high of 12.1% in June
• Eurozone consumer price inflation stays at 1.6% in July

• The British economy to grow 1.2% in 2013

• Indonesia's economy grows by 5.81 % in Q2

• The Danish Meteorological Institute is reporting that on Tuesday, July 30, the mercury rose to 25.9 C (78.6 F) at a station in Greenland, the highest temperature measured in the Arctic country since records began in 1958.

• Saudi website editor gets 7 years in prison and 600 lashes.

• FBI can remotely activate Android and laptop microphones, reports WSJ

• A Swedish sociology professor named Stefan Svallfors has nominated NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for a Nobel Peace Prize.

James Galbraith on Social Breakdown and Financial Stress in Europe  JG: I think that ultimately the decision on the future of Europe will be made in Germany, and Germany has to decide, does it want it or not? If it wants it, it has to take minimal steps to stabilize it on the same principles on which they stabilized the East, and on which they built the Federal Republic in the first place. And if they don’t want it, well, it will go away.
RS: I think even if they want it, they’re not going to stabilize it.
JG: In which case they’ll lose it, and then we can see what is left. But when it’s lost, Germany’s going to have the problem it had before of an appreciating currency, and an industry that quickly loses competitiveness, and there’ll be higher unemployment. And its markets will have collapsed and its debts won’t get paid.
Germany is not going to escape the consequences of this. Again, it’s a choice that Germans can, and I’m sure, will make. But what is necessary is to state clearly what the choice actually is.