QUICK OVERVIEW

• The University of Michigan and Thomson Reuters said U.S. consumer sentiment fell to 74.3 for March from 75.3 in February. Higher gas prices (Iran war talk) are probably to blame.

• (Arlan Suderman) Chinese Sept corn futures hit record high of $10.03 per bushel; Oh yeah, supplies are adequate.
• U.S. Corn (almost) and Beans at six month high.

• U.S. CPI rose 2.9% YoY as of February; unchanged from January; Core rate up 2.2% YoY, down from 2.3% in January.

• Some reports suggest there are plenty of new iPads still in stores. AAPL briefly crossed above $600 last week; Market Cap = 546 B (XOM = 407 B)

• J.P. Morgan announced a share buyback and raised dividends. Most U.S banks passed the latest Fed stress test.

• Fitch put UK ratings on watch.

• Paypal (EBAY) is looking to extend its electronic payment services to domestic markets in India and China, the largest consumer markets in Asia.

• BIMCO forecasts 20 million DWT of dry bulk to be recycled during 2012

• Former clients of MF Global expressed outrage over reports that Louis Freeh, the trustee overseeing the company's liquidation, planned to ask a bankruptcy judge to approve sizable bonuses for nearly two dozen top executives at the failed firm.

• The U.S. government ran a $231.7 billion budget deficit in February, up from $222.5 YoY.

• Fitch Affirms United Kingdom at 'AAA' - Revises Outlook To Negative.

• Some Brits have the idea of refinancing the national debt with 100-year gilts, or even gilts issued in perpetuity, is a bit too clever by half.

• In a major embarrassment for Goldman Sachs, a senior executive has resigned from the bank and attacked its 'toxic greed' and 'destructive' culture.

• Department of Labor reporting that first time claims for unemployment benefits dropped 14,000 to 351,000 in the week ending March 10.
• It also reported that wholesale prices rose 0.4% in February

• YoY Sales at full-service restaurants rose 8.7%, the fastest growth since the late 1990’s

• Nokia is expected to launch its Lumia smartphone line in China on March 28. DigiTimes says that China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile will all sell Nokia Lumia handsets.

• China overtook the United States to become the top foreign investor in Germany in 2011 in terms of investment project numbers.

• Spain’s new houses prices fell on average by 11.2 % during 2011

• Eurozone inflation stable at 2.7% in February
• Eurozone industrial production rose by 0.2% in January

• Singapore's unemployment rate improved to a 14-year low of 2% in 2011

You want to live to 1,000? Start making friends Whatever, there are going to be a lot more old people around soon, and many things urgently need looking at again. If we were to design a pension system today to match Bismarck's – in terms of the age that it starts set against median life expectancy – it would kick in at 103... ...According to the analysis, if you want to scotch the idea of old age as a state of dependency, you have to start thinking not in terms of how long you can keep yourself alive but of how long you can keep yourself healthy. And if you want to keep yourself healthy, the answer, for a change, is not about willpower, exercise, keeping active and looking after yourself. The answer is other people. So you'd better start making some friends.

A bit lazy currently – next update Sunday

Next Update Sunday

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (AP) -- President Barack Obama said Sunday that United States will not hesitate to attack Iran with military force to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon...

• Only two (now 7) advertisers have cut ties with the "Rush Limbaugh Show" after he called an activist for women's contraception a "slut and prostitute"... advertisers who have not rejected Limbaugh include Carbonite, a  online computer backup system.

• Pork production in China, the top soybean importer, will climb to 51.6 million metric tons this year, up 4.2 percent from a year earlier, as the government increased insurance incentives for farms, a U.S. Department of Agriculture unit said.

• The USDA Thursday forecasted that U.S. framers will plant 94 million acres of corn. That would be up 2.3% YoY, and would be the most corn planted since 1944.

• Informa cut its estimate of Brazil’s soybean crop by 2m tonnes to 68m tonnes

• Canada's economy grew 2.5 % in 2011, down from 3.2 % YoY

• Italy's debt rose to 120.1% of GDP last year from 118.7 % in 2010, the highest level since 1996.
• The country's economy grew 0.4% last year compared to 1.8% the previous year

• A further 112,269 Spaniards lost their jobs in February, the seventh consecutive month during which unemployment rose in Spain.

• Japan's jobless rate rose to 4.6% in January.

• Moody's downgraded Greece long term sovereign credit rating from "Ca" to "C" .

• The iShares MSCI Peru Index (EPU) has given back to investors in 2012, outperforming gold and copper exchange traded funds.

• Exchange traded funds that hold bullion are rivaling global central banks in their accumulated gold stores.

• PIMCO Debuts First Actively Managed ETF (TXRT): the Bond fund is managed by Bill Gross and will invest in all sectors of the fixed income market.

• (FT) US corporation tax rates hit 10-year low.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The U.S. ISM index, stood at 52.4% in February, lowers than the reading of 54.1 % in January.

• Italian 10-year paper fell as low as 4.9 %, the lowest since August.

• China says it has larger-than-expected shale gas reserves that could fulfill domestic demand for nearly 200 years – but Beijing admits extraction will prove difficult

• U.S. personal income rose 0.3% in January, after a 0.5% gain in December.

• U.S. personal consumption expenditures rose 0.2 % in January, after it remained flat in Dec.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Case-Shiller breakdown: Las Vegas, 65% off housing-market peak; Miami, 51%; U.S. home prices fell 4% in Q4 of 2011, putting them back at levels last seen in mid-2002.

• The Conference Board said its index of consumer attitudes increased to 70.8 this month - the highest reading since February last year - from an upwardly revised 61.5 in January.

• Ireland will vote on whether to accept the European Union's new fiscal treaty.

• (Spiegel)Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl stepped into the German debate about aid for Greece on Tuesday, warning that the goal of a united Europe mustn't be questioned.

• (Spiegel) If the Socialist Party's candidate wins the current presidential election in France, the country's highest earners may be faced with massive new taxes. Francois Hollande says he wants to introduce a wealth tax of 75 percent on income of over 1 million Euros per year.

• Oil World calls for largest on record YoY drop in global oilseed production due to South American drought.

• German court says parliament fast-track euro crisis panel unconstitutional.

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Telefonica (TEF) reported an increase in revenues of 3.5% YoY Mobile net additions rose 45% in the quarter, and 7.8 million new accesses added. In 2011 as a whole, total customers grew 7%YoY, to 306.6 million accesses. Net profit doubled to 2.67 billion Euros ($3.57 billion) compared to a profit of 1.3 billion in the year-ago period.

• U.S. New home sales are at an annual rate of 321,000 units in January, down from 324,000 in December. The median sales price rose by $600 to $217,100.

• The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to 75.3, up from 75 the previous month.

• Santorum said, “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely ... The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”

• (FT) Stockton, a city in northern California, next week may decide to suspend payments to some of its creditors and take steps toward a bankruptcy filing after years of fiscal strife.

• "Though housing-related businesses remain in the emergency room, most other businesses have left the hospital with their health fully restored," Buffett said on Saturday in his closely watched annual letter to shareholders.
•  Berkshire Hathaway’s net income fell 30% as the paper value of its derivative contracts fell.
• Berkshire said it earned $3.05 billion, or $1,846 per Class A share, compared with earnings of $4.38 billion, or $2,656 per share a year earlier.

• A 17-tonne haul of silver coins, lost for two centuries in the wreck of a sunken galleon, began its journey back to Spain yesterday after deep-sea explorers lost their claim to ownership.

• VIVUS (VVUS:) said that an Advisory Committee of the FDA recommended that Qnexa be granted FDA marketing approval for the treatment of obesity in adults. It purportedly helped trial patients lose 10% of their weight in a year.

• Chinese banks have been urged to use green credits as a tool to support the nation to cut carbon emissions while achieving a sustainable growth, according to China Banking Regulatory Commission.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (AAGIY) AIA Group Ltd, Asia's No.3 insurer, reported a 40 % rise in value of new business in the year ended Nov. 30, 2011, helped by strong performance in China and Singapore.

• AIG said Q4 operating profit was 82 cents a share, above Wall Street’s consensus estimate of 63 cents a share.

• A drought threat posed across southern and western Minnesota is the most serious in over a decade, according to University of Minnesota Extension Climatologist Mark Seeley. Climate outlooks currently favor more rain than normal this spring across much of the state, but it might not be enough, Seeley says: “Many areas are so deficient in stored soil moisture they will need 150-200% of normal rainfall during March and April to make up the difference.”

• (NYT) President Obama asked Congress on Wednesday to scrub the corporate tax code of dozens of loopholes and subsidies to reduce the top rate to 28 percent, from 35 percent, while giving preferences to manufacturers that would set their maximum effective rate at 25 percent.

• The National Association of Realtors said existing home sales rose 4.3% in January.

• Singapore's CPI eased to 4.8% in January, down from 5.5% the previous month. French CPI fell by 0.4% in January thanks to a drop of manufacturing costs, following a rise of 0.4% in December.

• YoY, French inflation rose by 2.3%.

• China discovered 1.37 billion tonnes of oil reserves last year, up 20.6% YoY.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• In the early hours of this morning the Eurozone finally agreed a €130bn bailout for Greece. 

• Wal-Mart Stores' fiscal 4Q earnings fell 15% to $5.16 billion, or $1.50 a Share. Revenue rose 6% to $123.17 billion. 

• Home Depot's 4Q earnings rose to $774 million, or 50c a share. Sales rose 6% to $16 billion. 

• Kraft Foods' 4Q earnings up 54% to $830 million, or 47c a share. 

• James Monroe (Chairman of the Board) of Globalstar (GSAT) bought 50,000 shares. 

• Marine biologists and philosophers have joined forces to support a controversial declaration of rights for whales and dolphins on the grounds that their astonishing intelligence and emotional empathy puts them on a par with humans.

Plutocracy, Pure and Simple
Shocking, fascinating, entirely unsurprising: the leaked documents, if authentic, confirm what we suspected but could not prove. The Heartland Institute, which has helped lead the war against climate science in the United States, is funded among others by tobacco firms, fossil fuel companies and one of the billionaire Koch brothers..

Daily charts are up-to-date  No weekly update this week -- back up next weekend.

Quick Overview

• Prichard: Europe's key powers are on the brink of a €130bn (£108bn) debt deal to rescue Greece and avert the first sovereign default in Western Europe in over half a century.

• Abbott (ABT) increased the quarterly common dividend from 48 cents per share to 51 cents per share. This marks the 40th consecutive year that Abbott has increased its dividend payout and the 353rd consecutive quarterly dividend to be paid by Abbott since 1924.

• Retail sales in Britain increased 1.9 % YoY

• China loosened monetary policy in a surprise move over the weekend, taking precautionary action to shore up the economy after a slew of weak data. The cut, the second of its kind in three months, will drop the RRR by 50 basis points to 20.5% for large commercial banks and 17% for mid- and small-sized banks.
• China: In January, 48 cities out of the statistical pool of 70 major cities saw drops in new home prices MoM, while new home prices in 22 cities remained unchanged. On a YoY basis, property prices are still higher in most cities.
• Foreign trade in south China's Guangdong Province, the nation's key production and export base, fell 16.7% YoY in January.

• Iran has halted oil shipments to Britain and France, the Oil Ministry said, in an apparent pre-emptive move against the European Union.

• Tranquilo Favero, the head of Paraguay's largest soy producer, took out ads in national news media on Sunday to ask forgiveness for telling a Brazilian newspaper that Paraguayan farm workers are lazy and that "you have to treat them like a bad woman, with a stick."

• (Bloomberg) The U.S. cattle herd as of Jan. 1 was the smallest for that date since 1952, and beef exports surged 21 percent in 2011, government data show. The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast a 4.1 percent drop in beef output in 2012, boosting the cost of the meat for consumers by as much as 5 percent this year, more than any other food group except seafood.

• Billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson told investors it’s time to buy gold.

• Lack of rain in Texas may lead to the smallest planted rice acreage since the 1920s.

• Implats forecasts the platinum market will reflect a 335000oz deficit in the coming financial year compared with a surplus of 120000oz this year, marketing director Derek Engelbrecht said at the group’s interim results presentation yesterday.

Quick Overview

• Leak exposes how Heartland Institute (Koch) works to undermine climate science.

• Equinix (EQIX) fourth-quarter profit rose 29%
  
  
• Moody's warned that it may downgrade the credit ratings of 114 banks, including 17 global banks.

• Nestle (NSRGF) posted a full-year sales growth of 7.5% - but it predicted a tough year ahead.

• U.S Initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped 13,000 to 348,000, the lowest level since March 2008, the Labor Department said.

• 7.58% of U.S. mortgage borrowers were late on their loan payments during the last three months of 2011, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That was down 0.67 % YoY and 2.5% from the peak set in the first quarter of 2010.

Quick Overview

• @TheDailyShow @RickSantorum "Government cannot force you to pay for something that violates faith or beliefs." // Great advice for tax season!

• QoQ Japan's economy shrank by 0.6%. Japan is taking further monetary easing steps by setting its price stability goal at one percent to fight deflation, while expanding its asset purchase program by 10 trillion yen to 65 trillion yen. BOJ also decided to hold its interest rate steady at zero to 0.1%.

• Moody’s lowered the outlook on France, Britain and Austria to negative, but kept their ratings at triple-A for now.

• Obama has charged more whistleblowers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all previous Presidents combined.

• Crude-oil supplies in the U.S. rose 2.9 million barrels in the week ended Feb. 10.
• Gasoline supplies rose 1.8 million barrels
• Distillates declined 2.2 million barrels.

• (Prichard) A Greek default and traumatic ejection from the euro moved a step closer last night after Eurozone finance ministers cancelled a crucial meeting, accusing Athens of failing to flesh out austerity cuts

• Austria and Switzerland are aiming to join hands in their effort to fight tax evasion with an agreement being negotiated by the two governments.

Germany's Carthaginian terms for Greece Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The last time Germany needed a bail-out from world creditors, it secured better terms than shattered Greece last week...Greece has less strategic relevance, and must comply with tougher terms...Would Konrad Adenauer ever have made such a blunder?

Quick Overview

• In the US, since 1900, the longest anyone has had to wait for a positive return from a position in stocks (Index) is 17 years. In Italy its 74 years --so says the FT
• 
  
• (Barrons) Baltic Dry: Not Washed Up -- News that the Baltic Dry Index is sunk as an economic indicator is much exaggerated.
  The index—which measures the cost to haul dry freight over the world's oceans—has merely run aground after getting hit with a shipping-market tsunami. Don't worry. It will right itself soon enough–and should once again become a useful forecasting tool, as early as the end of the year.
  The cost of shipping dry commodities, such as coal, iron ore and grains, forms the basis for the BDI. When more raw materials are shipped, it is because they are needed to be made into ...
• (Bloomberg) -- The trustee liquidating MF Global Inc. brokerage said the firm has a shortfall of at least $1.6 billion to pay commodity customers’ claims.

• The Hellenic Statistical Authority said YoY Greece’s manufacturing output contracted by 15.5% in December and industrial output fell 11.3%, having fallen 7.8% in November. Unemployment jumped to 20.9% in November, up from 18.2% in October - a rise of 14% in a month.

• The U.S. federal government reported a budget deficit of 27.4 billion U.S. dollars in January, the figure is sharply lower than the reading of 50 billion a year earlier.

• Industry output in France lost ground in December as the electrical and textile industry dragged down the country's overall production by 1.4%.

• Britain's producer prices rose 0.5 % MoM.

• G4S, the world’s largest security company, has won the first contract in Britain to staff and build a police station.

Quick Overview

• Inflation in China is higher than expected in January at 4.5%

• Greek jobless rate hits new record high at 20.9%

• Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS) raised the dividend 6.3%

• Akamai (AKAM) Q4 revenue rose 14%. Profit was 45 cents a share, exceeding the 40-cent average projection.

• Melco Crown Ent. (MPEL) Reports Q4 earnings of $0.20 per share, $0.03 better than the Consensus Estimate of $0.17; revenues rose 30.2% YoY to $1.01 bln vs the $0.98 bln consensus.

• Indonesia cuts interest rate to 5.75%.

• Japan's key machinery orders fall 7.1 %

• A $25 billion settlement with the U.S. mortgage lenders was hailed by government officials as long-overdue relief for victims of foreclosure abuses. Of the five major lenders, Bank of America will pay the most to borrowers: nearly $8.6 billion. Wells Fargo will pay about $4.3 billion, JPMorgan Chase roughly $4.2 billion, Citigroup about $1.8 billion and Ally Financial $200 million. The banks will also pay state and federal governments about $5.5 billion.
  -- About 11 million households are underwater
  
  
  
  
  

Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds
The second major category of investments involves assets that will never produce anything, but that are purchased in the buyer's hope that someone else -- who also knows that the assets will be forever unproductive -- will pay more for them in the future. Tulips, of all things, briefly became a favorite of such buyers in the 17th century.

Quick Overview

• KO profit was 79 cents a share, exceeding the 77-cent average estimate.

• MoM Japan's coincident index posted an increase of 2.9 points in December, the first expansion in two months.

• The Reserve Bank of Australia  left rates unchanged at 4.25%.

• Disney’s net income in the October through December period rose to $1.46 billion, or 80 cents per share, from $1.30 billion, or 68 cents per share, a year earlier. Q1 Profit rose 12%.

• Americans accelerated their borrowing in December for the second straight month, running up more credit card debt and taking out loans to buy cars and attend school. Consumer borrowing rose by $19.3 billion.

• BP hiked its quarterly dividend by 14 %

• China’s gold imports from Hong Kong more than trebled in 2011 from the year before, hitting a record 428 tonnes.

An orderly EMU break-up, à la Française
"Even though our American and Chinese competitors have an interest in the survival of the single currency, the euro is condemned to an uncontrollable explosion sooner or late".

Quick Overview

• As cold temperatures in Eastern Europe stretching all the way into France feed wheat concern about supplies there. "It's just too cold, for too long, with too little snow for nothing to have happened," ABN Amro says.

• (MarketWatch) -- A trustee seeking to distribute customer securities overseen by bankrupt MF Global Inc. said Monday that they have traced a majority of the cash that disappeared from the commodities broker. "The trustee's investigators have now traced a majority of the cash transactions, totaling more than $105 billion, made in and out of MF Global Inc. in the last week before bankruptcy and are completing the process of tracing the remaining transactions," the trustee said.

• (FT) The richest 400 Americans now have assets equal to the poorest 140 million.

• The GDP per capita of Indonesia has grown 17.7% throughout last year to 3,542 U.S. dollars from 3,010 U.S. dollars in the previous year.

• In the 12 months to January, Australia’s inflation gauge rose by 2.2%.

• The value of trade cargo handled by the Shanghai customs for the first time surpassed the US$800 billion mark last year, hitting $812.3 billion, 18.6 per cent more than in 2010, Xinhua reports.

• Customs of south eastern Xiamen opposite Taiwan recorded a 21.3 per cent increase in 2011 trade value year on year to US$103.3 billion last year, which for the first time surpassed US$100 billion, Xinhua reports.

• Yum's net income in Q4 ended December 31 grew 30% to $356 million, or 75 cents per share -- topping analysts' average view. Chinese sales rose 21%. China is Yum's biggest earnings driver, accounting for just over 40 % of overall profits.
  
  
  
  

Quick Overview

• (FT) The Costa Concordia and the less-known Ponta de Madeira incident have prompted disquiet over maritime industry’s pursuit of scale efficiencies.

• Seventy one per cent of all the new power generating capacity in the EU last year came from solar panels, wind turbines or other renewable energy sources.

• The U.S. Labor Department said the advance figure of seasonally adjusted initial claims for jobless benefits was 367,000 in the week ending Jan. 28, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week. That helped to push the unemployment rate down to 8.3 percent and the number of unemployed down to 12.8 million.

• The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has said global food output must rise 70 percent by 2050 to feed a world population expected to grow to 9 billion from 7 billion now and as increasingly wealthy consumers in developing economies eat more meat. Cargill agrees.

Quick Overview

• The CME said it would create a $100 million fund to protect farmers and ranchers from losing their funds in the event of another collapse like that of MF Global. This fund, which will not be active until March, does not protect those customers affected by MF Global’s demise. It also will not cover hedge funds or other individual traders, who make up a large percentage of futures business. Some $1.2 billion in MF Global customer money are “very mysteriously” still missing. Someone with oversight has suggested “evaporation” as cause.

• China's PMI, a preliminary readout of the country's manufacturing activity, rose to 50.5% in January of 2012, the highest level since October.

• Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell reported profits of 28.6 billion US dollars for 2011, a jump of 54 % YoY.

• Republicans Have More Orgasms, According to Match.com Sex Survey.

• The industrial producer prices index fell by 0.2% in Eurozone nations in December as compared with November.

• How to destroy your brand in 24 hours -- Susan G. Komen

• The German unemployment rate fell to 6.7% from 6.8% in December, a record low since its unification 20 years ago.

• India's economic growth has been revised down to 8.4 %t for 2010-11 fiscal year from the earlier estimate of 8.5%.

Quick Overview

• (EIU) wages are growing at 12% per year in China.

• Globalstar, (GSAT), announced its commercial and recreational customers are experiencing significant improvements in Globalstar's satellite telephone service. The improvements to Globalstar’s service are the result of the company's recently deployed second-generation satellites.

• Qualcomm’s revenues rose 40% YoY and 14% sequentially. Net income rose 20% YoY and 33% sequentially.

• JDSU, excluding onetime items, earned 15 cents a share in Q2. Analysts had forecast JDS Uniphase to earn 10 cents a share.

• Volkswagen said Wednesday that its U.S. sales soared 47.9% last month.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Germany's Bundesbank has entirely exhausted its stock of private assets and run up a quarter of a trillion Euros in liabilities propping up the Eurozone system, testing the political limits of EMU solidarity in Germany.

Quick Overview

• Dutch pigeon sold for record £209,000: http://tgr.ph/xO92Oo

• The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of single-family home prices in 20 metropolitan areas declined 0.7 %, a bigger drop than the 0.5% expected. The decrease added on to the 0.7% decline seen in October from September. Home prices in Atlanta dropped 12% last year -- the most in 20 metro areas. Detroit saw the biggest gains, at 4%.

• The Conference Board said consumer attitudes fell to 61.1 in January from a revised 64.8 the month before, as Americans turned gloomy about the job market and their income prospects.

• (Bloomberg) Imagine an industry on a roll. Its income surpassed the $100 billion mark last year for the first time. On top of these riches, those in the business got an additional $25 billion or so in federal handouts. The 1 percenters of Wall Street? Not even close. The beneficiaries are America’s farmers, or to be more accurate, the wealthy owners of very big farms.

• ARM Holdings (ARMH) reported quarterly sales of $217.41million up 21% YoY.

• Joblessness in the 17 countries that use the euro rose to 10.4%

• Biogen said its Q4 earnings rose 25%

• China Manufacturing PMI 50.5 vs 49.8 expected.

• Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) net income fell to $177 million, or 38 cents a share, from $416 million, or 91 cents, a year earlier.

Quick Overview

• (Bloomberg) -- Russia has exported close to 20 million metric tons of wheat in the 2011-2012 marketing year and has “very little grain left,” K.C. Suresh, head of grains at Olam International, told analysts.

• At MF Global, officials hunting for an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer money increasingly believe that much of it might never be recovered. The findings so far suggest that the money "vaporized" as a result of chaotic trading at MF Global.
• Investors and traders reduced commodity trading by 19% in 2011. The flight was the biggest in at least 12 years, outpacing the departure seen in 2008 during the financial crisis.

• The December U.S consumer savings rate rose to 4% from 3.5% in November

• GDP of the Philippines grew by only 3.75 in 2011 or less than one-half of its 2010 growth of 7.6%.

• Standard and Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of 13 major Italian local governments, including the cities of Rome, Milan, Florence, Bologna and Genoa, from A to BBB+.

• The BDI (Baltic Dry Index), is at 702 points, down by 24 on the day. It’s been the worst start of the year for years. This January is proving to be a very difficult month for ship owners, as a result of newbuilding deliveries, especially in the Capesize sector. Stocks of shipping Companies however are performing quite a bit better.

Quick Overview

• Brazil’s cuts benchmark interest rate to 10.5%
• Brazil's unemployment rate fell to a record-low 4.7% in December from the 5.3% in the same period in 2010

• French consumers' sentiment improved to minus 57 this month from minus 61 in December but "remains notably below their long term average."

• Korea’s business survey index , which gauges local manufacturers' assessment of current business conditions, fell 2 points MoM to 78 in January.

• Netflix, shares rose 21% to $115.14 on the back of strong fourth-quarter results

• Japanese retail sales rose 2.5%
• YoY Japan's consumer price index fell 0.1% in December

• Starbucks Q1 profit rose 10% to $382.1 million, or 50 cents a share, up from $346.6 million, or 45 cents a share, in the same 2011 period. Revenue rose 16% to a record $3.4 billion. Comparable store sales worldwide were up 9%.

• 3M reported net earnings of $954 million, or $1.35 per share, compared with $928 million, or $1.28 per share, a year earlier.

• Nokia sold well over 1 million Windows Phone units in Q4 of 2011. That may have nearly doubled Microsoft's smartphone market share. Nokia said it lost almost $1.4 billion in Q4, compared with a profit of 745 million Euros a year earlier. Sales at Nokia fell 21% to 10 billion Euros from 12.65 billion Euros a year earlier. Operating profit fell by more than half during the period to 478 million Euros, from 1.1 billion Euros a year earlier.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. economy has been "expanding moderately", so the Fed's expects to keep rates low through "late 2014"

• The Department of Energy said: crude oil stocks rose by 3.6 million barrels in the week ending January 20. Gasoline stocks fell by 0.4 million. Distillate stocks fell by 2.5 million barrels.

• Britain's economy grew 0.9% during 2011.

• S. Korea’s GDP expanded 0.4 % in Q4, slower than a revised on-quarter growth rate of 0. 8% in Q3.

• New Zealand's central bank left the interest rate unchanged at 2.5 percent.

• Singapore's CPI eased slightly to 5.5 % in December from 5.7 percent in the previous month.

• "To infinity and beyond!" is the theme of Gingrich's latest campaign pitch: a lunar colony within eight years.

• Africa and Asia are moving ahead of Europe in the development of their digital infrastructure according to the head of France's largest telecommunications equipment supplier.

Quick Overview

• U.S. Corporate profitability is at an all time high. Nearly 60% of S&P listed companies have so far beaten earnings estimates for the last quarter. However P/E ratios are at 1990 lows.
• The US Supreme Court overturned a California law that set strict standards for slaughtering and selling the meat of sick and injured animals.
  
  
• Apple reported record quarterly net profits of $13.06bn, or $13.87 per share, well ahead of analyst expectations of $10.07 per share

• Romney, and his wife Ann paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 % in 2010 on an adjusted gross income of $21.6 million.

• The Richmond Fed said manufacturing activity in its six-state region increased in January, mirroring improvements seen in similar regional indexes. The bank said its current-activity index rose to 12 from 3.

• Verizon (VZ) reported adjusted earnings of 52 cents a share -- a penny below the consensus forecast.

• Sales of homes in the UK fell by 11% last year.

• (Spiegel) The EU has banned oil imports from Iran to try and pressure the regime into making concessions over its controversial nuclear program. But even though the Iranian economy is suffering, Tehran is refusing to give ground. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Guards are profiting from the sanctions.

• Johnson & Johnson Q4 profit was barely a tenth what it made a year ago as a slew of charges for recalls, litigation and an acquisition dragged down income. But the health care giant's revenue jumped last year, ending an unprecedented two-year decline.

• Unemployment dropped in 37 U.S. states in December, indicating the improvement in the job market is broad based as the economy picks up.

• China's crude steel output increased 8.9% YoY

• Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said the country's per capita GDP is expected to reach 1,000 U.S. dollars in 2013 from merely 830 U.S. dollars at the end of 2010.

• Argentina denies rumors of corn and soy export bans.

• U.S.A. Today: Newt Gingrich claims that "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history." He's wrong. More were added under Bush than under Obama, according to the most recent figures.

Quick Overview

• According to Bloomberg, the average prediction by analysts of the number of Nokia Lumia smartphones believed to be sold so far is 1.3 million. (Numbers on Thursday)

• Recently-launched ETFs are struggling to attract investors. Of the 308 ETFs launched last year, 86% of them failed to draw in at least $30 million in assets under management.

• (Bloomberg) U.S. farmers, poised to ship record beef cargoes for a second straight year, may get a further boost as Japan, once their biggest overseas customer, considers easing trade curbs imposed after an outbreak of mad-cow disease.

• Orange juice futures rose to a record due to speculation the United States might ban Brazilian juice imports for using a fungicide that US regulations prohibit.

Some See Two New Gilded Ages, Raising Global Tensions
But there is another force that is reshaping the global economy today, and the Goldman executives who toasted Mr. O’Neill are a reflection of that: the rise, in the developed Western economies, of the “1 percent” and the creation of what many are calling a new gilded age. In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution and the opening of the American frontier created the Gilded Age and the robber barons who ruled it. Today, as the world economy is being reshaped by the technology revolution and globalization, the resulting economic transformation is creating a new gilded age and a new plutocracy.

Quick Overview

• Microsoft (MSFT) posted Q4 income of $6.62 billion, or 78 cents a share - beating the 76-cent average estimate.

• Citrus-greening disease is threatening OJ crops in Texas.

• The National Association of Realtors said December RE sales rose 5% to 4.61 million. For all of 2011, sales rose 1.7% to 4.26 million - compared to the 2005 peak of 7.08 million. YoY The Median sales prices in December fell 2.5% to $164,500. Inventories fell 9.2% to 2.38 million, which represents 6.2 months of supply.

• Vodafone (VOD) won its long-running battle with India's tax office over a $2.5bn.

• Rains in Argentina this weekend appear a complete flop for prime production areas.
• Reports have Rio Grande do Sul losing 60% of summer crops. Producers who harvested 162 bpa corn, now appear to be getting 76 bpa.

• Britain's economy is in the grip of its first double-dip recession for 35 years, City forecasters believe.

How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work
When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.
But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?
Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.
Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

Quick Overview

• U.S. average hourly earnings rose 0.2% from November to December

• GM is again the world's largest automaker. Boosted by its Chevrolet brand, sales rise 7.6% to 9 million two years after its emergence from bankruptcy.
  
  
  

• (FT) A recent opinion poll conducted by GlobeScan indicated that support for the free enterprise system had fallen to about 60% in the US. Ten years ago it was at 80%.

• SABMiller (SBMRY) said group revenue rose 7% in the quarter, boosted by strong performance in Asia, Africa and Latin America. (See How Beer Saved the World :)

• MacauHub.com reports that Macau gaming and gambling revenues in 2011 were an almost five-fold increase on revenues in 2006.

• Washington Post raised its annual dividend to $9.80 from $9.40

• (T) BP is likely to agree a $25bn (£16bn) settlement with the US government over the Gulf of Mexico disaster, meaning the trial for civil claims against the oil giant will not proceed.

• Revenue at Union Pacific rose 16 % to $5.11 billion in the quarter, compared with the analysts’ average estimate of $5.06 billion

• Intel reported full-year revenue of $54 billion, operating income of $17.5 billion, net income of $12.9 billion and EPS of $2.39 -- all records. The company generated approximately $21 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $4.1 billion and used $14.1 billion to repurchase 642 million shares of stock.

• IBM reported a Q4 profit of $5.5 billion, or $4.62 a share, compared with a profit of $5.3 billion, or $4.18 a share, for the year-earlier.

• Google reported a 6% gain in Q4 earnings, missing Wall Street's expectations – stock is down 10%.
• U.S. online advertising spending will surpass print ad spending for the first time in 2012, according to a forecast by media research firm eMarketer

Quick Overview

• U.S. producer price index fell by 0.1% in December.
• U.S. industrial production rose by 0.4% in December
• The National Association of Home Builders reported that its housing confidence index rose 4 points to 25 in December, reaching its highest level in 4-1/2 years.

• The unemployment rate in Greece is 19% and rising. GDP has contracted by 12.5% since 2008 and is expected to fall by another 3% this year.

• PayPal added 1m new accounts per month in 2011, and closed Q4 with 106m registered accounts.

• Goldman Sachs announced higher-than-expected Q4 profit of $978 million, or $1.84 per share, compared with a gain of $2.2 billion last year.

• Australia's unemployment rate remained steady at 5.2% in December

• Brazil cuts key rate to 10.5% as expected.

• Chinas property prices fell 0.3% in December, and unsold inventories have reached the highest level in recent history, raising concerns monetary tightening may have gone too far.

• The IMF attempts to increase bail out resources by 500bn to tackle Eurozone contagion that will see Britain stump up a further £15bn, while German finance minister doubts the US will support the plan.

• Saturday marks the 2nd anniversary of the (U.S.) Citizens United ruling handed down by the Supreme Court. It gave corporations 1st amendment rights to spend unlimited money to support or defeat candidates for office.

• Moody’s raised Indonesia’s rating to Baa3 from Ba1

Quick Overview

• China fourth-quarter GDP grows 8.9%
• China’s Industrial output rose 12.8% YoY -- trade expected 12.2%

• U.K. CPI fell to 4.2% in December from 4.8% in November

• Annual inflation in the Eurozone went down to 2.7% in December

• Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang resigns, stock up 5%

• Moody's confirmed that it decided to maintain top triple-A credit rating for France

US undermined by leaks

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.

The Perils of 2012Joseph E. Stiglitz
The good news is that addressing these long-term problems would actually help to solve the short-term problems. Increased investment to retrofit the economy for global warming would help to stimulate economic activity, growth, and job creation. More progressive taxation, in effect redistributing income from the top to the middle and bottom, would simultaneously reduce inequality and increase employment by boosting total demand. Higher taxes at the top could generate revenues to finance needed public investment, and to provide some social protection for those at the bottom, including the unemployed.

Quick Overview

• The USDA put corn ending stocks at 846 million bushels, down 2 million from the month prior and 282 million under a year ago. U.S. corn stocks are very small at 24.4 days' supply. That's historically very, very low. Globally corn stocks are at 53.9-day supply, down 1.5 days from last year and a 38-year low. The U.S. stocks-to-use ratio remained unchanged from last month at 6.7% while global stocks-to-use ratio only increased slightly to 14.8%.
• (Bloomberg) Corn crops in Brazil and Argentina, which produce 30 percent of the world’s exports, will lose 11 million metric tons of output after a drought caused “irreversible” damage, forecaster Agroconsult said.

• Obama asked Congress Thursday to raise the debt ceiling to $16.4 trillion.

• California has slipped behind Brazil to become the ninth-largest economy in the world.

• U.S. Retail sales increased a less-than-expected 0.1%, despite continued strength in autos.

• French CPI rose 0.4 % in December

• (Bloomberg) a proposed European Union embargo of Iranian oil imports was said likely to be delayed for six months
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• The dry bulk market has been in freefall, reminding ship owners just how fragile the market is.

Quick Overview

• La Nina, the weather event, that dried up crops in Argentina and Brazil and flooded plantations in Thailand and Malaysia may be weakening, said Telvent DTN Inc.

• U.S. regulators have halted shipments of imported orange juice from all countries, and plan to destroy or ban products if tests find even low levels from a prohibited fungicide. Initial test results are due this week.

• PG declared another quarterly dividend of $0.525 per share. P&G has been paying a dividend for 121 consecutive years since its incorporation in 1890 and has increased its dividend for 55 consecutive years at an annual compound average rate of approximately 9.5%.

• An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in a Tehran bomb explosion, in at least the third assassination targeting the nation’s atomic program that the U.S. and Israel have vowed to halt.

• The Nevada November gambling revenue statewide rose 7.1% to $880.1 million. On the Las Vegas Strip, which accounts for more than half the total, the take was up 9% to $495.3 million. Tourist traffic rose 3.2% in November to 3.03 million visitors.

• The DoE said that crude oil stocks rose by 5 million barrels, gasoline stocks increased by 3.6 million barrels, and distillate stocks, which includes diesel, increased by 4 million barrels.

• Japan's current-account surplus shrank in November, falling 85.5% as exports dropped amid slowing global demand and energy imports rose.

• The Fed Beige Book said U.S. economic activity increased "at a modest to moderate pace."

• Texas, leadin U.S States, generated 294 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2010, followed by Pennsylvania, with 129 million metric tons emitted.

• The German economy shrugged off the impact of Eurozone debt crisis and grew by 3% in 2011

Quick Overview

• Orange juice futures went limit up for a second day after a warning by food watchdogs of finding Carbendazimin in imports from Brazil. This is compounded by supply fears provoked by cold weather in Florida.

• (FT)The central banks of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy between them hold 3,200 tonnes of gold

• U.S. Insurance companies spent millions of dollars trying to defeat the U.S. health care overhaul, saying it would raise costs and disrupt coverage. Instead, profit margins at the companies widened to levels not seen since before the recession, a Bloomberg Government study shows.

• The U.S. should declare a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in populated areas until the health effects are better understood, doctors said.

• France's industrial production rose by 1.1 percent in November.

• China's online gaming market raked in $6.79 billion in 2011, up 32.4% YoY.

• (Bloomberg) Rubber plantations from Indonesia to Ivory Coast will tap a global crop this year that will create the biggest glut since at least 2004, cutting costs for Bridgestone Corp., Michelin & Cie. and other tire makers.

• Chinas December copper imports rose 47.7% YoY.

• (Reuters) - Organized crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country's biggest "bank" and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report on Tuesday.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. economy created 200,000 non-farm payroll jobs last month -- unemployment fell to 8.5%.

• S. Korea's producer prices rose 0.2% in Dec.

• Central bankers and regulators in the EU, U.S and Japan have agreed to face 'detailed' peer reviews over how well they are implementing new international bank capital rules.

• David Cameron suggested on Sunday that legislation to curb excessive executive pay, including giving shareholders new voting powers, could begin in the spring. The High Pay Commission conducted an inquiry that found that the pay of top executives at FTSE companies had risen by more than 4,000 per cent on average in the last 30 years.

• Brazil's inflation rose to 6.5% in 2011, up from 5.91% in 2010

• The unemployment rate in the Eurozone stayed at 10.3 % in November, unchanged from October.

• Canada's unemployment rate rose to 7.5% in December

• Swiss inflation rate fell to 0.2% in 2011.

• Insurance companies in China collected $226.4 billion of premiums last year, up 10.4% YoY

• David Cameron has said he would veto a European-wide financial transaction tax unless it was imposed globally, deepening a confrontation with France and Germany.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. ISM rose in December to 52.6% from November's 52.0%, a reading that nonetheless was below the 53.3% expected.

• The DOE said in the week ended Dec. 30:
• Oil supplies rose 2.2 million barrels
• Gasoline inventories rose 2.5 million,
• Distillates supplies rose 3.2 million barrels.

• YoY BMW U.S. sales rose 17.9%

• It is hot in Australia and they’re running low on soft-drinks (The decade to 2011 was the hottest on record)

• The number of Americans claiming weekly unemployment benefits fell 15,000 to 372,000 last week, the lowest level since the summer of 2008.

• Spanish banks will need to find an extra €50bn to cover potential losses from property loans, the Financial Times reported

Quick Overview

• According to Dow Trend Earnings (aka Fed model) the Dow should be trading at $45,769

• "Trust me" is not enough of a safeguard, says Amnesty International, as Obama signs the NDAA into law.

• Hot, dry weather in South America continues to raise concerns about potential yield losses.

• US Manufacturing improves to 53.9 in December vs 52.7 in November.

• The Chinese purchasing managers index (PMI), rose to 50.3 in December from 49 in November, indicating a slight expansion in business activity in China's vast factory sector.

• New polling data from Lawrence Hamilton, of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, suggests that the “anti-science” epithet really does apply to many U.S. Republicans—at least on environmental issues.

Happy Holidays
(Updates resume Jan. 3)

Happy Birthday, Bill [of Rights]: Obama Breaks Promise To Veto Bill Allowing Indefinite Detention of Americans I am not sure which is worse: the loss of core civil liberties or the almost mocking post hoc rationalization for abandoning principle. The Congress and the President have now completed a law that would have horrified the Framers. Indefinite detention of citizens is something that the Framers were intimately familiar with and expressly sought to bar in the Bill of Rights. While the Framers would have likely expected citizens in the streets defending their freedoms, this measure was greeted with a shrug and a yawn by most citizens and reporters. Instead, we are captivated by whether a $10,000 bet by Romney was real or pretend in the last debate.

Quick Overview

• Having vetoed his way into isolation at last week's European Union summit, Cameron is now looking for allies.
  
• Spain’s ten-year yields fall 25 basis points to 5.43%

• (LAT) American CEOs raked in fat paychecks last year, as head honchos netted a median 27% increase in compensation in fiscal year 2010. Top executives from the S&P 500 scored a median 36.5% bump in realized compensation.

• U.S. current account trade deficit fell to 110.3 billion U.S. dollars in Q3, 11.5 percent lower than the previous quarter.

• Merkel calmly told parliament that a solution would take years and German central bank head Jens Weidmann compared demands for ECB intervention to an alcoholic grabbing for the bottle.

• Amazon said that it has sold more than 1 million units of its Kindle e-reader and Fire tablet each week for the last three weeks.

• In the Ukraine, the government is allowed to sell or use cars that have been stolen in other countries. The law creates the perfect conditions for organized gangs who steal luxury cars to order in Western Europe. “Perhaps this helped” Ukraine's GD which grew 5.3% in the first 11 months of this year.

• The yield on Germany's 30-year debt hit an all-time low of 2.36%.

• Fitch unexpectedly raised Indonesia's sovereign debt status to investment grade.

• U.S. Industrial production declined 0.2% in November

• The number of U.S. people applying for jobless benefits fell last week to 366000, the fewest since May 2008.

• The US seems determined to punish Bradley Manning -- the military proceedings against him, which begin Friday, are likely to end in a guilty verdict.

• (Spiegel) The murders of African street vendors by a right-wing extremist in Florence have shocked Italy. Questions are now emerging about whether the gunman acted alone. But one thing seems certain, he was close to a right-wing radical group that has a pop culture appeal admired even by Germany's neo-Nazis.

• Japans Tankan survey, the large manufacturer index of sentiment fell to minus 4 in December from plus 2 in September, marking the first decline in two quarters and retreating more than consensus market forecasts.

• FedEx (FDX) profits rose to $497 million, or $1.57 per share, from $283 million, or $0.89 per share, over last year’s second quarter.