Sunday, April 21, 2013

Saturday, April 20, 2013

QUICK OVERVIEW

  • The Group of 20 (G20) major economies on Friday pledged further actions to shore up growth while watching for monetary easing effects.

  • Reports that Cyprus could sell a significant volume of gold may have triggered the sharp drop in prices, but we believe the fall represents a changing sentiment towards the metal," said Fitch

  • Dutch unemployment increased to 8.1% in March from 7.7% in February. This is the highest number of unemployed people since the CBS started measuring unemployment in the 1980s.

  • The IMF predicts the Spanish economy would shrink 1.6% in 2013, and the country's unemployment rate would peak at 27% this year before dropping to 26.5% in 2014 when its economy is predicted to grow 0.7%

  • German car sales fell 17% in March.
  • The indicator of economic sentiment for Germany fell by 12.2 points and stood at a level of 36.3 points.

  • U.S. housing starts were at an annual rate of 1.04 million - 7.0% above the revised February estimate of 968,000, and up 46.7% YoY. This represented the highest level since June 2008.

  • Fitch has downgraded the United Kingdom's Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings to 'AA+' from 'AAA'. The Outlook is Stable.


  • Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) has raised its quarterly dividend 7%, marking the 57th consecutive year that the world's largest consumer-products company has boosted its payout.

  • (Guardian) Frank Rijsberman, head of the world's 15 international CGIAR crop research centers, which study food insecurity, said: "Food production will have to rise 60% by 2050 just to keep pace with expected global population increase and changing demand.

  • From the great State of Texas  Republican congressman Joe Barton comes this quote "I would point out that if you are a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the great flood was an example of climate change," Barton told a congressional hearing "That certainly wasn't because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy."

  • (Pritchard) Portugal's leading elder statesman has called on the country to copy Argentina and default (Telegraph)

  • The Dutch government is to postpone some austerity measures, in a significant break away from EU policy that risks angering Germany.

  • (FT) Haruhiko Kuroda has announced his arrival as governor of the Bank of Japan by introducing a “new phase of monetary easing”, doubling Japan’s monetary base through aggressive purchases of long-term government bonds and risk assets.

  • (Science Daily) A genetic analysis of the avian flu virus responsible for at least nine human deaths in China portrays a virus evolving to adapt to human cells, raising concern about its potential to spark a new global flu pandemic…the new strain could be treated with another clinically relevant antiviral drug, oseltamivir

  • (NZH) A 17-year-old girl has exposed Islamic sex tourism in India where Muslim men from the Middle East and Africa are buying one-month wives for sex.
Why America Forgot A Horrific Terrorist Attack On Wall Street In 1920 I set out to write that book because I came across a mention of the 1920 bombing, which killed 38 people and injured hundreds more people, many of them quite seriously. I was shocked that I had never heard of this. What's going on that allowed this big event to be lost to history?
Cyprus bail-out vote stirs fresh jitters as slump fears grow in Europe Europe’s policy elites are increasingly on the back foot after furious controversy this week over a Harvard paper widely cited as the intellectual justification for austerity. (See below)
The Excel Depression  ... what really matters isn’t what they meant to say, it’s how their work was read: Austerity enthusiasts trumpeted that supposed 90 percent tipping point as a proven fact and a reason to slash government spending even in the face of mass unemployment.

Sunday, March 31, 2013

QUICK OVERVIEW

  • The deaths of two men in Shanghai from a strain of bird flu have raised the specter of a new epidemic.

  • The head of Cyprus' influential Orthodox Church has dealt a hammer blow to the island's economic leaders by becoming the first major figure to call for their resignations.

  • Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister has said about North Korea: “The situation could simply get out of control, it is slipping toward the spiral of a vicious cycle,”.

  • U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly rose in March. Sentiment edged up to a four- month high of 78.6 in March from 77.6 in the previous month.
  • U.S. Existing home sales rose 0.8% to an annual rate of 4.98 million in February. The sales rate was the highest since November 2009
  • U.S. economy rose 0.4% in Q4

  • Japan's consumer prices fell 0.3% in February
  • Japan's unemployment rate rose to 4. 3% in February from 4.2% the previous month
  • Japan's retail sales accelerated their drop in February, falling 2.3% YoY after a 1.1% fall the previous month

  • Portugal's public debt reaches 123.6 % of GDP

  • Spain's economy to contract by 1.5 % in 2013

  • Climate change denying Chris Stewart (R-Utah) to head subcommittee on Climate Change.

  • (Telegraph) Japan has extracted natural "ice" gas from methane hydrates beneath the sea off its coasts in a technological coup, opening up a super-resource that could meet the country's gas needs for the next century and radically change the world's energy outlook.


  • U.S. Insider selling has risen to 6.3 sells for every buy - eight year high.

  • (Spiegel) As the euro crisis wears on, the tough austerity measures implemented in ailing member states are resulting in serious health issues, a study revealed. Mental illness, suicide rates and epidemics are on the rise, while access to care has dwindled.

  • (Spiegel) Twelve years ago, Portugal eliminated criminal penalties for drug users. Since then, those caught with small amounts of marijuana, cocaine or heroin go unindicted and possession is a misdemeanor on par with illegal parking. Experts are pleased with the results.

  • More than half of the rivers and streams in the United States are in poor biological health, unable to support healthy populations of aquatic insects and other creatures, according to a nationwide survey.

  • The US Food and Drug Administration approved a first-of-its-kind diabetes drug from Johnson & Johnson that uses a new method to lower blood sugar flushing it out in patients' urine.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Daylight robbery in Cyprus will come to haunt EMU One's first reflex is to gasp at the stupidity of the EU policy elites, but truth is that most EU officials handling the Cyprus crisis know perfectly well that their masters have just set the slow fuse on a powder keg – and they can only pray that it is slow.
Now check this out!          NOK

Sunday, March 17, 2013

QUICK OVERVIEW

  • (The Verge) Cody Wilson, who heads 3D printed firearms group Defense Distributed, has apparently received a federal firearms license officially allowing him to manufacture or sell the group's guns.

  • Europe braced for renewed turmoil with outrage in Cyprus over an unprecedented levy on bank deposits. Depositors in Cypriot banks will be hit with a one-off tax on their savings, marking the first bailout for any eurozone country in which depositors will directly lose money. Holders of bank accounts with more than 100,000 euros will be taxed at 9.9 percent, and an additional 6.75 percent levy will be imposed on deposits below that level, raising an expected 5.8 billion euros for the Mediterranean island. And in the process risking a bank run!

  • U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly fell to a 15-month low in March. The preliminary reading of the consumer sentiment,edged down to 71. 8 in March from 77.6 MoM.
  • U.S. nonfarm payroll grew by 236,000 in February, and unemployment rate edged down 0.2% to 7.7%

  • (Bloomberg) Chinese anger over pollution becomes main cause of social unrest.

  • Swiss voters have backed an initiative to give shareholders of Swiss listed companies a binding say on executive pay

  • QCOM raised its quarterly dividend by 40% to 35 cents a share

  • 46% of Americans believe in creationism.

  • (Bloomberg) More than 4,700 workers at the Hanford reservation in Washington State where six tanks are leaking radioactive waste are facing furloughs or layoffs under $171 million in U.S. budget cuts, the Energy Department said.


  • New research suggests that average global temperatures were higher in the last decade than over most of the previous 11,300 years

Sunday, March 03, 2013

QUICK OVERVIEW

  • The information deprived austerity lemmings from the U.S. Rep./Tea keep marching on - looking for cliffs to go over.

  • The Thomson-Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to 77.6 from a preliminary reading of 76.3. The index is at its highest level since November.

  • Inflation in the 17-nation Eurozone fell to 2% in January this year, down from the 2.7% rate for the same month last year.
  • Eurozone jobless rate rose by 0.1 points to 11.9% in January
  • Spain's unemployment rate reached 26.2% in January

  • Macau's February gambling revenue rose 12% YoY
  • The Las Vegas Sands Corporation (NYSE:LVS) has disclosed that it probably broke a federal law that forbids businesses to bribe foreign government officials in a filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday.

  • The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index climbed 1.1 points to 54.2%, coming in ahead of the 52.5% forecast

  • UK's government bond rating cut to Aa1 from Aaa by Moody's

  • Lanworth is pegging the Argentine soy crop at 49.6m tonnes, 2.10m tonnes below its estimate two weeks ago.
  • USDA’s meaningless new crop prediction: Corn 13/14 ending stocks projected at 2.177 billion bushel, Beans 250 million bushels, wheat 639 million bushels.

  • The American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 2.9% in January after jumping 2.4% in December. Tonnage has surged at least 2.4% every month since November, gaining a total of 9.1% over that period. 
  
  • Spiegel: I've been in prison for 20 years, but you will never win this war when there is so much money to me made. Never."

Sunday, February 17, 2013

QUICK OVERVIEW

  • The preliminary reading of the consumer sentiment, which records the figure for the first half of a month, edged up to 76.3 in February from 73.8 in the previous month. It's the highest level since November 2012, boosted by rising stock prices, increased property values and a reviving jobs market

  • Heinz (HNZ) rose 20% to $72.45, a nickel below the per-share buyout bid made by Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA BRKB) and 3G Capital.

  • The euro zone’s economy shrank by 0.6% in the fourth quarter from the previous three months.

  • The German economy contracted by 0.6% QoQ, its worst performance since the global financial crisis in 2009.

  • France contracted by 0.3 % QoQ also worse than expectations.

  • Japan's recession continued in Q4, with data showing a 0.1% contraction QoQ

  • Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) (Jim Inhofe student?) dismissed the idea that the U.S. government could do anything to combat climate, the day after he gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union.

  • USDA projects China corn imports to rise to 770 mln bu per year over the next 10 yrs
  • USDA projects China soybean imports to rise to 3.78 bln bu per year over the next 10 years

  • Overall foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities reached 5.55 trillion U.S. dollars in December, up from a revised 5.53 trillion in November 2012. It was the 12th consecutive monthly increase.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

QUICK OVERVIEW

  • (WSJ)The Justice Department is expected to sue Standard & Poor's Ratings Services alleging the firm ignored its own standards to rate mortgage bonds that imploded in the financial crisis and cost investors billions.

  • China data for January showed exports rose 25% and imports climbed 28.8% YoY, giving the country a trade surplus of $29.2 billion. All three figures beat market expectations.
  • A chief of Chinese sovereign wealth fund said that it is a "very good time" to invest in the Eurozone, which he believes is recovering from the crisis.
  • China's investor confidence index rose 24.36% MoM to stand at 62.8 in January.

  • U.S. personal income rose a solid 2.6% in December, after a 1.0% gain in November.

  • Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reports January gross gaming revenue +7.3% YoY to 26.9 bln patacas ($3.36 bln), vs. +20% YoY in January 2012.

  • Bloomberg: Crop estimates for the Pampas, Argentina’s main soybean region, should be trimmed on a lack of rain, Eduardo Sierra said in an e-mail statement to Bloomberg, The area is facing what may be the hottest start to a year in more than half a century, he said.

  • (NYT) America’s vast population of free-roaming domestic cats manages to kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles.

  • According to CFED’s Assets and Opportunities Scorecard, 43.9% of American households are “liquid asset poor” meaning they “lack enough savings to cover basic expenses for just three months if they suffer a loss of income.” Over a quarter of the”liquid asset poor” make between $55,465-$90,000 a year.

  • The S&P/Case-Shiller index of home values rose 5.5% from November 2011. This is 29% below its peak in July 2006.

  • Japan's unemployment rate rose to 4.2% in December from 4.1% the previous month. Japan's industrial output rose 2.5% in December.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

QUICK OVERVIEW

  • (FT) The salmon fish farming industry is now testing the use of protein from biological yeast and Norwegian spruce trees, in an effort to go to 0% fishmeal in the feed.

  • A document obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE indicates the German government is preparing to procure armed drones for foreign combat. Opposition politicians are outraged by the development and note that the use of weapons-equipped unmanned aircraft is legally dubious and possibly unethical.

  • Global Smartphone shipments grew 43% YoY to reach a record 700 million units in 2012. QoQ, Nokia's net sale of smart devices rose by 26%.

  • (BBC) Mussolini had been wrong to pass anti-Jewish laws but had otherwise been a good leader, said Mr Berlusconi.

  • According to global consultancy Ernst and Young, worldwide investments done in line with Islamic law, known as Shari'ah, will reach 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars globally in 2013.

  • British economy contracts 0.3% in Q4 of 2012.

  • Spanish economy contracts by 1.3%in 2012 -- unemployment reached 26.02% in December. Meanwhile, youth unemployment in Spain stood at 55.13%. Thanks A (Austerity) Merkel.

  • A think tank predicted that China's GDP would grow in 2013 at a rate of 8.4%, up by 0.6% from that of 2012.

  • (Telegraph) Apple shuttled $11bn (£7bn) into offshore tax havens in the fourth quarter of 2012, an analysis of its corporate filings has revealed. The iPad maker has slashed its tax bill by paying less than 2% on its overseas profits, as it moves money through offshoots in low-tax countries such as the British Virgin Islands. Apple's completely legal tax avoidance strategies bring the total the company has sheltered from the US tax authorities to $94bn, according to a Sunday Times analysis. Corporation tax on Apple's overseas operations amount to just 1.9pc of profits, compared with a tax rate of up to 24pc in the UK and 35pc in the US.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

QUICK OVERVIEW

  • Germany showed a paltry growth of just 0.7%.
  • German consumer prices rose by 2.1% in December

  • Eurozone inflation rose by 2.2% in December

  • (Bloomberg) Housing starts in the U.S. climbed 12.1 percent last month to a 954,000 annual rate, exceeding all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists

  • (Spiegel) Young Europeans in countries hit hardest by the Continent's economic crisis are finding it difficult to move out of their parents' home. Data shows that over 50% of those aged 25 to 34 in some countries have yet to move out.

  • Pakistan Tumbles into Chaos again. A self-proclaimed revolutionary is attracting mass protests, while the highest court has ordered the prime minister's arrest and the military waits in the wings.

  • The Koch brothers are urging Republican/Tea to show restraint during US debt ceiling negotiations, representing quite a shift in position by the extreme right Americans for Prosperity.

  • World Bank estimates global economic growth rate at 2.4% in 2013.

  • Spanish inflation rate rose by 2.9 % in 2012

  • Global containership capacity grew 6% to 16.3 TEU million in 2012