Quick Overview

• The Institute of Supply Managements' index of services rose from 48.7 to 50.1 in December.
  

• As of Jan 1st Russia barred poultry imports from the U.S. -- they object to the use of chlorine in processing.

• The U.S. Department of Energy said:
  Supplies of crude oil rose 1.3 million barrels last week to 327.3 million barrels.
  Supplies of gasoline rose up 3.7 million barrels
  Supplies of heating oil fell 1.3 million barrels
  Refinery use fell from 80.3% to 79.9% of capacity last week.
  Gasoline demand rose 0.3% YoY
  Distillate demand fell 1.0% YoY.
  

• EU industrial new orders fell 1.6% MoM and down 14.1% YoY.
  

• Services in the U.K. rose from 56.6 to 56.8 in December.
  

• YoY Brazil’s ethanol exports in December fell to 124.3 million liters from 348.5 million liters.
  

• Brazil’s soybean exports fell to 203,100 metric tons in December 2009 from 750,400 tons in December 2008
  

• The NYSE Volume advance decline appears to follow the NYSE advance decline to new high.
  

• The Nikkei is making a new high for the move.
  

• Unleaded Gas is making a new high for the move.
  

• DB Commodity Index is making a new high for the move.
  

• Platinum is following Palladium to new highs.
  

• (FT) The US slapped additional duties of 43 to 289 per cent on imports of more than $300m worth of a steel product from China, the US Commerce Department said
  

• (WJ) China took over the mantle of the world's top merchandise exporter from Germany in 2009.
  

• Rain has freed some areas of Argentina from drought, but left others with "severe flooding", Oil World says, warning of a disease threat in Brazil -- the crop is jeopardized by the Asian rust fungus which has spread at an alarming rate..

• Informa Economics raised its estimated 2009 corn production in China and Argentina. The firm pegged China's corn crop at 160 million metric tons, up 5 million tons from its December estimate. Argentina's 2009 production was pegged at 15.5 million metric tons, up 2.5 million tons from the previous month.

• New high for Euro Dollar (Interest rates)

Quick Overview

• U.S. factory orders rose 1.1% in November, better than expected.
  

• The National Association of Realtors said pending home sales fell 16% in November, but up 15.5% YoY
  

• Temperatures in central Florida dipped below 30 degrees this morning and forecasters expect one more cold morning on Saturday -- OJ closed limit up

• YoY Consumer prices in the Euro area rose 0.9% in December
  

• New home sales in Australia rose 0.3% in November.
  

• Indonesia's plan to buy 500,000 metric tons of sugar for delivery between Jan. 1 and April 15 failed Tuesday because there were too few offers, traders said. There are also expectations for strong demand from Russia, a leading importer of raws, and the United States.
  

• Mexico’s corn imports will jump 28% in 2009-10 because of a drought which "created huge problems" for farmers, US officials say.
  
  
  The coal price at Qinghuangdao Port rose for four consecutive months, and set a new record high over the past year, meanwhile, coal inventory fell 29.4% from early December, approaching the alarm point of 5 mln tons again. (Beijing faced the coldest weather in half a century)
  

• Britain shivers during what could be its coldest winter in a century.
  

• Integrating Skype in High-definition TVs from LG and Panasonic will enable users to conduct free live video chats from their couches.
  
  

Global bear rally will deflate as Japan leads world in sovereign bond crisis
By mid to late 2010, we will have lanced the biggest boils of the global system.

Quick Overview

• The Institute of Supply Management index of U.S. manufacturing rose from 53.6 to 55.9 in December -- better than expected, and the highest level in more than three years.
  

• (FT)The US public pension system faces a higher-than-expected shortfall of more than $2,000bn
  

• U.S. Construction spending fell 0.6% from October's pace. In the first eleven months of 2009, construction spending is down 12.7% YoY.
  

• Chinas manufacturing index rose from 55.7 to 56.1 in December, the highest in five years.
  

• Australia’s manufacturing index fell from 51.2 to 48.5 in December.
  

• Weather forecasters say that temperatures in central Florida have a chance to go below freezing on four out of five nights this week.
  

• Maersk hired a warship to protec the Brigit Maersk tanker from pirates.
  

Quick Overview

• (Bloomberg) -- Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist and Columbia University professor, said economists are among those at fault for the financial crisis, which exposed “major flaws” in prevailing ideas. The now-flawed premises include the ideas that economic participants behave rationally and that financial markets are competitive and efficient, Stiglitz said.
  

• (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank’s low interest rates didn’t cause the past decade’s housing bubble and that better regulation would have been more effective in limiting the boom.

• The S&P rose 23.5% in 09, the biggest yearly gain since 2003. Since the March lows, the S&P rose about 65%.
  

• China appears to have overtaken India as the number one private gold buyer in 09.
  

• Corn world ending stocks are projected near 4 decade lows at 17% of usage. This despite a record U.S. yield in 2009/10
  

• The cocoa market is heading into its fourth consecutive year of shortfalls – the longest run of shortages since 1965-69 -- This may rekindle the cocoa fat substitute argument.
  

• Czarnikow recently forecast the 2009-10 sugar deficit at 13.5m tonnes, following a deficit of 15.8m tonnes in 2008-09 -- Brazilian Ethanol is becoming less competitive.
  

• In spite of the Dollar's rally since December, the doomsayers are still out in force.
  

• Bad weather has driven orange juice 90% higher last year. The per capita OJ consumption is 1/20th of bottled water and soft drinks.
  

• Companies such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will now have to put up the same amount of capital to hedge against their own business risks as they would to hedge against risks for their customers. The CFTC’s regulations aim to ensure that firms have the financial backing for the risks they are taking in the market -- It’s about time!!
  

• 12/27/09 China announced new regulations to increase the use of renewable energy such as wind and hydropower by forcing electricity grid operators to prioritize their use, in an effort by the world's top greenhouse-gas emitter to reduce its reliance on coal. The amendment will force state-owned electric grid companies, which are responsible for distributing electricity from power plants, to buy all the electricity generated from renewable sources even when it is more expensive and more complicated to use than electricity from coal-fired plants -- Coal is not impressed.
  

• After falling a record 92% last year, the Baltic Dry Index posted its best-ever annual advance since it started in 1985. The index advanced 288% in 1999, exceeding its previous record of 174% in 2003.
  

• Last Friday, China and the 10-country Association of South East Asian Nations launched the final stage of the world’s biggest regional trade agreement, measured by population.
  

• As of Jan 1st Ireland has a new law, which passed in July, means that blasphemy in Ireland is now a crime punishable with a fine of up to €25,000. It defines blasphemy as "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion".
  

• A year-end plea for $900000 yielded $2.4 million for the Lake Forest mega-church led by Rick Warren.
  
  

Happy Holidays!
(Updates resume Jan. 3)

Scramble for the Atmosphere (Monbiot)
..the barrister Polly Higgins laid out a different approach. Her declaration of planetary rights invests ecosystems with similar legal safeguards to those won by humans after the second world war(2). It changes the legal relationship between humans, the atmosphere and the biosphere from ownership to stewardship. It creates a global framework for negotiation which gives nation states less discretion to dispose of ecosystems and the people who depend on them.

Quick Overview

• Japan kept interests rate unchanged at 0.1%.
  
  

• Canada's wholesale sales rose 0.3% in October
  
  

• Global cocoa production for 2009-10 is expected to fall 63,000 tons short of demand, which would be the fourth consecutive year of deficits and wider than a previous forecast of 56,000 tons, BNP Paribas said.

Quick Overview

• US attempts to break the deadlock at the UN conference in Copenhagen by backing an offer from developed countries to provide poorer nations with $100bn per year by 2020 to fight climate change
  

• Standard and Poor's cut Greece's credit rating from A- to BBB+.
  

• YoY Canada’s consumer prices rose 1.0%
  

• U.K.'s retail sales fell 0.3% in November.
  

• U.S. jobless claims rose 7,000 last week to 480,000.
  

• As of last week 2009-2010 U.S. export inspections of:
  Corn are up 5% YoY.
  Soybeans are up 40% YoY.
  Wheat improved from down 31% to down 30% YoY.
  Cotton is down 37% YoY.
  

• India's sugar production in the first two months of the marketing year that began Oct. 1 fell 9.6% YoY due to lower recovery from cane.

Quick Overview

• The Fed left interest rates unchanged and said that it expects economic conditions to warrant “exceptionally low” rates for an “extended” period.
  
  
• The EU Wednesday settled its remaining antitrust issues with Microsoft.
  
  

• The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued Intel for illegally using its dominant market position for a decade “to stifle competition and strengthen its monopoly.”
  
  

• MoM U.S. housing starts rose 8.9%. YoY November housing starts were down 7.3%.
  
  

• MoM the U.S. consumer price index rose 0.4% in November, 1.8% YoY
  

• Australia's GDP rose 0.5% YoY
  

• Canada manufacturing sales rose 2.0% in October
  

• EU consumer prices rose 1.0% YoY
  

• Japan's tertiary index rose 0.5%
  

• Norway raised its interest rate to 1.75%
  

• U.K. Unemployment rose to 7.9% from 7.8%
  

• Brazil harvested 39.5 million bags of coffee this year, up from a September estimate of 39.0 million bags
  

• Brazil estimates 2009-2010 production of 34.6 million tons of sugar and 25.8 billion liters of ethanol from 612 million tons of cane.
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said:
  Supplies of crude oil fell 3.7 million barrels to 332.4 million barrels.
  Supplies of gasoline rose 900,000 barrels
  Supplies of heating oil fell 2.3 million barrels.
  Refinery use fell from 81.1% to 80.0%
  Gasoline demand rose 1.0% YoY
  Distillate demand fell 6.6% YoY

• India's production of monsoon-sown rice may total 71.65 million metric tons, up from 69.45 million tons estimated last month, the farm ministry said.

• Cocoa’s trading at the highest level in 32 years amid concerns that the market will experience a supply shortfall for a fourth successive season in 2009-10.

Regulators Resist Volcker Wandering Warning of Too-Big-to-Fail
(Bloomberg) -- Paul A. Volcker visited nine cities in five countries in the past eight weeks to warn that bankers and regulators “have not come anywhere close to responding with necessary vigor” to the worst economic crisis in 70 years.
.. He told executives there that the changes they’ve proposed are “like a dimple.”

Quick Overview

• YoY U.S. producer prices rose 2.4% in November
  

• The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s general economic index fell to 2.6 from 23.5 in November
  

• The Federal Reserve meets today and is expected to keep the federal funds rate unchanged at 0.125%.

• (FT) China has banned individuals from registering internet domain names and launched a review of millions of existing personal websites in the toughest government censorship drive so far on the internet

• Czarnikow in late November forecast a 2009/10 global sugar deficit of 13.5 million tonnes, versus a deficit of 15.8 million tonnes in 2008/09.
• The China Sugar Association has estimated that sugar output for the 2009-10 crop year, starting Oct. 1, will fall to 12 million tons from the previous year's 12.43 million tons.
  

Quick Overview

• White House advisor Lawrence Summers expects the economy to start adding new jobs in the spring of 2010.
  

• Industrial production in the EU fell 0.7% in October and down 10.2% YoY

• YoY Chinas M2 money supply rose 29.7%
  

• Employment in the EU fell 0 .5% in Q3 and down 2.0% YoY
  

• Sugar crushing in Brazil's centre-south cane hub in the second half of November totalled 25.4 million tonnes, down 16 % YoY, according to the Sugar Cane Industry Association, Unica. The fall was due to the impact of persistent wet weather.
• Brazil said its sugar production in 2009-10 was likely to drop to 34m tonnes, down from an official forecast of 36.7m tonnes in September.

• Cocoa traders are concerned about production shortfalls in Ivory Coast and Ghana, which account for 56% of the world’s cocoa output.
  
  
  

• Goldmans top man said the firm wasn't just trying to make money; it was doing "God's work." No kidding!

Greece defies Europe as EMU crisis turns deadly serious
Mr Papandreou has good reason to throw the gauntlet at Europe's feet. Greece is being told to adopt an IMF-style austerity package, without the devaluation so central to IMF plans. The prescription is ruinous and patently self-defeating. Public debt is already 113pc of GDP. The Commission says it will reach 125pc by late 2010. It may top 140pc by 2012.

Quick Overview

• U.S. retail sales rose 1.3% in November.
  

• The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose from 67.4 to 73.4
  

• YOY India’s industrial production rose 10.3%
  

• YoY U.K. producer prices rose 2.9%.

Quick Overview

• U.S. Jobless claims rose 17,000 to 474,000.
  
  

• The USDA's 2009-2010 U.S. ending stocks estimate of:
  Corn was raised from 1.625 to 1.675 billion bushels.
  Some 12% of the crop is still sitting in the snow!
  Soybeans were reduced from 270 to 255 million bushels.
  Wheat was raised from 885 to 900 million bushels.
  Sugar was kept at 1.016 million tons.
  Cotton was lowered from 4.90 to 4.50 million bales.
  
  

• The USDA's 2009-2010 world ending stocks estimate of:
  Corn was kept at 132 million tons.
  Soybeans were kept at 57 million tons.
  Wheat was raised from 188 to 191 million tons.
  Cotton was lowered from 54 to 52 million tons.
  

• OJ was lowered from 136 to 135 million boxes.

• Unica pegged Brazil's center-south sugarcane crush at 538.2 million tons for the 2009-10 crop compared to its previous estimate of 529.5 million tons

• Uttar Pradesh is asking the central government to lift its restriction on raw sugar from Brazil amid severe shortages and rising prices.

• YoY China’s factory output rose 19.2 %

Nuremberg Revisited: Obama Administration Files To Dismiss Case Against John Yoo
If successful in this case, the Obama Administration will succeed in returning the world to the rules leading to the war crimes at Nuremberg. Quite a legacy for the world’s newest Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Quick Overview

• (Bloomberg) China, the world’s largest steel consumer, will impose provisional duties on some U.S. and Russian imports following anti-dumping and subsidy investigations, escalating a trade spat started in September.

• The U.S. Mortgage Bankers Association said that its index of mortgage applications rose 8.5% last week
  

• U.S. wholesales rose 1.2% in October
  

• U.S. Inventories rose 0.3%.
  

• Japan’s GDP rose 0.3% in the third quarter, but fell5.1% YoY
• 
  

• Greece's new socialist government promised Wednesday to step up efforts to reduce the growing deficit after a ratings agency downgraded the country's debt rating.

• London bankers reacted with fury to UK government plans to levy a 50% super tax on banks’ bonus payouts.
  

• Spain has its credit outlook cut to negative from stable by the ratings agency Standard & Poor's, rattling European markets.

• MoM Japanese core machinery orders fell 4.5% in October

• Australian employers added 31,200 workers in November
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said:
  Supplies of crude oil fell 3.8 million barrels to 336.1 million barrels
  Supplies of gasoline rose 2.2 million barrels
  Supplies of heating oil supplies fell 700,000 barrels.
  Refinery use rose from 79.7% to 81.1% of capacity
  Gasoline demand rose 1.2% YoY
  Distillate demand fell 8.3% YoY
  

• Sugar output in Brazil’s Center South is estimated at 28.9 million metric tons, down from November’s projection of 29.3 million tons.
  

• With roughly 12% of the U.S. corn crop still in the field, some are concerned that crop could lodge, or fall down, due to the snow and winds approaching 50 miles per hour.

No update today

Quick Overview

• (FT) Commodity markets remained under pressure as risk appetite weakened amid concerns about the sustainability of global economic recovery