QUICK OVERVIEW

• Owners of VLCC tankers have something to cheer for once again, as shipbrokers are hailing the sector for its performance, on the back that currently there is greater oil demand than at any time since the economic turmoil of the autumn of 2008.

• (Arlan Suderman) Based on USDA's demand estimates for the year ahead (USDA is notorious for under-estimating demand) today's acreage estimate would suggest that Soybean stocks would run dry even with a record yield this year.

• European finance ministers meeting in Copenhagen on Friday agreed to boost the euro-zone firewall to over 800 billion Euros. The move marks another U-turn on the part of the Merkel administration, which recently dropped its opposition to increasing the fund. German commentators warn that even the new firewall may still be too small.

• (Anne Kadet SmartMoney) Some academics say we may well be reverting to historical norms, returning to pre-New Deal conditions in which most Americans had to work until they, well, dropped. The number of working people over age 65 reached an all-time low in 2001, when just 13 percent held a job. Now that rate is rebounding, and fast; last summer, it hit 18 percent, a level not seen since Kennedy faced the Cuban Missile Crisis.

• Japan’s industrial output fell 1.2% in Feb.
• Japan’s jobless rate fell to 4.5% in Feb.

• China's economic growth is expected to ease to 8.2% in the first quarter of this year from 8.9% in the last quarter of 2011, according to a report issued Saturday by the Bank of China.

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• U.S. First time claims for unemployment benefits fell by 5,000 to 359,000 in the week ending March 24.

• US GDP (gross domestic product) grew at an annualized rate of 3.0%.

• British service sector grows 0.2% in January.

• France's GDP grows 1.7% in 2011.

• (Independent) Fires raging unchecked in an Indonesian peat swamp forest could wipe out the remaining Sumatran orangutans which live there, conservationists are warning. The forest is one of the last refuges of the great apes. The illegal fires, started by palm-oil companies clearing land to plant the lucrative crop, are believed to have killed at least 100 orangutans.

• Bank of Spain predicted that the Spanish economy will continue in recession and unemployment will continue to rise in the first quarter of 2012 - an estimated 900,000 people took to the streets in Madrid.

• Seasonal fishing bans will be imposed on the Pearl River and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in April. The move is part of China's efforts to rescue its declining wild fishing resources, and is in addition to bans in six other provinces and regions.

• (Bloomberg) Copper traders are the most bearish in two months after stockpiles tracked by the biggest metals bourse rose for the first time in five weeks.

The race to slake a continent’s thirst With its French joint-venture partner, Castel, SABMiller has 60% of Africa’s commercial beer market in volume terms, including a near-monopoly in South Africa. But other global brewers are keen to expand in Africa too, as they seek growth markets to compensate for flat or falling beer sales in the rich world. Heineken, already the biggest brewer in Nigeria, recently paid a princely $163m for two Ethiopian breweries put up for sale by the government. With Diageo, the leader in Kenya, these four brewers account for around 80% of the African market.

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• U.S. consumer confidence fell to 70.2, down from 71.6 in February.

• Data through January 2012, released today by S&P Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, showed annual declines of 3.9% and 3.8% for the 10- and 20-City Composites, respectively.

• The 'pink slime' controversy in the beef markets could actually be good news for the livestock markets. We will require "more" meat to make up the extra supply needed.

• Alternative energy: Wooden batteries The Economist
  
  
• Consumer confidence  for Germany declined to 5.9 in April from 6.0 points in March.
• Jobless rate in France rose by 0.2% in February for the 10th successive month.
• Hong Kong's average wage rate rose 9.4% YoY.

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• Commercial beekeepers and environmental organizations filed a petition, asking federal regulators to suspend use of a pesticide they say harms honeybees. The group is urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban the insecticide clothianidin, one of a class of chemicals that act on the central nervous system of insects.

• U.S. Existing home sales fell 0.9% from February.

• The Biotechnology Industry Organization applauded the Faster Access to Specialized Treatments (FAST) Act. According to BIO the legislation will modernize the Accelerated Approval pathway to expedite the development of modern, targeted, and personalized therapies for patients suffering from serious and life-threatening diseases.

• U.S. crude oil inventories fell last week by 1.16 million barrels to 346.29 million barrels

• Fed chairman exhorts Europe's leaders to beef up its banks.

• A tax on financial transactions could help improve revenues for EU cities and regions, the president of the European Parliament said.

• Britain revised expectation of economic growth rate to 0.8%.

• The number of paid employees of Macao's gaming sector reached 50,198 at the end of 2011, an increase of 12% YoY.

• A gang of women - described as blonde, bilingual and well educated - have been taking Brazilian shopping malls by storm, kidnapping shoppers and maxing out their credit cards, police say.

Still lazy, this could turn into a habit – next update Sunday

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.

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• (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.

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• 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.