- European stock funds attract $5.2 billion in ninth straight week of inflows
- (Reuters) - Investors in U.S.-based funds pulled $1.8 billion out of taxable bond funds in the week ended March 11 on increased expectations that the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates...
- More than 5 million renters say they're likely to buy a home in the next year, according to the Zillow (US)Housing Confidence Index
(Zillow)
- US access to mortgage credit has improved significantly, and is roughly two thirds of the way back to 2002 pre-crisis levels.
- South Korea's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to an all-time low of 1.75%
- The U.S. Fed rejected the capital plans of two large banks, the American units of the Deutsche Bank and Banco Santander, due to their "qualitative" deficiencies including ability to model losses and identify risks.
- All U.S. major banks passed the Fed stress test
- The British economy grew by 0.6 percent in the three months to the end of February
- U.S. wholesale inventories unexpectedly rose 0.3 % in January as sales recorded their biggest decline since 2009, lifting the number of months it would take to clear warehouses to its highest level in more than 5-1/2 years.
- The U.S. added 295,000 jobs in Feb. as the unemployment rate fell to 5.5 %, lowest since 08, but youth unemployment is rising.For those aged 20-24 years old it was 10% in February – up from 9.8% in January
- Unfilled job openings at small businesses reach 9-year peak. Around 29% of small-business owners say they have at least one job opening that they could not fill, Bloomberg reports. That is the highest that number has been since March 2006, and one of the highest numbers seen in 40 years.
- Germany's annual inflation got out of its negative territory and stood at 0.1 % in February
- According to the second estimate from the U.S. Commerce Department the economy expanded at a 2.2 % annual rate in Q4 of 2014, revised down from the previous estimate of 2.6%
- Japan's CPI rose 2.2 % YoY in January, marking the 20th consecutive monthly growth.
- Iron Ore at the lowest price since 2009 as China tackles overcapacity and pollution
- China’s premier Li Keqiang cut the nation’s growth target to “around” 7% , reiterating the need to pursue reform as development slows and the likelihood of tougher times ahead for the world’s second largest economy.
- The Warming World: Is Capitalism Destroying Our Planet?
Since 1880, when global temperatures began to be systematically collected, no year has been warmer than 2014. The 15 warmest years, with one single exception, have come during the first 15 years of the new millennium. Indeed, it has become an open question as to whether global warming can be stopped anymore -- or at least limited as policymakers have called for. Is capitalism ultimately responsible for the problem, or could it actually help to solve it?
- The U.S. economy will expand by 3.2% or more this year, its best performance since at least 2005, as an improving job market leads to stepped-up consumer spending, according JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas.
- U.S. consumer sentiment rose to the highest level since January 2007
- (Blommberg)The unexpected 0.2 percent drop in hourly earnings on average last month, the biggest since records began in 2006, was probably influenced by the mix of workers on payrolls, economists said. Big gains in hiring of seasonal holiday workers, more entry-level positions and retirements of more expensive employees all probably played a role.
- Russia’s credit rating was cut to one step above junk by Fitch.
- (Prtichard) Without such jobs, Italy's political system is going to blow up soon. Its unemployment rate has just reached a modern-era high of 13.4pc, with youth unemployment hitting a record 43.9pc. The Mezzogiorno is sliding from depression towards social collapse. The Bourbons made a better fist of it.
By cruel contrast, Germany generated 27,000 fresh jobs in December. Unemployment has fallen to a 23-year low of 5pc. Things have never been so good since reunification. There could hardly be clearer evidence that monetary union is unworkable.
- (Bloomberg)ECB weighs bond purchases up to 500 billion Euros to juice economy..A 500 billion-euro purchase program would take the ECB halfway toward its goal of boosting its balance sheet to avert a deflationary spiral in the euro area
- (MarketWatch) -- European Central Bank Mario Draghi has signaled the ECB could be closer to launching full-scale quantitative easing, as he said the risk of deflation has increased.
The Euro hit a 9-year low as bloc slips into deflation..
- The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index dropped to a six-month low of 55.5 from 58.7 in November.
- YoY, the 34th straight month of decline.
China's Purchasing Managers Index slipped to 50.1 in December from 50.3 in November, marking the third straight month of decline.Anlysts expect the central bank to continue to inject liquidity into the economy in the new year.
- Chinese industrial profits fell 4.2% in November - the biggest annual decline since August 2012
- The UK economy, boosted by the inclusion of sex and drugs in national accounts, overtakes France by a whisker to become the world's fifth largest economy
- Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi says price is irrelevant to output decisions
PRNewswire:
- The total value of all the homes in the United States is expected to end 2014 at $27.5 trillion, a 6.7 percent increase from last year and the third consecutive overall increase, according to Zillow.
- Homes lost $6.1 trillion in value between December 2006 and December 2011.
- (MW Howard Gold) Two researchers from the University of Oxford have estimated that computerization will put nearly half the jobs in the United States in jeopardy, including some creative professions that were thought to be immune...
- IBM researchers estimate that a human brain can make 36.8 quadrillion calculations per second. The total computational power of the world's supercomputers is now eight times that, and the largest supercomputer, in Guangzhou, China, has nearly the computational capacity of one human brain...Peter Bock, professor emeritus of engineering at the George Washington University, has followed AI's progress for four decades and he says it's tracking Moore's Law closely. "We are precisely on schedule" to have the capacity to create the human-like brain of Mada, a fictional intelligent machine he described in the 1993 book "The Emergence of Artificial Cognition." Bock's TARGET DATE: 2024.
- Only 15.6% of advisers outperformed the Wilshire 5000 last year, so says Mark Hulbert
- Carl's Jr. announced the launch of a new grass-fed, free-range beef burger that is free of added hormones, antibiotics and steroids.
and
Chick-fil-A Inc. says it is phasing out all chicken raised with antibiotics over five years.
- Nokia (NOK) expands HERE maps client base with Baidu partnership offering international location services to Chinese tourists travelling abroad. HERE maps are in more than 200 countries and voice-navigation facility in 118.
- Bought and paid for Republicans succeeded in passing a budget that includes explicit Citigroup language (inserted at the last minute) condoning financial institutions to trade instruments that are insured by the FDIC, explicitly putting taxpayers back on the hook for losses caused by these trades.
- SPIEGEL ONLINE Deaths from police shootings
US 461
Germany 8
Britain 0
Japan 0
- Disney(DIS) declared an annual dividend of $1.15 per share, up 34%. This is Disney’s 59th consecutive dividend.
- Abbott (ABT) increased the quarterly dividend to $0.24 per share from $0.22 per share. This is the 364th consecutive quarterly dividend to be paid by Abbott since 1924.
- Northeastern University researchers have discovered an antibiotic called “teixobactin” that eliminates pathogens without encountering any detectable resistance — a finding that challenges long-held scientific beliefs and holds great promise for treating chronic infections
