Baltic Dry Index Up 11 Days in a Row: Should You Care? The Baltic Dry Index is currently riding an eleven-day winning streak during which the index has gained 43%. Year to date, the index is now up 228%. Given that it is a measure of shipping rates, the increase in the Baltic Dry Index is regarded by many as an important indicator of an improving global economy. How this translates to the stock market, however, is unclear.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. Home Builders/Wells Fargo index of homebuilder sentiment rose from 14 to 16 in April.
  

• (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday that borrowing costs were falling as credit markets gradually thaw, but warned a painful period lies ahead for American consumers.
  

• The USDA said:
  62% of corn was planted, down from the five-year average of 85%.
  25% of soybeans were planted, down from the five-year average of 44%.
  50% of spring wheat was planted, down from the five year average of 90%.
  42% of cotton was planted, down from the five year average of 53%.

• Emirates Airline is predicting the recession in air freight will bottom out by end of May.
  

Asia will author its own destruction if it triggers a crisis over US bonds
China and Japan together hold 23pc of America's $6,369bn federal debt. This has caused alarm on the US talk radio circuit, but fears of imminent "dollardämmerung" and a collapse of American economic power may prove far off the mark. Who ultimately holds a gun to the head of whom?

The Case of the Missing H-Bomb
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Things go missing. It's to be expected. Even at the Pentagon. Last October, the Pentagon's inspector general reported that the military's accountants had misplaced a destroyer, several tanks and armored personnel carriers, hundreds of machine guns, rounds of ammo, grenade launchers and some surface-to-air missiles. In all, nearly $8 billion in weapons were AWOL.

Quick Overview

• U.S. consumer prices were unchanged in April and down 0.7% YoY
  

• U.S. industrial production fell 0.5% in April
  

• The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose from 65.1 to 67.9
  

• The N.Y. Federal Reserve regional index of manufacturing rose from -14.65 to -4.55.
  

• (Reuters) - General Motors Corp said Friday it will drop about 1,600 U.S. dealers as it struggles to slash billions of dollars in operating costs and debt ahead of an anticipated bankruptcy filing by the end of the month.
  

• GDP in the Euro area fell 2.5% QoQ and down 4.6% YoY
  

• Consumer prices in the Euro area rose 0.6% YoY
  

• Canada’s manufacturing sales fell 2.7% in March
  

• Germany’s GDP fell 3.8% in Q1
  

• GDP in France fell 1.2% Q1.
  

• GDP in Hong Kong fell 4.3% in Q1.
  

• The International Sugar Organization expects a 2009-2010, world production deficit of 4.75 million tons.
  

• (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday revived the system of Guantanamo military trials for foreign terrorism suspects, angering supporters who said he had broken a promise to end the controversial tribunals set up by the Bush administration.

Quick Overview

• U.S. producer prices rose 0.3% in April, but fell 3.7% YoY -- the biggest YoY decline in 59 years.
  

• U.S. jobless claims rose by 32,000 to 637,000 last week.
  

• US carmaker Chrysler tells a bankruptcy court that it plans to close 789 of its 3,200 dealerships.
  
  

• The number of home loans in the UK rose by 29% in March, according to lenders.
  

Chinese Stimulus, Lending May Drive Rebound as Exports Slide
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said yesterday that China may emerge “a winner” from the global crisis because the nation is buffered by a high savings rate and the government “has taken very rapid action.”

Quick Overview

• U.S. retail sales fell 0.4% in April.
  

• RealtyTrac said there were 342,038 U.S. foreclosures in April, up 32% YoY.
  

• Industrial production in the Euro area fell 2.0% MoM and 20.2% YoY
  

• YoY China's industrial output rose 7.3% in April
  

• (Reuters) - The U.S. financial system has already completed a big part of the painful adjustment away from its excessively leveraged state, and lending is starting to improve, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. trade deficit widened in March, the gap expanded 5.5% to $27.6 billion, up from $26.1 billion in February.
  
  

• The USDA estimates 2009-2010 U.S. ending stocks of:
  Corn at 1.145 billion bushels, down from 1.600 billion bushels in 2008-2009.
  Soybeans at 230 million bushels, up from 130 million bushels in 2008-2009.
  Wheat at 637 million bushels, down from 669 million bushels in 2008-2009.
  Sugar at 289,000 tons, down from 1.192 million tons in 2008-2009.
  Cotton at 5.6 million bales, down from 6.8 million bales in 2008-2009.
  

• The USDA estimates 2009-2010 world ending stocks estimate of:
  Corn at 128 million tons, down from 140 million tons in 2008-2009.
  Soybeans at 52 million tons, up from 43 million tons in 2008-2009.
  Wheat at 182 million tons, up from 167 million tons in 2008-2009.
  Cotton at 58 million bales, down from 62 million bales in 2008-2009.

Enjoy the rally while it lasts - but expect to take a sucker punch
If we are spared – still a big if – we can thank a handful of central bank governors and policy-makers who tore up the rule book, defied tabloid opinion, and took revolutionary action in the nick of time.

Quick Overview

• Consumer prices in China fell 1.5% YoY
  

• Chinese spot steel prices rose 2.8% this week in the second consecutive weekly gain, on growing recovery expectations.
  

• GDP in Latvia fell 18% YoY
  

• The ICCO forecast that global Cocoa grindings would fall 6% in the year to September 2009 compared with a previous estimate for a decline of 2.1%. Global output is forecast to fall 7 % this year, resulting in a supply deficit of between 80,000 and 90,000 tonnes.
• The USDA said:
• 48% of the corn was planted, versus 71% average
• 14% of the soybean crop was planted, ver. 25% average
• 35% of the spring wheat was planted, ver. 78% average
• 32% of the cotton was planted, ver. 39%. Average

• Very little planted East of Iowa in the past week & the 5-day rain forecast gives little hope that this will change.
  

Quick Overview

• The U.S. unemployment rate rose from 8.5% to 8.9% in April

• U.S. employers cut 539,000 jobs in April, after a 699,000 loss in March, the Labor Department said.
  

• U.S. Wholesale sales fell 2.4% MoM and down 18.1% YoY
  
  

• Canada‘s unemployment rate unchanged at 8.0%
  

• Canada's Mortgage and Housing Corporation said housing starts fell 20% MoM
  

• U.K. producer prices rose 0.6%.
  

• Vehicle sales in China rose 25% in April
  

• The Port of Shanghai’s foreign trade value fell 25% YoY, but rose 34% February to March.

Swine flu could protect against deadly mutation: experts
The global outbreak of swine flu hovering just below the pandemic threshold could provide immunity for those already infected if the virus mutates into a more deadly form, scientists have told AFP.

ECB to buy billions of euros of debt in radical policy departure
The ECB has faced fierce criticism that it's not doing enough to combat a recession that is hitting export-led economies including Germany as much as economies - such as Ireland and Spain - where housing bubbles have burst in spectacular fashion. The policy departure also represents a defeat for Germany, where Axel Weber, the head of the Bundesbank, has resisted any move to buy debt.

Quick Overview

• (Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet said the ECB unanimously agreed on a 60 billion- euro ($80.5 billion) plan to buy bonds as officials step up their response to the worst recession since World War II.

• (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve determined that 10 U.S. banks need to raise a total of $74.6 billion in capital, concluding its unprecedented probe of the health of the nation’s 19 largest lenders.
  

• U.S. jobless claims fell 34,000 last week to 601,000.

• U.S. non-farm productivity rose 0.8% QoQ and 1.8% YoY.
  

• U.S. Unit labor costs rose 2.4%. The # of hours worked in the first quarter fell 9%.
  

• Denmark lowered the benchmark interest rate by 0.35% to a record low 1.65%

• Australia’s unemployment rate improved from 5.7% to 5.4%
  

• The ECB lowered its interest rate from 1.25% to 1.00%.
  

• England kept its interest rate unchanged at 0.50%.
  

• Obama aims to cut $17bn from next year's budget, saying he had found examples of "stunning" waste.
  
  

• China's main ports received 15.3 million tonnes or 3.72 million barrels per day of imported crude oil in April -- up 9% YoY.
  

• China has approved a plan to set up 10 million tonnes of refined fuel reserves by 2011 -- about two weeks of current consumption.

Quick Overview

• (Reuters) - Regulators have told Bank of America Corp it needs $34 billion of capital to withstand a deep economic downturn, as the U.S. government prepares to release results of industrywide stress tests

• Retail sales in the Eurozone fell 0.6% MoM and down 4.2% YoY
  

• Euro zone's composite index of manufacturing and services rose from 38.3 to 41.1 in April
  

• Service index in the U.K. rose from 45.5 to 48.7 in April
  

• Australia's retail sales rose 2.2% in March
  

• Norway lowered its interest rate from 2.0% to 1.5%.
  

• Fujian port volume rose 6.6% in Q1.
  
  

• The USDA estimates that Brazil will produce 36.85 million metric tons of sugar in 2009-2010, up from 32.4 mmt YoY.

• (Bloomberg) -- Global sugar demand will exceed output by 7.8 million metric tons in the current year, almost double the previous estimate, as farmers harvest smaller cane crops in Asia, the International Sugar Organization said.
  

• The USDA estimates that Brazil will produce 28.45 billion liters of ethanol in 2009-2010, up from 26.85 billion liters YoY.
  
  

• Fortis Bank estimates 2008-9 world coffee production at 134.2 million (60-kg) bags and consumption at 127.7 million bags.
  
• In 2009-2010, Fortis expects world Coffee production at 141.3 million bags and consumption at 128.9 million bags.
  

• Fortis Bank expects world Cocoa production at 3.60 million tons and production 64,000 tons short of world consumption.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said:
  Supplies of crude oil rose 600,000 barrels to 375.3 million barrels
  Supplies of gasoline fell 200,000 barrels
  Supplies of heating oil rose 900,000 barrels.
  Refinery use rose from 82.7% to 85.3%.
  Gasoline demand fell 0.9% YoY
  Distillate demand fell 14.1% YoY.

• (Spiegel) The power of the three big US rating agencies, Moody's, Fitch and Standard & Poor's, remains unbroken. By awarding high ratings to junk securities, they fueled financial market excesses. Now they are taking countermeasures by brutally downgrading securities. In doing so, they are making the crisis even worse.
  
  

Beware surfers: cyberspace is filling up
Nemertes Research experts predict that consumer demand (monthlytraffic across the Internet is now running at about eight exabytes),growing at 60 per cent a year, will start to exceed supply by next year because of more people working online and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry websites such as YouTube and HDTV Web services.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. Institute of Supply Management's index of services rose from 40.8 to 43.7 in April,
  

• (Reuters) - Top chief executives still expect the U.S. economy to remain mired in recession through 2009 but their confidence in the likelihood of a recovery next year is on the rebound thanks to growing optimism about their own businesses.
  

• (Reuters) - U.S. regulators are working with the top 19 banks on Tuesday to put the final touches on the results of regulatory stress tests, which are expected to reveal about half the banks need more capital but face manageable losses.
  

• Australia kept its interest rate unchanged at 3.0%.
  

• YoY Producer prices in the Euro area fell 3.1% in March
  

• The USDA said that:
  33% of the corn was planted, down from the five-year average of 50%. 6% of the soybean crop was planted, down from the five-year average of 11%.
  23% of the spring wheat was planted, down from the five-year average of 59%.
  24% of the cotton was planted, down from the five-year average of 28%.
  

Quick Overview

• Over the weekend the ASEAN group of nations and Japan agreed to set up $120 billion of reserve to fund to provide emergency loans to the companies in the region.

• The National Association of Realtors said U.S. pending home sales rose 3.2%
  

• U.S. construction spending rose 0.3% MoM and fell 11.1YoY
  

• China's manufacturing index rose from 44.8 to 50.1
  

• Germany's retail sales fell 1%
  

Quick Overview

• The Institute of Supply Management's manufacturing index rose from 36.3 to 40.1 in April
  

• The University of Michigan's index of consumer sentiment rose from 57.3 to 65.1 in April
  

• U.S. factory orders fell 0.9% in March
  

• YoY Japan’s consumer price index fell 0.3%
  

• Japan’s unemployment rate rose from 4.4% to 4.8%
  

• Manufacturing in the U.K. rose from 39.5 to 42.9
  

• Wheat rose the most in a month on speculation that dry weather will curb yields in Russia and Ukraine.
  

• Czarnikow said India’s Sugar output will be 14.7 million metric tons in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, down from a February forecast of 17 million tons. Sucden said that global demand will exceed production by 9 million metric tons.
  

Quick Overview

• U.S. personal incomes fell 0.3% in March
  

• U.S. consumer spending fell 0.2%.
  

• U.S. jobless claims fell 14,000 last week to 631,000.
  

• U.S. employment cost index rose 0.3% QoQ and 2.1% YoY.
  

• Chicago purchasing managers' index rose from 30.9 to 40.1 in April,
  
  

• Unemployment rate in the Euro area rose from 8.7% to 8.9% in March,
  

• Consumer prices in the Euro area rose 0.6%
  

• New Zealand lowered interest rates from 3.0% to 2.5%
  

• Canada’s GDP fell 0.1% MoM and 2.3% YoY
  

• (Reuters) - Chrysler LLC will proceed with Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection now that talks with debtholders have broken down, an administration official said on Thursday.
  

• (Telegraph) Lipoxen a small British biopharmaceutical company saw its shares more than double after announcing positive results for tests on a flu vaccine that it claims may work on swine flu.

Quick Overview

• (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve refrained from increasing purchases of Treasuries and mortgage securities, saying that the economy is showing some signs of stability.

• U.S. Gross domestic product dropped at a 6.1% annual pace, weaker than forecast.
  

• Bloomberg reported the government's stress tests show that six of 19 financial institutions checked will need more capital.
  

• Germany real GDP will contract 6% in 2009. For 2010, they expect real GDP to be up 0.5%.
  

• Spain’s GDP fell 2.9%

• Japan’s industrial output rose 1.6%.

• Brazil cut rates to 10.25% from 11.25%
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said:
  Supplies of crude oil rose 4.1 million barrels to 374.7 million barrels
  Supplies of gasoline fell 4.7 million barrels
  Supplies of heating oil rose 1.5 million barrels.
  Refinery use fell from 83.4% to 82.7%
  Gasoline demand fell 0.5% YoY.
  Distillate demand fell 10.5% YoY.

• The Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange pegged this year's soybean crop at just 1.249 billion bushels, down 184 million from USDA's latest estimate.
  

Quick Overview

• The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of home prices dropped 18.6% from February 2008. For the first time in 16 months, the decline was not a record.

• The Conference Board's index of U.S. consumer confidence rose more than forecast to a five-month high of 39 from 26.9.
  
  

• YoY Japan’s retail sales fell 3.9% in March
  

• Canada said that there were 11.9 million hogs April 1st, down 8.6% YoY
  

• (Reuters) - U.S. regulators have told Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc they may need to raise more capital following stress testing of the two banks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

• U.S. Senator Specter to seek re-election as a Democrat.

The capital well is running dry and some economies will wither
But our world is nothing like the late 1940s, when large families were rearing the workforce that would master the debt. Today we face demographic retreat. West and East are both tipping into old-aged atrophy (though the US is in best shape, nota bene).

Quick Overview

• The Chicago Federal Reserve's index of national activity fell from -2.82 to -2.96 in March

Of couples and copulas
The development of the model had, ironically, changed the nature of the reality it was modelling.

Quick Overview

• Banks stress test, Fed meeting, flood of earnings, potential Swine flu quarantines are some of the headwinds facing the market this week.
  

• China and Taiwan sign agreements to allow investment across the Taiwan Strait in the latest sign of improving ties.
  

• Oil could approach the record prices of last July as the global recession halts investment in exploration and energy projects the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Opec warned
  

• Students at a New York City high school were confirmed to have been sickened by the same strain of swine flu that has killed people in Mexico. The World Health Organization warned that this was a health event “of international concern”.

• China has bought 454 tonnes of gold in the past six years as its foreign-exchange reserves surged, bringing its total holding of the metal to $US31 billion.

Germany's slump risks 'explosive' mood as second banking crisis looms
"The Americans are ahead of the curve. European banks are exposed to US commercial real estate and to problems in Eastern Europe and Spain, where the situation is turning dramatic. We think the Spanish savings banks are basically bust and will need a government bail-out," said Mr Jeggli.

Quick Overview

• U.S. durable goods orders fell 0.8% in March
  

• MoM U.S. new home sales fell 0.6%.The inventory of new homes is at a 10.7 month supply.
  

• China has nearly doubled its gold reserves in the last five years as it diversified its foreign exchange reserves away from US dollar assets. China now holds 1,054 tons of gold in reserve.
  

• U.K. retail sales rose 0.3% MoM and 1.5% YoY
  

• German business confidence rose from 82.2 to 83.7.
  

• GDP in South Korea rose 0.1%.
  

• Spain's unemployment rate rose to 17.4%.
  

• MoM China’s coal imports from Vietnam and Canada surged by 138.9%.
  

Gaza farmers fear for their lives, watch as crops die
A Palestinian farmer feeds flowers to young cattle in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on March 23. The flower farmer, whose exports are crippled by an Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run Strip, disposed of part of his crop as animal feed.

Quick Overview

• (Reuters) - The pace of sales of existing homes in the United States fell 3.0 percent in March to a much lower-than-expected annual rate of 4.57 million units, the National Association of Realtors said on Thursday.
  

• U.S. jobless claims rose 27,000 last week to 640,000.
  

• Canada's retail sales rose 0.2% in February
  

• Industrial new orders in the Euro area fell 0.6% in February.
  

• Euro area composite index of services and manufacturing increased from 38.3 to 40.5
  

• The USDA said as of last week, 2008-2009 exports of:
  Corn rose from down 37% to down 36% YoY.
  Soybeans remained up 12% YoY.
  Wheat fell from down 19% to down 20% YoY.
  Cotton remained down 2% YoY.
  

Quick Overview

• MoM U.K.'s unemployment rate rose to 6.7% from 6.5%

• YoY Japan's exports fell 45.6% in March
  

• Australia's consumer prices rose 2.5%
  

• Canada’s leading indicators fell 1.3% in March
  

• The Federal Housing Finance Agency said U.S. home prices rose 0.7% MoM, but fell 6.5% YoY.
  

• The USDA said there were 593.2 million pounds of frozen pork in inventory, down 10% YoY.
  

• The USDA said there were 73.3 million pounds of frozen bellies in inventory, down 26% YoY

• The U.S. DOE said:
  Supplies of crude oil rose 3.7 million barrels to 370.6 million barrels
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline rose 800,000 barrels
  U.S. refineries operated at 83.4% of their operable capacity
  Gasoline demand fell 0.4% YoY
  Distillate demand fell 9.4%. YoY.

Quick Overview

• YoY U.K. consumer prices rose 2.9% in March
  

• Investor confidence in Germany rose from -3.5 to +13.0 in April
  

• Canada’s wholesale sales fell 0.6% in February
  

• The USDA said:
  5% of corn was planted, down 14% YoY.
  6% of spring wheat was planted, down 21% YoY.
  11% of cotton was planted, down 14% YoY.

Quick Overview

• Americans need to sharpen their financial know-how to help them best use their money, especially during the current economic crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday.
  

• U.S. leading indicators fell 0.3% in March, the ninth consecutive month of decline.
  

• Australia's producer prices fell 0.4%.
  

• The International Coffee Organization reduced its estimate of the 2008-2009 world coffee crop from 127.8 to 127 million bags
  

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel struck an upbeat note on the economy on Monday, saying the downturn may have bottomed out.

Funds try to spot the great oil rebound
Crude at $50 does not square with the failure of the big oil companies to replace reserves over the last five years, or with the lack of coal and nuclear plants to plug the gap. It takes 10 years or so to put a nuclear power station into service.
Nor is it compatible with the breakneck industrialisation of Asia. China expects to have 140m cars on its roads by 2020, up sevenfold in a decade.

Bamboo shoots of recovery THE Chinese consider eight to be a lucky number because it sounds like the word meaning “prosperity”. And luck, combined with a massive fiscal stimulus, may yet help the government to achieve its growth target of 8% in 2009. Earlier this year, most economists thought such growth was impossible at a time of deep global recession, but some are now nudging up their forecasts.

Quick Overview

• General Electric earned $2.74 billion in Q1, down from $4.3 billion YoY -- better than expected.
  
  

• YoY Canada’s consumer prices rose 1.2% in March
  

• Construction output in the Euro area fell 1.8% MoM and 11.8% YoY.
  

• The Environmental Protection Agency is considering increasing the ethanol blend in gasoline from 10% to 15%.
  

• The USDA said that there were 11.152 million head of cattle on feed April 1, down 4.6% YoY.
  

Obama Orders Release of Secret Memos But Strongly Signals That He Will Block Any War Crimes Investigation It is also a curious position for the Attorney General who is saying that he will not allow people to be investigated for the commission of federal crimes despite his oath to enforce those very laws without political manipulation or interference.

Are We Organisms Or Living
Ecosystems?
There's a growing consensus among scientists that the relationship between us and the 100 trillion bacterial microbes in our bodies (outnumbering our human cells 10 to one) is a two-way street

Quick Overview

• U.S. jobless claims fell 53,000 last week to 610,000
  

• U.S. housing starts were at an annual rate of 510,000 in March, down 10.8% MoM and down 48.4% YoY
  

• The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's regional index of manufacturing rose from -35.0 to -24.4 in February.
  
  

• Canada's manufacturing sales rose 2.2% in February
  

• Industrial production in the Euro area fell 2.3% in February and 18.4% YoY
  

• Growth of China's GDP slowed to 6.1% in the first quarter of 2009, the weakest since 1992
  

• The USDA's expects beef exports to be down 4% in 2009.
  

• The USDA expects pork exports to be down 13% in 2009
  

• The number of idle containerships worldwide has fallen from 1.42 million to 1.31 million TEU the first drop since September.
  

A 'Copper Standard' for the world's currency system?
Hard money enthusiasts have long watched for signs that China is switching its foreign reserves from US Treasury bonds into gold bullion. They may have been eyeing the wrong metal.

Why is Goldman Sachs So Scared of Mike Morgan?
MW: What is the nature of the relationship between G-Sax and the political establishment in Washington?
Morgan: If I answered that question I would need to increase the thickness of my Kevlar body suit.

Quick Overview

• U.S. CPI fell 0.1% in March and 0.4% YoY. Excluding food and energy, prices rose 0.2% MoM and 1.8% YoY.
  

• The New York Fed's regional index of manufacturing rose from -38.2 to - 14.7
  

• U.S. industrial production fell 1.5% in March.
  

• The U.S. DOE said:
• Supplies of crude oil rose 5.6 million barrels to 366.7 million barrels
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline fell 900,000 barrels
  Supplies of heating oil fell 700,000 barrels.
  Refinery use fell from 81.8% to 80.4%.
  Gasoline demand fell 0.4% YoY
  Distillate demand fell 6.7% YoY.

• Coal stocks at U.S. power plants rose 1% WoW and 17.1 YoY. Electric companies had 164.3 million short tons of coal stockpiled, compared with 162.7 million tons reported last Tuesday and 140.2 million tons the same week last year.
  

• Russia’s Gazprom estimates its end-2008 reserves at 217.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent, the company said, representing an increase of 11% from 2007, when Gazprom's reserves were 196.4 billion.
  

• UBS , raised its shareholdings in China Shipping Container Lines to 6.97% from the previous 4.5%.
  

• Chinese manufacturers at Asia’s biggest export fair say orders are starting to recover.

• Ukrainian industrial production fell 30.4%, the eighth consecutive decline.

• Zinc rose to the highest level in six months on speculation demand is increasing in China.
  

Cross Your Fingers and Carry On I just don’t get it. Let’s assume that there is only a 10% chance that the International Energy Agency and everybody else predicting that global oil supplies will soon peak or plateau are right. That still makes peak oil about 100,000 times more likely than a smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom.

Quick Overview

• U.S. producer prices fell 1.2% in March and 3.5% YoY.
  
  

• U.S. retail sales fell 1.1% in March vs. expected 0.2% rise
  
  
  

• Bernanke sees signs economic decline leveling out.
  
  

• Undeterred, Somali pirates hijacked three more ships.

• Germany joins France, Austria, Hungary, Greece and Luxembourg in banning the cultivation of GM corn, claiming that Monsanto’s MON 810 is dangerous for the environment.

• The world could run out of oil in 20 years. This grim scenario is not the prediction of environmentalists, but of Michel Mallet, the general manager of French energy giant Total's German operations.
  
  

Cash Beats Stocks for First Time in U.S. Survey
Investors had a record 45 percent of assets in cash, including money-market investments, and a record-low equity allocation of 41 percent in March, according to the survey data. Historical averages are 25 percent and 60 percent, respectively.

Obama Opposes Right for Detainees in U.S. Military Prisons to Challenge Their Detention
After seeking adopting Bush positions on unlawful surveillance last week, President Obama has adopted another controversial Bush policy: opposing basic legal rights for detainees held in U.S. military prison in Afghanistan. Some of the most egregious allegations of torture and abuse have focused on such prisons as the one at Bagram Air base. President Obama is now claiming that access to courts and review in such cases would threaten national security.

Quick Overview

• YoY Japan’s producer prices fell 2.2% in March
  

• China's official Purchasing Managers Index rose to 52.4 in March from 49.0 in February -- the first time the index has been expanding since September.

• Industrial output in China rose 8.3% in March

• YoY China's currency reserves grew by 16% in the first quarter. This puts China's currency reserves at US$1.9537 Trillion
  

• MoM Chinese copper imports rose 14 % to a record 374,957 metric tons.
  

• China, may import corn from the U.S. as prices are now competitive compared with local supplies Chinas National Grain and Oils Information Center said.
  

• India ended its 60% import duty on sugar in an effort to relieve a shortage at home.

Quick Overview

• April 11 (Bloomberg) -- China’s new lending surged more than sixfold from a year earlier to a record 1.89 trillion yuan ($277 billion) in March, adding to signs that growth in the world’s third-biggest economy is gathering pace. M2, the broadest measure of money supply, grew 25.5 percent, the central bank said.
  
  

• MoM US air freight fell 21% in February, the lowest industry level in eight years.
  
  

• Chinese rail cargo volume fell 4.8% in January.
  

• Thousands of homes in Florida are believed to contain potentially toxic Chinese drywall, officials said.

Quick Overview

• U.S. jobless claims fell 20,000 last week to 654,000.
  

• The Commerce Department reported the U.S. trade deficit fell to $26 billion from a revised $36 billion in January.
  

• Canada’s unemployment rate rose from 7.7% to 8.0% in March
  

• The USDA's 2008-2009 U.S. ending stocks estimate for:
  Corn was lowered from 1.74 to 1.70 billion bushels.
  Soybeans were lowered from 185 to 165 million bushels.
  Wheat was reduced from 712 to 696 million bushels.
  Sugar was increased from 981,000 to 1.29 million tons.
  Cotton was reduced from 7.3 to 6.7 million bales.
  

• The USDA's 2008-2009 world ending stocks estimate for:
  Corn was reduced from 145 to 143 million tons.
  Soybeans were lowered from 50 to 46 million tons.
  Wheat was raised from 156 to 158 million tons.
  Cotton was raised to 63 million bales.
  

• The USDA reduced its guess of Argentina's soybean crop from 43 to 39 million tons
  
  

• The USDA increased its estimate of 2009 beef production to 26.44 billion pounds,
  

• The USDA reduced its estimate of 2009 pork production to 22.775 billion pounds, down 2% YoY.