QUICK OVERVIEW

• (MarketWatch) U.S. stocks end the week and the month with deep losses following a selloff on Friday, which was prompted by disappointing earnings, renewed fears over deflation in the euro zone and a continuing rout in emerging markets.
• Richard Russell, of Dow Theory Letters fame, notes that every down January since 1950 has been followed by a bear market. (Hulbert's view).

• Cocoa futures rose to a more than 28-month high  on concerns that supplies for the key chocolate ingredient will not keep up with demand this year. Cocoa-bean stockpiles monitored by ICE Futures U.S. dropped 2.9% last week, adding to supply concerns. The current estimates have production 105,000 metric tons smaller than demand in the year started Oct. 1, followed by a shortage of 74,000 tons the next season.

• The U.S. government and leading Internet companies  announced a compromise that will allow those companies to reveal how often they are ordered to turn over customer information in national security investigations.
• U.S. pending home sales fell in December to the lowest level in more than two years, a fresh sign that the housing recovery lost momentum. The NAR said its index of pending home sales, which measures the number of contracts that have been signed but not yet closed for purchasing previously owned homes, fell 8.7% to 92.4 in December, the lowest level since October 2011.
• Representing oil addicts, a U.S. State department study says that the Keystone XL pipeline would have little impact on tar-sands use. A different opinion thinks that the pipeline would probably increasing supply, decrease prices and therefore drive up global oil consumption.
• Ban Ki- moon on Friday announced the appointment of the former New York City mayor Bloomberg as his special envoy for cities and climate change.
• Honda Motor Co expects to sell a record 1.6 million cars in the United States, its biggest market, this calendar year, up 5 percent from 1.525 million sold in 2013.

• Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) is expected on Tuesday to reveal the economy grew by 0.7% in the final three months of 2013 following growth of 0.8% in the third quarter. This would equate to an overall expansion of 1.9% for 2013, much stronger than the 0.3pc expansion in 2012. However, output would remain 1.3pc below its pre-recession peak.

• With the end of QE in the West and changes in Chinese fiscal policies "forcing up the cost of capital across emerging markets asset class" the tide is going out on emerging markets - so warns Fidelity.
• China's PMI for the manufacturing sector dropped to five-month low to 50.5 % in January
• BEIJING (AP) Authorities in eastern China have banned live poultry sales after an increase in the number of people infected with the H7N9 strain of bird flu, state media reported.

• India's central bank raised the repo rate by a quarter point to 8%, citing inflationary threats..

• (MarketWatch) -- Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher defended the U.S. central bank for charges from overseas that it was recklessly ignoring the impact of tapering on other countries. The Fed's moves have been one factor in a spike of turbulence in emerging markets. "Some believe we are the central bank of the world and should conduct policy accordingly. We are the central bank of America," Fisher said in a speech in Forth Worth, Texas, according to Dow Jones. Fisher added that other nations have their own central banks with their own responsibilities.
• He wants the U.S. central bank to end its economic-stimulus program as soon as possible, but he says the Fed can't go from "Wild Turkey to cold turkey overnight..

• Argentina's government limited monthly dollar purchases by Argentines to $2,000 (Ms Kirchner went missing). .

Neglected Topic’ Winner: Climate Change HERE’S a scary fact about America: We’re much more likely to believe that there are signs that aliens have visited Earth (77 percent) than that humans are causing climate change (44 percent). ..
In 1997, there was no significant gap between Republicans and Democrats in thinking about climate change. These days, 66 percent of Democrats say human activity is the main cause of global warming; 24 percent of Republicans say so.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• U.S. Consumer sentiment declined in January, falling to a reading of 80.4 from 82.5 in December.
• December U.S. industrial production rose 0.3%
• Construction on new U.S. homes fell 9.8% in December, pulling back after a surge in November

• Jerry Brown  will use a morning news conference in San Francisco on Friday to declare a drought emergency amid one of the driest winters on record

• Intel said the chip giant had "a solid fourth quarter with signs of stabilization in the PC segment," shares were down more than 3% after-hours.
• (MarketWatch) - Intel Corp. was upgraded to overweight from neutral by J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Danely who said he was "making a leap of faith" on PCs in 2014 and the chip giant's new Chief Executive Brian Krzanich.

• The caffeine equivalent to that in two cups of coffee can boost performance on a memory test.

• The World Bank raised its global growth forecasts as the easing of austerity policies in advanced economies supports their recovery, boosting prospects for developing markets' exports.

• Brussels is demanding that even foreigners who have never worked in Germany should have access to the country's unemployment benefits if they hail from an EU member state. The EU is firing Germany's already overheated immigration debate.

• Confidence in Australia's property and construction industry has surged to a new record high

• (Reuters) - U.S. municipal bond funds reported $103.3 million of net inflows in the week ended January 15, compared with $19 million in outflows in the previous week

• How Bill Gates is helping KFC take over Africa

• YoY China’s M2 Money supply rose 13.6%
• Property prices in China ended 2013 still red hot despite repeated government efforts to cool the sector, but the rises are expected to soften this year as more targeted curbs come into place
• Twenty years ago, China exported six cars. Last year it exported a million.

• Paramount will stop releasing major motion pictures on 35-millimeter film, becoming the first big Hollywood studio to go digital-only.

• Over 250 dolphins are being held captive in a cove on the coast of Japan, waiting for either a life in captivity, or slaughter

• (Reuters) - President Barack Obama banned U.S. eavesdropping on the leaders of close friends and allies on Friday and began reining in the vast collection of Americans' phone data in a series of limited reforms triggered by Edward Snowden's revelations.

• Standard & Poor's raised the outlook on California's ratings to positive from stable and affirmed the state's 'A' long-term rating.

• KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) A mosquito-borne virus appears to be spreading quickly in the Caribbean during the winter tourism season just weeks after epidemiologists first found local transmission occurring in the French dependency of St. Martin. Scientists said that St. Martin now has as many as 200 cases of chikungunya, a virus found mainly in Africa and Asia that can cause a debilitating but rarely fatal sickness with fever, rash, fatigue and intense muscle and joint pain.

• (Spiegel)It has now been 100 years since the outbreak of World War I, but the European catastrophe remains relevant today. As the Continent looks back this year, old wounds could once again be rubbed raw.

• Italian joblessness has hit a fresh high of 12.7% in November, up from October’s 12.5% and the highest on record. Youth unemployment, at 41.6%, is also at an all-time high.

• A new memo has emerged that provides clear evidence that in 1976 Kissinger gave Argentina's neo-fascist military junta the "green light" for the dirty war it was conducting against civilian and militant leftists that resulted in the disappearance—that is, deaths—of an estimated 30,000 people.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The S&P 500 ended the year at an all-time high (but not quite inflation adjusted) – its largest percentage gain since 1997. DJ Industrials are at an all-time high - also inflation adjusted.

• NSA's Secret Toolbox: Unit Offers Spy Gadgets for Every Need. The NSA has a secret unit that produces special equipment ranging from spyware for computers and cell phones to listening posts and USB sticks that work as bugging devices. Here are some excerpts from the intelligence agency's own catalog.

• In an unprecedented ruling, a judge reviewing whether Xcel Energy should invest in new natural gas generators vs. large solar power arrays concluded Tuesday that solar is a better deal.

• From an Associated Press-GfK stock market poll. Of the people polled, 40% think the market will stabilize where it is now by the end of 2014, with 39% predicting that it will drop, but not crash. Only 14 % believe the market will rise and 5 percent think it will crash.

• Pending sales of homes ticked up in November, the first gain in six months, signaling that upcoming activity may rise, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday. The index of pending home sales increased 0.2% last month to 101.7, slightly above a 10-month low of 101.5 in October, but down from 103.3 in November 2012.

• Temperatures in parts of Australia are set to reach almost 50C /122F in the coming days, with total fire bans in place in northern regions of South Australia and a week-long heat wave enveloping Queensland.
• (Reuters) - Many parts of the U.S. Midwest braced for a blast of Arctic air this weekend that could bring some of the coldest temperatures in two decades..

Just 90 companies caused two-thirds of man-made global warming emissions "There are thousands of oil, gas and coal producers in the world," climate researcher and author Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute in Colorado said. "But the decision makers, the CEOs, or the ministers of coal and oil if you narrow it down to just one person, they could all fit on a Greyhound bus or two."