QUICK OVERVIEW

• The preliminary reading of the consumer sentiment, which records the figure for the first half of a month, edged up to 76.3 in February from 73.8 in the previous month. It's the highest level since November 2012, boosted by rising stock prices, increased property values and a reviving jobs market

• Heinz (HNZ) rose 20% to $72.45, a nickel below the per-share buyout bid made by Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA BRKB) and 3G Capital.

• The euro zone’s economy shrank by 0.6% in the fourth quarter from the previous three months.

• The German economy contracted by 0.6% QoQ, its worst performance since the global financial crisis in 2009.

• France contracted by 0.3 % QoQ also worse than expectations.

• Japan's recession continued in Q4, with data showing a 0.1% contraction QoQ

• Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) (Jim Inhofe student?) dismissed the idea that the U.S. government could do anything to combat climate, the day after he gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union.

• USDA projects China corn imports to rise to 770 mln bu per year over the next 10 yrs
• USDA projects China soybean imports to rise to 3.78 bln bu per year over the next 10 years

• Overall foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities reached 5.55 trillion U.S. dollars in December, up from a revised 5.53 trillion in November 2012. It was the 12th consecutive monthly increase.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (WSJ)The Justice Department is expected to sue Standard & Poor's Ratings Services alleging the firm ignored its own standards to rate mortgage bonds that imploded in the financial crisis and cost investors billions.

• China data for January showed exports rose 25% and imports climbed 28.8% YoY, giving the country a trade surplus of $29.2 billion. All three figures beat market expectations.
• A chief of Chinese sovereign wealth fund said that it is a "very good time" to invest in the Eurozone, which he believes is recovering from the crisis.
• China's investor confidence index rose 24.36% MoM to stand at 62.8 in January.

• U.S. personal income rose a solid 2.6% in December, after a 1.0% gain in November.

• Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reports January gross gaming revenue +7.3% YoY to 26.9 bln patacas ($3.36 bln), vs. +20% YoY in January 2012.

• Bloomberg: Crop estimates for the Pampas, Argentina’s main soybean region, should be trimmed on a lack of rain, Eduardo Sierra said in an e-mail statement to Bloomberg, The area is facing what may be the hottest start to a year in more than half a century, he said.

• (NYT) America’s vast population of free-roaming domestic cats manages to kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles.

• According to CFED’s Assets and Opportunities Scorecard, 43.9% of American households are “liquid asset poor” meaning they “lack enough savings to cover basic expenses for just three months if they suffer a loss of income.” Over a quarter of the”liquid asset poor” make between $55,465-$90,000 a year.

• The S&P/Case-Shiller index of home values rose 5.5% from November 2011. This is 29% below its peak in July 2006.

• Japan's unemployment rate rose to 4.2% in December from 4.1% the previous month. Japan's industrial output rose 2.5% in December.

Next update Feb. 10

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (FT) The salmon fish farming industry is now testing the use of protein from biological yeast and Norwegian spruce trees, in an effort to go to 0% fishmeal in the feed.

• A document obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE indicates the German government is preparing to procure armed drones for foreign combat. Opposition politicians are outraged by the development and note that the use of weapons-equipped unmanned aircraft is legally dubious and possibly unethical.

• Global Smartphone shipments grew 43% YoY to reach a record 700 million units in 2012. QoQ, Nokia's net sale of smart devices rose by 26%.

• (BBC) Mussolini had been wrong to pass anti-Jewish laws but had otherwise been a good leader, said Mr Berlusconi.

• According to global consultancy Ernst and Young, worldwide investments done in line with Islamic law, known as Shari'ah, will reach 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars globally in 2013.

• British economy contracts 0.3% in Q4 of 2012.

• Spanish economy contracts by 1.3%in 2012 -- unemployment reached 26.02% in December. Meanwhile, youth unemployment in Spain stood at 55.13%. Thanks A (Austerity) Merkel.

• A think tank predicted that China's GDP would grow in 2013 at a rate of 8.4%, up by 0.6% from that of 2012.

• (Telegraph) Apple shuttled $11bn (£7bn) into offshore tax havens in the fourth quarter of 2012, an analysis of its corporate filings has revealed. The iPad maker has slashed its tax bill by paying less than 2% on its overseas profits, as it moves money through offshoots in low-tax countries such as the British Virgin Islands. Apple's completely legal tax avoidance strategies bring the total the company has sheltered from the US tax authorities to $94bn, according to a Sunday Times analysis. Corporation tax on Apple's overseas operations amount to just 1.9pc of profits, compared with a tax rate of up to 24pc in the UK and 35pc in the US.

• (NYT) “Who knows?” it said. “Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!”

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Germany showed a paltry growth of just 0.7%.
• German consumer prices rose by 2.1% in December

• Eurozone inflation rose by 2.2% in December

• (Bloomberg) Housing starts in the U.S. climbed 12.1 percent last month to a 954,000 annual rate, exceeding all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists

• (Spiegel) Young Europeans in countries hit hardest by the Continent's economic crisis are finding it difficult to move out of their parents' home. Data shows that over 50% of those aged 25 to 34 in some countries have yet to move out.

• Pakistan Tumbles into Chaos again. A self-proclaimed revolutionary is attracting mass protests, while the highest court has ordered the prime minister's arrest and the military waits in the wings.

• The Koch brothers are urging Republican/Tea to show restraint during US debt ceiling negotiations, representing quite a shift in position by the extreme right Americans for Prosperity.

• World Bank estimates global economic growth rate at 2.4% in 2013.

• Spanish inflation rate rose by 2.9 % in 2012

• Global containership capacity grew 6% to 16.3 TEU million in 2012

Mario Draghi has saved the rich, now he must save the poor By then millions of people will have fallen into an "enormous poverty trap," to borrow the words of EU jobs chief Laszlo Andor. It is why Gustav Horn -- head of Germany’s IMK Institute and one of the country’s five `Wise Men’ -- called for an end to the contractionary torture last week. "It’s a vicious circle. Excess austerity is not reducing debt, it is causing debt to rise," he said.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The Obama administration killed the idea of minting platinum coins in the denomination of 1 trillion U.S. dollars to generate revenue and avoid the looming battle with Republicans on raising the federal government's debt ceiling

• Arlan Suderman‏: Global corn stocks down to 48.8-day supply and trending lower - tightest in 39 years.
• U.S. Domestic corn stocks at a 19.5-day supply - 2nd tightest of the past 50 years

• The Japanese cabinet approved a stimulus package worth 20 trillion yen (about 224 billion U.S. dollars), aiming to shore up Japan's current stagnant economy by beating chronic deflation and tackling the strong yen.

• S. Korean central bank cuts 2013 growth outlook to 2.8 %

• China's consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.5% YoY in December.
• China's producer price index (PPI), which measures inflation at wholesale level, fell 1.9 % YoY in December.

• ECB holds key interest rate at 0.75%

• Indonesia keeps key rate unchanged at 5.75%

• Almost 200,000 New Zealanders are considering leaving the country to find work abroad, according to the results of a survey

• Spanish unemployment rate reaches 26.6% in November

• Greece's unemployment rate climbed to a record 26.8% in October.

• (FT) Chinese exports and imports rebounded strongly in December, pointing to solid economic growth both in China and abroad. Exports rose 14.1 per cent YoY, the fastest in seven months and well above November’s 2.9 per cent pace. Imports increased 6 % in December from a year earlier after flatlining in November. Both outstripped most forecasts.

• (Bloomberg) Steve and Amber Mostyn, wealthy Texas trial attorneys, said today that they are giving $1 million to help start the gun-control advocacy group formed by former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.

• Companies in the S&P 500 are sitting on a record cash pile of $1 trillion according to data from S&P Dow Jones indices.

Paying for It A man walks into a bar. He orders several rounds, downs them, and staggers out. The man has got plastered, the bar owner has got the man’s money, and the public will get stuck with the tab for the cops who have to fish the man out of the gutter.

The Fiscal Cliff Deal and the Damage Done
The economy-as-family metaphor is familiar, emotionally intuitive—and incorrect. It’s a fallacy of composition: What’s true for the part is not necessarily true for the whole. While a single family can get its finances back on track by spending less than it earns, it’s impossible for everyone to do that simultaneously. When the plumber skips a haircut, the barber can’t afford to have his drains cleaned.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Friday's U.S. jobless rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics remained unchanged from its revised level the previous month, adding 155,000 jobs, roughly equal to the average 153,000 jobs added monthly over the first 11 months of the year. "At December's growth rate the labor market will not fill in (the) gap until the end of 2021," said Heidi Shierholz, economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

• The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities increased 4.3% from October 2011, the biggest 12-month advance since May 2010.

• U.S. GDP expanded at a 3.1 % annual rate, the Commerce Department said. It was the fastest growth since late 2011.

• Sales of existing houses increased 5.9 % to a 5.04 million annual rate, the most since November 2009, the National Association of Realtors reported.

• The Pew Charitable Trusts reckons that nearly a third of Americans who, as teenagers in the 1970s, belonged to the middle class have slipped below it as adults.

• The Fed is planning to continue suppressing interest rates so long as the unemployment rate remained above 6.5%. In addition, they will not relent in its focus on unemployment unless the medium-term outlook for inflation rises above 2.5%.

• U.S. foreclosure starts fell 13% MoM and were down 28% YoY

• Eurozone finance ministers agreed to cede power to a common bank supervisor in Frankfurt -- its first big step towards banking union.

• The U.S. unemployment rate fell from 7.9 to 7.7 %. The figures suggest that the US economy has a little more momentum than previously thought.

• NOAA scientists now believe that 2012 is “virtually certain to become the warmest year on record for the nation,”

•  (Spiegel) The guns have been silent in Iraq for years, but in Basra and Fallujah the number of birth defects and cancer cases is on the rise. Locals believe that American uranium-tipped munitions are to blame.

• All members of the U.N. Security Council, with the lone exception of the United States, have publicly condemned Israel's recent settlement expansion activities and called for them to end.

Next Update Jan. 6

The world's commodity supercycle is far from dead
Evans Pritchard

To be precise, China’s share of total world demand in 2011 was: soya (27pc) cotton (38pc), aluminium (40pc) iron ore (40pc), coal (42pc), zinc (42pc), lead (43pc), copper (43pc), and lean-hogs (50pc).

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The world economy is in its best shape in 18 months as China's prospects improve and the U.S. looks likely to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, according to the latest Bloomberg Global Poll of investors.

• ASIA-EUROPE rates continued in decline last week to US$1,028 per TEU, down 4.7%, or $51 per TEU WoW, representing the lowest point reached since March, according to the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SCFI).

• PriceWaterhouseCoopers warns that even if the current rate of global decarbonisation were to double, we would still be on course for six degrees of warming by the end of the century. Confining the rise to two degrees requires a sixfold reduction in carbon intensity: far beyond the scope of current policies. http://www.monbiot.com/2012/11/19/housebroken/

• U.S. house prices rose 4.4 percent in the 12 months through September.
• The National Association of Realtors says its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index rose 5.2% points to 104.8 in October. Excluding a few months when the index spiked because of a homebuyer tax credit, that is the highest level since March 2007.

• The Conference Board’s confidence index climbed to 73.7, the highest since February 2008.

• Buffett said that among the 400 with the highest incomes in the U.S. in 2009, the average income was about $200 million, and that six people in that group paid “nothing at all.” “They were in Romney’s 47 percent,” Buffett said.

• Newsweek: The U.S. spends 2.4% of its economy on infrastructure, Europe spends 5%, China 9%.

• Last Monday's winter wheat condition report downgraded the crop condition index to a record low of 304.

• The discovery of the new coral disease is only one of a number of ailments afflicting nearly all the world's coral reefs, which are threatened by poisonous runoff, rising oceans, increasingly acidic waters and overfishing. But this one could jeopardize a multibillion-dollar tourist industry in Hawaii. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hanalei-bay-20121127,0,4893429.story

• Economist: The average time that people hold a stock on the NYSE has tumbled from eight years in 1960 to four month in 2010.

• Disney boosts annual dividend by 25% to $0.75.

• Retailer Costco said it would pay a special dividend totaling roughly $3 billion or $7 per share.

• World Meteorological Organization reports on record Arctic Sea ice melt, extreme temperatures  http://j.mp/Y5Ftff

• Copper demand will outpace supply by 316,000 metric tons in the first six months next year, more than all copper in London Metal Exchange warehouses, before a surplus emerges in the second half, Barclays Plc estimates

• (MJ) Susan Rice, potential Sec. of State pick, may have a major financial stake in the Keystone Pipeline. (AP)

• Israel OKs construction of 3,000 West Bank units after UN recognition for a Palestinian state.

• India's Q3 GDP growth at 5.3 % YoY.

• Brazil's GDP grew 0.9% in Q3 compared with the same period last year.

• Chinas PMI rose to 50.6 in November from 50.2 in October, signaling slightly faster growth.

• China's grain output rose 3.2% YoY to hit 589.57 million tonnes in 2012, marking the ninth consecutive year of growth, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Friday. The corn output amounted to 208.12 million tonnes, up 8 % YoY, while that of rice and wheat gained 1.6% and 2.7%, respectively, to 204.29 million tonnes and 120.58 million tonnes, according to the NBS' online statement. These numbers show that corn has replaced wheat as China's largest grain variety, the statement said.
• China will strive to foster 100 agricultural companies with annual sales exceeding 10 billion yuan (1.59 billion U.S. dollars) in the next three to five years, a senior agricultural official said. Acquisitions and mergers will be encouraged in the hope that the resulting agricultural conglomerates can act as a potent force in the country's agricultural modernization, while calling for more favorable fiscal and tax policies to support the development of big farming firms.

Next Update Dec. 2

QUICK OVERVIEW

(Pritchard) Green shoots are sprouting across much of the Far East as stimulus begins to feed through, greatly reducing the risk of a deep global slump next year

The U.S. unemployment rate rose a notch to 7.9% in October, but employers picked up hiring and work force continued to expand, reported the Labor Department on Friday.

Starbucks (Sbux) the coffee chain raised its quarterly dividend 24%

The eurozone will take at least another five years to recover from the crippling debt crisis that has hampered even Europe's most powerful economy, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

QT Weather: As East floods. C Plains turning into a desert.

(CNN)The German power grid has outages at an average rate of 21 minutes per year. The winds may howl. The trees may fall. But in Germany, the lights stay on. There's no Teutonic engineering magic to this impressive record. It's achieved by a very simple decision: Germany buries almost all of its low-voltage and medium-voltage power lines, the lines that serve individual homes and apartments. Americans could do the same. They have chosen not to.

US economic growth accelerated to an annualized pace of 2% in Q3

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment rose to 82.6 from 78.3 in September. It was at its highest level since September 2007.

Euro zone’s economic confidence in October as reflected by the Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) hit the lowest level since September 2009 at 84.5 points.

The U.S. pending-home-sales index rose to 99.5 from 99.2 in August, the National Association of Realtors said. This is still below the 101.9 level reached in July. Economists were looking for a bigger rebound.

Six Italian scientists have been jailed for failing to predict the L'Aquila earthquake which killed 309 people in 2009. The scientists were found guilty of multiple counts of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison.
A new ordinance outlaws eating and drinking at historic sites in Rome, punishable by fines of up to $650. China is likely to import 57.5 million MT of soybeans in 2012.

Chinas soybean production is expected to decline 11.6%.

Japan's exports fell 10.3% in September from a year earlier, the biggest drop since the tsunami disaster in March last year, and the fourth consecutive month of decline.

Sara Lee’s IT program manager Michael Holt said the Windows Phone platform offered a "stronger" enterprise solution compared to Blackberry, iPhone and Android handsets -- and announced plans to roll out Nokia (NOK) Lumia 800 smartphones running Windows Phone OS to its workforce.

The Des Moines Register reported that 80 acres of farmland in Sioux County Iowa sold for a record $21,900 per acre. The farm reportedly has a routine yield of 200 bushels per acre of corn and 60 bushels per acre of soybeans Thursday's sale exceeds the old Iowa land sale record of last year at $20,000 per acre. (Looks like some iffy $200,000 per year less expenses/taxes - market/weather risk?)

The International Grain Council has lowered the world corn production to 830 MMT from their last estimate of 833 MMT. The world corn harvest last year was 876 MMT.

Manhattan U.S. Atty. Preet Bharara contends that Countrywide and Bank of America "cast aside underwriters, eliminated quality controls, incentivized unqualified personnel to cut corners and concealed the resulting defects" when they peddled the loans to Fannie and Freddie.

Austrian unemployment rate rose to 6.7% in October, a sharp increase from 6.1 percent in September.

For the 27-nation EU, the jobless rate stood at 10.6% in September, unchanged from last month. It was 9.8 % a year ago.

The British economy is predicted to shrink 0.1% in 2012.

Next Update NOV.4

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The Italian Supreme Court has ruled there is a causal link between mobile phone use and brain tumors in a landmark case. The ruling has set a legal precedent that could potentially trigger a deluge of lawsuits.
• Worldwide Smartphone’s in use top 1 bln (FT)

• Kiev’s move to halt wheat exports from November 15 is the first by a leading food exporting country this year and raises spectre of 2007-08 food crisis.
• (Reuters) - The drought that ravaged the United States this year does not appear to be abating and may spread through the winter, government forecasters said on Thursday.

• U.S. home construction rose 15% in September to an annual rate of 872,000
• U.S. existing home sales fell 1.7% in September

• Hollande again called on his European counterparts to move towards issuing euro bonds via mutualized debt to complement the fiscal pact.

• Overall foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities reached 5.43 trillion U.S. dollars in August, up from a revised 5.348 trillion dollars in July. It was the eighth consecutive monthly increase.

• (Bloomberg) U.S. Rich-Poor Gap Widens to most since 1967 as Income Falls. Russia with its oligarchs has greater income equality than the U.S.
• USA Today: How important is the COLA? From 2001 to 2011, household incomes in the U.S. dropped for every age group except one: those 65 and older. The median income for all U.S. households fell 6.6% when inflation was taken into account, according to census data. But the median income for households headed by someone 65 or older rose 13%. "That's all because of Social Security," Certner said. "Social Security has the COLA, and that's what's keeping seniors above water, as opposed to everybody else who's struggling in this economy."

• 20% of Corporate America is cooking the books:   

• (theguardian) Mitt Romney's current standing in the polls in Massachusetts gives him the dubious honour of being more unpopular in his home state than any presidential candidate in modern history.

A Simple Fix for Farming The results were stunning: The longer rotations produced better yields of both corn and soy, reduced the need for nitrogen fertilizer and herbicides by up to 88 percent, reduced the amounts of toxins in groundwater 200-fold and didn’t reduce profits by a single cent.

Currently otherwise engaged. Next update Oct. 21

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama?

• Scientists predict 14-24% reduction in fish size by 2050 as ocean temperatures increase

• U.S. personal consumption rose 0.5% in August, while personal income rose 0.1%.
• Consumption accounts for about 70% of U.S. overall economic activities.
• U.S. savings rate, or personal savings as a percentage of disposable personal income, edged down to 3.7 percent from 4.1 percent in July.
• U.S Consumer sentiment rose to 78.3 -- highest level in 4 months
• U.S. GDP grew at an annual rate of 1.3%, down from its previous estimate of 1.7%

• Christophe de Margerie, Totals CEO, says the risk of drilling in the arctic are simply too high.

• U.S. August new home sales fell 0.3% to 73,000 annual rate.
• The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities increased 1.2 percent from July 2011, the biggest 12-month advance since August 2010, a report from the group showed today in New York. The median forecast of 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 1.1 percent gain.

• (FARM FUTURES) Russia has suspended the import of Monsanto genetically modified (GMO) corn, due to a study done by a university in France that claims the corn causes cancer.
• Many scientists and nutritionists are skeptic over the results of the study.

• Agriculture is the direct driver of roughly 80 percent of tropical deforestation, while logging is the biggest single driver of forest degradation, says a new report funded by the British and Norwegian governments.

• (Reuters) - Hog producer Prestage Farms Inc and two other livestock companies in North Carolina have signed deals to import 750,000 metric tons (826733.48 tons) of corn from Brazil.

• Rabobank has revised upwards its projected sugar surplus for 2012/13 from 4.6 mln mt to 5.2 mln mt Reuters -

• Brazil and the US are working together to promote the use of ethanol in a collaboration that could revolutionize global markets.
• Brazil to raise ethanol blend to 25% in 2013.

• Oil World thinks the US bean harvest will not be large enough to meet global demand until to the new South America harvest in early 2013. They say, it is possible in theory, the US will become a major importer of soybeans and soy meal from April 2013.

• Yum approved an 18% increase in dividends.

• McDonald's (MCD) increased its quarterly dividend by 10%

• The Dow transports, as everyone who is paying attention already knows, are seriously lagging the Dow industrials.

• (Spiegel) Most in Germany agree that former Chancellor Helmut Kohl was a primary advocate of European unity. This week, as the country celebrates the 30th anniversary of his first election to the Chancellery, the father of German reunification urged his fellow conservatives to fight for the common currency he helped introduce.