No update today

Quick Overview

• (Bloomberg) Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said an oil price of $70 to $80 a barrel is in the best interests of Saudi Arabia because it diminishes the urgency in the U.S. and Europe to develop alternative energy sources.

• Russia plans to let the grain-export ban expire July 1. (as expected)

• (Bloomberg) Steel demand in China, the world’s biggest consumer, may rise by as much as a quarter by 2015 compared with demand last year, according to a projection from the China Iron & Steel Association, which represents producers.

• Chinese animal feed manufacturers consumed 74.7 million metric tons of corn last year, an increase of 20% from 2009.

Quick Overview

• Morgan Stanley lifted its Brent oil forecast to $120 a barrel this year.

• The market is watching the Icelandic volcano eruption, with a lot of analysts of the view that the 2010 Russian crop failures were due to the huge volcanic eruption in Iceland during March/April last year.

• The US Department of Commerce reported that Q1 GDP rose by 1.8%, below expectations of 2.2%.

• Minneapolis wheat rose to new 35-month highs. (Disclosure: The Advisor is long)

• Barclays Capital said  Shandong, China's second-ranked wheat-producing province, has received just 12mm of rain since September 2010, indicating that around 40% of the province's wheat crop has been lost".

• The USDA reports the sale of 4.6 million bushels of old-crop corn to China. (Disclosure: The Advisor is long)

• South Korea's consumer sentiment index rose to 104 in May, up from 100 the previous month, the Bank of Korea said

• QoQ U.S. house price fell 2.5 % in Q1

• India's  wholesale price index for food articles rose 8.55% YoY

• Malaysian Bulker Carrier (MBC) is anticipating the dry bulk market to recover over the medium-term with an increase in coal imports by Japan.

Next update Thursday

Quick Overview

• S&P 500 profits may reach $104.73 in the next 12 months. Biggs “stocks reasonably priced”

• Ohio may have only 10% corn planted said Ohio State University corn agronomist.

• The USDA on Friday said cattle placed into feedlots in April rose 10% YoY while analysts were looking for a 4.3% increase.
  
  
• (WSJ) 46.5% of Americans say they couldn’t come up with $2,000 in 30 days or would have to rely on extreme measures

Quick Overview

• (Bloomberg) -- Standard & Poor’s threat that it may cut Italy’s credit rating risks fanning contagion among debt- laden European countries as Greece fends off speculation that it’s headed to a restructuring.

• China’s April sugar imports rose to 160,000 tons, up nearly 10 x YoY

• Fitch Ratings cut Greece’s long-term rating to B-plus from BB-plus and placed all ratings on Rating Watch Negative

• The Spanish Socialist (PSOE) party of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero suffered a crushing defeat in the local and regional elections held in Spain this Sunday

• Statistics Canada said Friday that Canada's annual inflation rate kept at 3.3 % in April, matching  March.

Next update Sunday

Quick Overview

• France’s soft-wheat harvest, the largest in the European Union, will decline 12% as drought slashes yields, Agritel said.

• U.S. Crude supplies fell 15,000 barrels to 370.3 million last week.
• Refineries operated at 83.2 percent of capacity
• Gasoline inventories rose 119,000 to 205.9 million
• Distillate inventories fell 1.16 million barrels to 143.1 million, the lowest level since April 2009.

• U.S. Health-care expenses will rise 8.5% in 2012, according to a study by Pricewaterhouse

Quick Overview

• U.S. Housing starts have dropped 10.6% to an annual rate of 523,000 in April

• Soros said his hedge fund dumped nearly all of its gold holdings.

• Map of the world, resized by each country's relative water resources.

• Ukraine may cancel quotas on the exports of wheat in 2010/2011 marketing year, stated Nikolay Azarov, Prime Minister of Ukraine.

• Iron ore shipments from Australia's Port Hedland, one of the world's largest export terminals, fell to 15.88 million tonnes in April from 17.78 million tonnes in March

• Oil producers need to boost capacity by 45 million barrels a day, or almost half current output, over the next 20 years to meet demand and offset field declines, said the president of Society of Petroleum Engineers.

• The current weather forecasts suggest that 20 million acres of corn or more will have to be seeded in June.
  
  
• Watermelons are exploding in China after farmers overdid it with growth chemicals
  

  
  
• New highs for PG and DPS
• Jim Rogers Commodities: We Have Virtually No New Supply Of Anything

Quick Overview

• YoY India’s wholesale-price index rose 8.66% in April

• Japanese core machinery order rose 2.9% in March.

• Voters in the Swiss region of Zurich, which has become known as a hub for "death tourism", have voted against restrictions being placed on assisted suicides.

• [AP] - Toxic bean sprouts, filthy cooking oil, drug-tainted pork: The relentless headlines in Chinese media have churned up queasy feelings for months about the dangers lurking in the nation's dinner bowls.

• (Bloomberg) -- Sales of gold coins are on track for the best month in a year amid the worst commodities rout since 2008, a sign that bullion’s longest bull market in nine decades has further to run, if history is a guide.

• The  New York FED's general economic index fell to 11.9 from a one-year high of 21.7 in April

• (Bloomberg) -- Farmers in France, the European Union’s largest producer of wheat, barley and sugar beets, faced more restrictions on water use amid a worsening drought, with no sign of relief in the next few weeks.

Fears grow that US unready for larger Panama canal
From 2014 some of the largest ships in the world will again fit through the 80 kilometer (50-mile) Panama Canal. Vessels carrying around 14,000 containers rather than today's 5,000 will be able to cross the isthmus

Quick Overview

• Bank of Korea unexpectedly keept rates unchanged

• The median home-sale price in the Las Vegas area in 2006 was $313,500; in 2010 it fell to $138,100.

• Germany’s GDP grew 1.5% in Q1, compared with the previous quarter, when the growth stood at 0.4 % in rarely harsh winter weather.

• For the first time since the last quarter of 2009, the Greek GDP grew in the first quarter of 2011 by 0.8%.

• Consumer prices in the U.S. rose 0.4% in April, pushing inflation to its highest level in two and a half years.

• French GDP grew 1% in Q1, the strongest expansion since the second quarter of 2006.

• Eurozone economy would grow by 1.6 % this year, with downside risks to growth prevailing amid increased uncertainties, the European Commission said on Friday.

• The Spanish economy grew by 0.3% in Q1

• YoY Hong Kong's GDP expanded 7.2%

Hindering harvests Using such data researchers have now compiled an estimate of global changes in crop yields which can be put down to recent increases in temperature and decreases in rainfall (the world as a whole is getting wetter, but the rain has stayed away from some agricultural plains). The bad news is that they find that climate change has lowered the amount of maize (or corn, if you prefer) and wheat produced in a given area. The good news is that the effect is so far reasonably small.

Quick Overview

• S & P has again cut Greece’s credit rating, downgrading it by two notches to B.

• Apple’s products are great and its earnings are soaring, so it’s not unreasonable to think the company is worth $2 trillion, writes James Altucher -- Really?

• U.S. households debt rose 0.3% last Q.

• Brazil rapeseed production to rise to 70k tonnes, up 65% YoY.

• PIMCO’s Gross: Stock’s are more attractive than Treasuries.

• Forecaster WeatherEdge Ltd. warned that France and Germany may have lost 15-20% of their wheat crops due to weeks of persistent dryness across the north of the countries.

• Arlan Suderman: Abandonment is the key for U.S. winter wheat; Prev yrs w similar crop ratings saw 25 to 30% abandonment

Quick Oveviewr

• (Arlan Suderman) Historically, December corn has a strong tendency to take out the spring high when new-crop stocks are projected below a 50-day supply. I expect USDA to peg new-crop stocks closer to a 20-day supply on Wednesday.

• Canada's unemployment rate fell 0.1% to 7.6 percent in April.

• YoY France's budget deficit rose by 16.3% to 33.6 billion Euros (48.83 billion U.S. dollars).

• The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.0% in April, and nonfarm payroll employment added 244,000 positions.

• China became the main export destination of Argentine soya products in 2010 -- buying 83%.

• Unilever (China) (UN) faces a fine of 2 million yuan (about 303,000 U.S. dollars) over statements of planned price hikes that enhanced the public's inflationary expectation and triggered panic buying. The fine, handed down by the Shanghai municipal pricing authority, came amid China's efforts to nail down runaway inflation that has spiked prices across the country.

• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said Friday that its first-quarter profit tumbled 58 percent from a year ago due to insurance losses from major disasters in Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

• (Bloomberg) -- European Union officials may require Greece to provide collateral for aid as policy makers struggle to prevent the euro area’s first sovereign debt restructuring

Quick Overview

• The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) on Friday lifted its inflation forecasts for the next two years, with a statement saying that further tightening of monetary policy is likely.

• ECB holds rates at 1.25%.

• The number of U.S. people initially applying for unemployment aid last week rose to its highest level in eight months.

• The water level of the drought-stricken Yangtze River has been sharply reduced since February of this year, with its middle reaches decreasing to levels not seen in fifty years. In addition, water levels near the river's Three Gorges Dam are at five-year lows.

• (Bloomberg) Drought conditions may persist in wheat-growing areas from China, the world’s largest grower and consumer, to the U.S. and Western Europe, hurting crops and lifting prices, British Weather Services said.

• The GOP said plan to replace Medicare with vouchers will have to wait.

Quick Overview

• The central bank of Mexico bought nearly 100 tonnes of gold in February and March.

• The DOE said:
• Crude oil inventory rose by 3.42 million barrels
• Gasoline stockpiles fell by 1.05 million barrels

• Intel  redesigned the chip -- now in 3D!

• Spain's unemployment rate fell by 1.48% in April

• Retail trade volume in the Eurozone dropped 1.0% MoMThe

• ISM service index dropped to 52.8% for April, down from 57.3% in March

Quick Overview

• Brazil's industrial production rose 2.3 in Q1

• Industrial producer prices in the Eurozone rose by 0.7 % MoM

• Funds led by well-known investors such as George Soros and John Burbank have been selling off their gold and silver holdings recently, helping fuel the metals' price falls, The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday.

• (MW) Legislation proposed in California that would mandate a means for Web users to easily prevent websites from gathering their personal information is moving forward, despite intense opposition from some of the state’s largest Internet firms — including Facebook and Google.

No update today

Quick Overview

• Two weeks until the U.S.debt ceiling is hit, Treasury Sec. Geithner says

• U.S. Corn planting progress as of Sunday: 13% v 40% average.

• Japan's domestic vehicle sales collapsed by more than 50pc last month as the impact of March's earthquake and tsunami crippled the supply chain

• YoY South Korea's CPI rose 4.2% in April

• (FT) Britons with billions of pounds hidden in Switzerland will pay tax at 50 per cent under a groundbreaking deal that will legitimise their undeclared assets, according to a source familiar with negotiations between the Swiss and British governments.

I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure - Mark Twain

Quick Overview

• South Korea’s exports expanded 26.6% YoY, compared with a revised 28.9% gain in March.

• Chinese manufacturing index fell to 52.9 in April from 53.4 in March.

• Buffett says not raising debt ceiling would be ‘Most Asinine’.

• Obama says oil companies are profiting from rising pump prices and he wants Congress to end $4 billion in annual tax breaks.

• Russia's Central Bank will raise its key interest rate by 0.25% from 8 to 8.25%.

• The unemployment rate in the euro zone was 9.9 in March, unchanged from February.

• Annual inflation in the euro zone rose to 2.8 in April.

• The world is facing an increasingly severe food crisis as rapid population growth and climate change are taking their toll on agricultural production around the world, the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center said.

The First Guess: A Modest Proposal About Arizona

Next update Sunday

No update today

Quick Overview

• (Bloomberg) -- China’s banking regulator set capital targets for the nation’s five biggest lenders above the minimum 11.5 percent ratio amid concern that credit risks may rise, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

• U.S. new-home sales rebound 11.1% in March

• China aims to meet more than 85% of its sugar demand though domestic production and keep yearly imports at about 2 million tons, agricultural ministry's Wang said. In the last calendar year, China imported 1.77 million tons of sugar, up 66% YoY.

• There is no sign yet of rising energy and commodity prices spreading to second-round inflation in the euro zone, but the European Central Bank mustn't be complacent, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said.

• The US Congress should consider cutting multibillion-dollar subsidies to oil companies amid rising concern over skyrocketing gas prices, John Boehner said.

Quick Overview

• China must be vigilant against possible price fluctuations caused by rising costs that the U.S. faces to issuing debt, citing People's Bank of China Research Bureau Director Zhang Jianhua.

• (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge erred in dismissing all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007, an appeals court ruled on Friday.

• The U.S. is the world's largest wheat exporter and its HRW grade in Texas has received barely 25% of the normal rainfall so far this year, while in Oklahoma it is barely 30%. HRW wheat is used for bread-making worldwide

Lessons from the Credit-Anstalt Collapse
"Because we remember the Credit-Anstalt, we will not make that mistake," DeLong says. "We will make different ones."

Quick Overview

• MoM German PPI rose a less than expected 0.4% in March and rose 6.2% YoY.

• Sweden's central bank Wednesday raised its interest rate to 1.75% from 1.50%. This is the sixth consecutive increase.

• The International Grains Council estimates grain stocks at a four-year low of 334m tonnes or 18.4% of consumption, down from 23% two seasons ago. Wheat has been paying attention to dry conditions in the US, the EU, Russia and China, and wet weather in northern America and Canada. India is the only top-five wheat producer with no weather problems. The council lowered world corn inventories by 8m tonnes, and expressed concerns about declining supplies of high-protein milling wheat.

• (Bloomberg) -- Sales of U.S. previously owned homes rose in March as a mounting supply of properties in or near foreclosure lured investors. Purchases increased 3.7 percent to a 5.1 million annual rate, exceeding the 5 million median forecast of economists.

• Half of federal agencies will be in the cloud within 12 months, according to an InformationWeek Government and InformationWeek Analytics survey.
  The Obama administration’s “cloud first” policy requires agencies to use cloud services where possible for new IT requirements. It’s an alternative to capital investment in systems and software, as agencies look to eliminate 800 data centers over the next four years in accordance with the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative.

• ENCODE (Encyclopedia Of DNA Elements), a massive database cataloging the human genome’s functional elements, including genes, RNA transcripts, and other products, has been created by an international team of researchers, with principal investigators at Penn State University and HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.
  ENCODE is being made available as an open resource to the scientific community, classrooms, science writers, and the public.
  
  
• The DOE said:
  Crude oil stocks fell 2.3 million barrels
  Gasoline stocks fell 1.6 million
  Distillate stocks fell by 2.5 million barrels.
  
  
  
  
• British security researchers have figured out that iPhones keep track of where their owners go.  The data includes the phone's latitude and longitude and is timestamped to the second.
• (Reuters) - Babies exposed to pesticides before birth may have significantly lower intelligence scores by age 7 than children who were not exposed, three separate studies published on Thursday said.
  
  

Quick Overview

• The Canadian Wheat Board said the start to the season is 10 days to three weeks behind schedule.

• YoY U.S. housing starts rose 549,000 in March, and up 7.2% MoM. A glut of housing on the market will make further gains difficult.

• The world's oldest man is celebrating his 114th birthday with a traditional Japanese meal. Jirouemon Kimura began his new year with a breakfast of grilled fish with steamed rice and red beans.

• Construction output in the euro zone fell 0.7% MoM

• Japanese consumer confidence fell from 41.2 in February to 38.6 in March

• Cotton leaf curl virus may play havoc with the cotton crop in Pakistan
  
  
• Mark Welch, grain marketing specialist at Texas A&M predicts Texas will produce about 33M bushels of wheat, roughly one-third its average harvest. China and Western Europe also are dry.
  
  

Quick Overview

• S&P put a “negative” outlook on the U.S. AAA credit rating, citing rising budget deficits and debt. The Dow Jones industrial futures sank 200 points within half an hour of the news.
• Russia intends to further lighten its U.S. debt holdings and is looking to  buy gold and increase their holdings in currencies such as the Canadian dollar.
  

• (Freese-Notis) "When it comes to the weather for the second half of April, what we have in store this year for the Nation's midsection is about as bad as one could imagine for fieldwork. Extended periods of dry weather during that time frame are completely out of the question, and even stringing together as little as two straight days of completely dry weather is going to be a real chore."
• France,  China and U.S have very dry conditions -- raising wheat concerns.
• SovEcon, a Russian agriculture research and consulting body, said Russia wouldn't lift its ban on grain exports before July

• (Bloomberg) China’s farmland shrank by 8.33 million hectares (20.6 million acres) in the past 12 years, Premier Wen Jiabao’s top agriculture adviser Chen Xiwen told reporters March 24

• (Dow Jones)--China, the world's second-largest corn consumer, will limit corn consumption in non-feed sectors to ensure supply for animal feed mills and to help control prices, corn traders and local media reports said.

Quick Overview

• Chinas reserve ratios will rise a half point from April 21, the People’s Bank of China said.

• Greenspan warns of US Debt Crisis and urges end to The Bush tax cuts.
• ( ABC) Since 1992, the average federal income tax actually paid by the wealthiest 400 U.S. households has fallen from 26% to 17%.

• Spiking food price is the biggest challenge facing developing countries nowadays, World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick said.
  
  
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the combined stocks of nine edible  oils will fall 25 % to 9.39 million metric tons this year, or about 23 days of demand, the fewest since 1974.

Shortage Threat Drives Texas Schools Hoarding Bullion at HSBC
“If you own a paper contract where they can only deliver you 10 cents on the dollar or less, you should probably convert it to physical,” said Bass, who isn’t related to Fort Worth’s billionaire Bass family. He said holding cash wasn’t a better choice because the rate of inflation exceeds money-market rates by 2.5 percent to 3 percent, eroding the value of cash.

Next Update Sunday -- Skiing

Goldman Sachs Misled Congress After Duping Clients
(Bloomberg)Senator Carl Levin, releasing the findings of a two-year inquiry, said he wants the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to examine whether Goldman Sachs violated the law by misleading clients who bought the complex securities known as collateralized debt obligations (CDO’s) without knowing the firm was betting they would fall in value.

Quick Overview

• U.S. retail sales rose 0.4%, falling short of pre-report expectations of 0.5%.

• Investors were buying more silver than ever, underpinning prices that are already at record highs, says the head of Bombay Bullion Association.

• Obama vowed to cut $4 trillion in cumulative deficits within 12 years through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.

• The EU antitrust regulator on Wednesday fined consumer goods giants Procter & Gamble (PG) and Unilever (UL) a total of 315.2 million Euros for fixing prices of washing powder.

• China is expected to raise interest rates another two times in the second quarter of this year in an effort to counter persistent inflation pressures, a chief government economist said Wednesday.

• France recorded YoY inflation of 2 % in March, up from 1.7% a month ago.

• The Japanese earthquake may be having more of an impact on the U.S. economy than previously believed, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book.

• The U.S. government on Wednesday ordered 16 of the nation's largest mortgage lenders and servicers to reimburse homeowners who were improperly foreclosed upon.

• The DOE said:
• Crude oil stocks rose 1.6 million barrels.
• Gasoline stocks fell by 7.0 million barrels.
• Distillate stocks fell by 2.7 million barrels

No update today

Lessons From a Meltdown But truly long term planning has never been a forte of our species. So the urgency of our energy needs combined with the entrenched interests of big corporations - in this case the nuclear, construction and ancillary industries - has left us with a Faustian pact with only the most dangerous solutions. 

• (Japanese authorities planned Tuesday to raise their rating of the severity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis to the highest level on an international scale, equal to that of the 1986 Chernobyl)

Quick Overview

• (Bloomberg) -- All the soybeans in Iowa won’t be enough to meet the anticipated surge in China’s imports over the next four years as the nation feeds a record pig herd and drives bean prices to an all-time high.

• Procter & Gamble (PG) raised the quarterly dividend by 9% to 52.5 cents

• Two of the Fed's most powerful officials said the U.S. central bank should stick to its super-easy monetary policy, arguing inflation is not a threat and unemployment remains too high.
• The Fed needs to keep an easy monetary policy in place while the government comes to grip with its debts, the IMF said.

• PIMCO, the world's largest bond fund, has shifted to a short position in U.S. bonds

Quick Overview

• The U.S. dollar is losing more ground on fears of  shutdown for the U.S. government. The two sides had agreed on everything but a $300 million cut for Planned Parenthood (Abortion) that the House Republican/Tea  want included in a budget resolution.
• Silver is above $40, Gold at record, crude oil above $111
• European finance ministers say Portugal will have to implement deeper austerity measures in return for a multi-billion euro bailout, expected to total around $115 billion over three years, while also insisting Spain won’t be sucked into the crisis — although other  aren’t so sure.

• The USDA Estimates:
• Wheat ending stocks of 839 million bushels, against trade estimate of 857 million and 843 million last month. World ending stocks rose to 182.8 MT against the 182 MMT estimated and 181.9 MMT in March.
• USDA pegs texas wheat crop at 64.8 mln bushels, down 49% YoY Corn ending stocks unchanged at 675 million bushels, against trade estimate of 586 million. World ending stocks came in at 122.4 MT against 121 MMT estimated and 123 MMT in March. Brazil's corn crop was estimated at 52 MMT, 2 MMT up from last month. Argentine output unchanged at 22 MMT.
• Soybeans ending stocks estimate  unchanged  at 140 million bushels, against the average trade estimate of 137 million. World ending stocks estimate at 60.9 MT against 58.9 MMT and 58.3 MMT in March. Brazilian output was raised 2 MMT to 72 MMT. Argentine production was left unchanged at 49.5 MMT, as was China’s at 15.2 MMT.

.

No update today

Worst Persons of the Day for April 7, 2011

Quick Overview

• Republicans are pushing legislation that would dramatically expand offshore drilling before mandating new safety requirements.

• The ECB raised the benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point to 1.25%.

• The surge of hot money that has vexed many emerging markets may slow dramatically once the U.S. Federal Reserve begins raising interest rates, the International Monetary Fund said.

• The U.S. appears to have an off-balance-sheet, unrecorded debt burden of close to 500% of GDP! We are out-Greeking the Greeks -- Bill Gross, PIMCO.

• U.S. jobless apps fell 10,000 to 382,000.

• Costco (CSCO) sales rose 13% in March.

• Disputes over abortion and environmental issues pose late hurdles to a  budget agreement.

• The expanding dry conditions in the Southern United States are causing pastures to deteriorate and dimming prospects for a wheat crop. According to some experts, sufficient precipitation could salvage the wheat crop. However, others think that it is already too late and that the crop is in too poor a condition for even that prospect.

• More than 25% of Japan's domestic pork, 18% of its beef and 22% of its poultry production comes from areas affected by the earthquake, tsunami or radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Quick Overview

• Boehner: No deal yet on avoiding shutdown.

• Household saving rate at 9.1% in Austria.

• Australian employment at 4.9%.

• China has halted approvals for construction of nuclear-power plants in marine areas.

• Portugal said that it needs to ask for financial aid from the European Union.

• UK Labour predicts Government cuts introduced today will wipe up to £1,560 a year from the income of families with two children.

• Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, has been given a date in June for his appeal against extradition to Sweden.

• (TI) After notching a rare victory by stopping highly radioactive water from flowing into the Pacific today, workers at Japan's flooded nuclear power complex turned to their next task: injecting nitrogen to prevent more hydrogen explosions.

• Dylan, who will turn 70 in May, played 17 songs ending with "Forever Young" to a nearly packed audience at downtown Beijing's Workers Gymnasium.
  
  
• France  launched the most ambitious engineering project in Western Europe since the Channel tunnel, a scheme to link Paris to the North Sea by a canal as wide as a football pitch.
• Japan keep its overnight call rate at zero to 0.1%,

Quick Overview

• China raised rates to 6.31% from 6.06%.

• The ISM index decreased to 57.3 from 59.7 in February

• The Supreme Court opened the door to a new form of state support for religious schools, upholding special tax credits in Arizona for those who give money to church schools.

• The Fed's Bernanke is watching inflation “extremely closely” for evidence that rising commodity costs are having more than a temporary impact on consumer prices.

• TEPCO: radioactive seawater 7.5 mln times the legal limit.

• Global economy is forecast to grow by a solid pace of 4.3 percent this year and 4.5 percent next year, the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics said

• The U.S. is going to reach the current debt limit of 14.3 trillion U.S. dollars no later than May 16, 2011. A failure to raise the debt limit would bring “severe hardship” for Americans -- Geithner said.
• The White House has ordered top officials at multiple federal agencies to ensure contingency plans are ready for the partial federal shutdown that could take place if lawmakers don't reach a deal on spending levels by midnight Friday.
  
  
• YoY Commercial activities in Brazil rose 8.5 % in Q1
  

  
  
• Chile's economy is expected to grow between 5.5% and 6.5% in 2011, Central Bank President Jose de Gregorio said.
• US corn futures extend gains on supply concerns."Somebody's going to have to give up their usage if we're going to see a supply left here at the end of the summer," says Keith Gehling, marketing specialist at AgriSource  
• Arlan Suderman: The US Grains Council just concluded a tour of China that revealed a greater than expected need for corn. It says that China's corn stocks are probably 390 to 472 million bushels smaller than previously reported. As a result, it believes that China will import another 80 to 120 million bushels of corn ahead of this year's harvest. Sources within China told the Council that they would like to import 200 to 275 million bushels, but realizes that global stocks are simply too tight.
• Global ocean container traffic reached an all-time high of 560 million 20-foot equivalent units in 2010, driven by surging volume at Chinese ports, according to Alphaliner.

No update today

Quick Overview

• Chinese buyers stopped new orders of scrap steel from Japan and blocked some existing cargoes because of concern over radiation from a crippled nuclear plant, researcher Umetal.com said.

• As part of a plan to revamp the state's Medicaid program, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced that she is proposing fees for adults who lead unhealthy lives.

• If given the choice between eating a hot dog or enjoying some rotisserie chicken, consider the hot dog. That’s because hot dogs, as well as pepperoni and deli meats, are relatively free of carcinogenic compounds, according to Kansas State University research. But it’s a not-so-happy ending for bacon and rotisserie chicken--especially chicken skin--because both have higher levels of cancerous material.

• Japanese big manufacturers expect conditions to worsen significantly in the next three months, responses to a Bank of Japan survey collected after the March 11 earthquake showed

• The monetary base in Japan surged 16.9% in March from a year earlier, rising for the 31st consecutive month from a 5.6% annual increase booked in the previous month, the BOJ said Monday.

• Australia's inflation rose 0.6% in March

• The e-mails and names of customers of Citigroup Inc, Walgreens and other large U.S. companies were exposed in a massive and growing data breach, after a computer hacker penetrated online marketer Epsilon.

• Helen Hodge, Maplecroft's natural hazards analyst, said: "Although Japanese nuclear facilities are particularly exposed, other countries could also face similar risks. South Korea, Taiwan, southern China, India, Pakistan and the west coast of the US have operating or planned nuclear facilities on tsunami-exposed coastlines, while nuclear sites in areas of high or extreme risk of earthquakes can be found in western US, Taiwan, Armenia, Iran and Slovenia."

• Transocean gave its top executives bonuses for achieving the "best year in safety performance in our company's history" - despite the explosion of its oil rig that killed 11 people and spilled 757 million liters of oil into the Gulf.

Atomic Moron George Monbiot
Monbiot and his cult of technofascism either fail to understand the difference between radiation that is outside the body vs. radiation that is trapped internal to the body, or else they know full well and just don't give a damn.

Dr. Caldicott: "You don't understand internal emitters. I was commissioned to write an article for the New England Journal of Medicine about the dangers of nuclear power. I spent a year researching it. You've bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it's low-level radiation. That's absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it's an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that's true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia."

Quick Overview

• The U.S. unemployment rate fell to to 8.8% last month, the lowest level since March 2009.

• (AP) NASDAQ is teaming up with Intercontinental Exchange to make an $11.3 billion counteroffer for the parent of the New York Stock Exchange.

• Unemployment in the EU 17 fell below 10% in February down to 9.9% — the lowest since December 2009.

• Japans car makers sold 279,389 cars in Japan last month, down 37% — the biggest YoY drop.

• In Q1 117 companies in the S&P 500 said they intend to raise or start paying dividends -- a record amount.

• Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday said China should explore and utilize ocean resources scientifically and quicken the development of the marine economy.

• YoY Koreas CPI jumped 4.7 % in March after gaining 4.5% in February

• The Austrian budget deficit in 2010 reached a 15-year record high, accounting for 4.6% of GDP
  
  
• Russian GDP rose an annual 4.5 % after a revised 3.1 in the previous three months
• Macau's gambling revenue  up 48% YoY.

Quick Overview

• More than 61 feet of snow has fallen in the 400-mile-long Sierra Nevada mountain range this season, second only to the 1950-51 season when a total of 65 feet fell, according to records kept by the California Department of Transportation.

• China to build cotton reserves to encourage output. The announcement comes as farmers across China are becoming increasingly concerned that cotton prices could tumble from historic highs

• (FT) US farmers, reaping record receipts for crops this year, are also harvesting $10.6bn in government payments.

• Danish unemployment was 4.0% in February, down from a revised figure of 4.1% in January.

• French budget deficit reached 7% of GDP in 2010, pushing up the country's debt-to-GDP ratio to 81.7%. France has said it will cut the deficit to 4.6% of GDP in 2012 and to the agreed EU limit of 3% of GDP by 2013.

• (Bloomberg) -- Essar Group exercised an option to sell a 33 percent stake in Indian joint venture Vodafone Essar Ltd. to partner Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) for $5 billion, Vodafone said.

• (Bloomberg) -- Radiation “far below” levels that pose a risk to humans was found in milk from California and Washington, the first signs Japan’s nuclear accident is affecting U.S. food, state and Obama administration officials said.

• (Bloomberg) -- Coffee, sugar and cocoa prices will rise five- to 10-fold by 2014 because of shortages that will mean consumers getting “swamped” by food inflation, according to Superfund Financial. 

• The speculation that an estimated 500,000 to 1 million tons of copper is hidden from the market in China is  likely inflated --  so says Commerzbank.
  
  
• (Dow Jones) The USDA's lower-than-expected estimate for corn inventories as of March 1 fuels fears that season-end supplies will drop to a record low. Government could slash 50M-75M bushels from the latest season-end supply estimate of 675M in a crop report next week, says Rich Nelson at Allendale. Season-end supplies are already at a 15-year low, representing 18 days worth of corn, he notes.
• New orders for U.S. manufactured goods fell by 0.1% in February

• The Chicago PMI fell to 70.6% in March from 71.2% in February

• First-time U.S. jobless claims drop 6,000  prior week's total revised up to 394,000

• Chinas Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 53.4 in March from 52.2 in February