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• 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.

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• (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.
  

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• 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).

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• (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.
  

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.