http://www.businessinsider.com/slok-10-year-rate-forecasts-2014-12

Deutsche Bank's Chief International Economist Torsten Slok circulated an email earlier today with what he declared the "chart of the decade."

It's of the 10-year Treasury yield with dotted lines representing analysts' forecasts.

"Wall Street economists have been consistently wrong in their forecasts for the ten-year rate over the past decade," Slok writes.

How many times in recent years have we heard folks say that rates have "nowhere to go but up." Coming into 2014, almost every financial pro out there was betting that the 30-year old bond bull market would finally come to an end and send rates higher.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/slok-10-year-rate-forecasts-2014-12#ixzz3MLHQZ4Pl

Someday, all the Euro-technocrats and Euro-banksters will die...and then Europe might have a chance.

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-ecb-considers-making-weaker-euro-zone-states-bear-more-quantitative-easing-risk---sources--2014-12

FRANKFURT - European Central Bank officials are considering ways to ensure weak countries that stand to gain most from a fresh round of money printing bear more of the risk and cost.

Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, have told Reuters that the ECB could require central banks in countries such as Greece or Portugal to set aside extra money or provisions to cover potential losses from any bond-buying, reflecting the riskiness of their bonds.

Such a move could help persuade a reluctant Germany to back plans to buy state bonds.

There is currently a stand off between the ECB and Germany's Bundesbank over ECB preparations to buy sovereign bonds, so-called quantitative easing (QE), to shore up the flagging euro zone economy.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-ecb-considers-making-weaker-euro-zone-states-bear-more-quantitative-easing-risk---sources--2014-12#ixzz3MLI1XIbH

do they even think before they speak over there?

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-ruble-firms-as-government-steps-up-verbal-support-2014-12

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's ruble strengthened on Friday after Finance Minister Anton Siluanov confirmed his ministry had sold foreign currency and on expectations that exporters will step up dollar sales.

At 8:15 a.m. GMT (03:15 a.m. EST), the ruble was around 2.7 percent stronger against the dollar at 59.85 and gained 2.7 percent to trade at 73.65 versus the euro.

The ruble's recovery is in contrast to intense selling pressure earlier this week, when the ruble at one stage had fallen about 20 percent against the dollar on the day before rising again, threatening the relative financial stability on which President Vladimir Putin has built his popularity.

Analysts at Rosbank said that given what they saw as the central bank's conservative approach to rouble liquidity, the expansion of its forex repo mechanism and policy of preserving its reserves, the rouble could stabilize at around 60 to 62 rubles per dollar.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-ruble-firms-as-government-steps-up-verbal-support-2014-12#ixzz3MLIZiVkF

http://www.businessinsider.com/market-update-19-dec-2014-2014-12

Here's the scorecard:

France's CAC 40: +0.73%

Germany's DAX: +0.51%

UK's FTSE 100: +0.70%

Spain's IBEX: +0.45%

Italy's FTSE MIB: -0.30%

Asian markets closed up too. Japan's Nikkei ended up 2.39%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed 1.25% and China's Shanghai Composite ended 1.67% higher.

US futures are nudging higher too: The Dow is up 74 points and the S&P 500 is 7.25 points higher.

There's no major data out today, but UK public finances at 9:30 a.m. GMT will offer a signal of whether the Treasury can reach its borrowing targets this fiscal year. To manage that, borrowing needs to fall by 25% over the next five months in comparison to the same period last year, according to Lloyds.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/market-update-19-dec-2014-2014-12#ixzz3MLIwV6XG

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-most-important-things-in-the-world-dec-19-2014-12

1. Eight children died Friday morning in a mass stabbing in Australia.

2. The United Nations has requested more than $8.4 billion for 2015 to help nearly 18 million people affected by the war in Syria.

3. British police are looking into the murders of three young boys as part of an ongoing investigation into child abuse allegations dating back to the 1970s.

4. Investigators said arson was the cause of a massive fire in an unfinished Los Angeles apartment building last week that caused an estimated $30 million of damage.

5. European Union leaders agreed to a new round of sanctions against Crimea, banning all investment in the region as further punishment for Russia's annexation of the region from Ukraine.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-most-important-things-in-the-world-dec-19-2014-12#ixzz3MLJUsgp7

http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-asian-markets-extend-gains-after-fed-statement-2014-12

Hong Kong (AFP) - Asian markets rallied for a second straight session Friday, boosted by another strong performance on Wall Street while renewed confidence helped push the dollar back towards the 100 yen mark.

Tokyo jumped 1.59 percent thanks to the weaker yen, while Sydney climbed 1.66 percent, Seoul rose 1.29 percent and Hong Kong added 1.43 percent. Shanghai eased 0.20 percent.

Global markets tanked at the start of the week on fears about the global economy as oil prices plunged and crude exporter Russia was also hammered by Western sanctions over Ukraine.

However, they have rebounded over the past few days in response to a Federal Reserve statement Wednesday indicating interest rates would be hiked no sooner than mid-2015.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-asian-markets-extend-gains-after-fed-statement-2014-12#ixzz3MLMh4y9j

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-russias-parliament-rushes-through-bill-boosting-banking-capital-2014-12

Russia's lower house of parliament passed a draft law that would give the banking sector a capital boost of up to 1 trillion rubles ($16.5 billion) on Friday, part of measures to shield banks from Western economic sanctions.

Russia's financial sector is reeling from the country's slide toward recession and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis that have restricted banks' access to international capital markets, driving their funding costs sharply higher.

The State Duma said on its website it had passed the bill in all three required readings - speeding up a process which can sometimes see laws languish in parliament for weeks.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters on Friday banks could start receiving the additional capital early next year and that the law would cover all the risks banks face.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-russias-parliament-rushes-through-bill-boosting-banking-capital-2014-12#ixzz3MLOJh2dC

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FINANCIAL_MARKETS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-19-05-16-21

KEEPING SCORE: Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.6 percent to 6,507.42 France's CAC 40 added 0.2 percent to 4,257.02 and Germany's DAX advanced 0.4 percent to 9,849.22. Wall Street was headed for another day of gains as well. Dow futures were up 0.5 percent and S&P futures rose 0.4 percent.

THE QUOTE: "With the rally managing to last more than a day, I feel the Fed will be pleased it managed to find the right balance with its language," said Stan Shamu, a market strategist at IG in Melbourne, Australia.

FED MEETING: Fed Chair Janet Yellen said Wednesday that she foresaw no rate hike in the first quarter of 2015 and the Fed will be "patient" in deciding when to do so. The comments eased concerns that policymakers would start raising interest rates at a time when growth outside the U.S. appears to be flagging. They also helped investors look past worries about the impact of a slumping oil price and turmoil in Russia, where the currency has slumped.

ASIA'S DAY: Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped 2.4 percent to 17,621.40 and South Korea's Kospi added 1.7 percent 1,929.98. Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.3 percent to 23,116.63 while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 vaulted 2.5 percent to 5,338.60. Stocks in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, India and New Zealand also rose.

SONY DIVE: Shares of Sony closed 1.3 percent lower in Tokyo amid the fallout from last month's hack of computer systems at Sony Pictures Entertainment. The studio's reputation is in tatters as embarrassing revelations spill from tens of thousands of leaked emails that could damage its relationships with stars and give other studios an advantage. American investigators have linked North Korea to the hack of the Hollywood company and Sony Pictures cancelled the release of "The Interview," a movie that spoofs an assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DRONES_POLL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-19-03-36-50

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans are skeptical that the benefits of the heralded drone revolution will outweigh the risks to privacy and safety, although a majority approve of using small, unmanned aircraft for dangerous jobs or in remote areas, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

By a 2-1 margin, those who had an opinion opposed using drones for commercial purposes. Only 21 percent favored commercial use of drones, compared with 43 percent opposed. Another 35 percent were in the middle.

With a few narrow exceptions, the Federal Aviation Administration prohibits commercial use of drones but is about to propose regulations that will broaden the use of small ones. It may be two or three years before the rules take effect, but once they do thousands are expected to buzz U.S. skies.

Congress may also step in next year to try to nudge the FAA to move faster. Drones are forecast to create 100,000 jobs and $82 billion in economic impact in the first 10 years they're allowed, according to the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a trade group.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_INSIDER_TRADING_HEDGE_FUNDS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-18-20-33-08

NEW YORK (AP) -- A judge said Thursday he's leaning toward tossing out four guilty pleas in an insider-trading case, the latest fallout from a recent appeals court ruling criticizing prosecutors' tactics.

U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. notified attorneys of his plans in separate proceedings for five defendants.

He said he believes it's necessary to reject the pleas after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan last week reversed two insider-trading convictions, saying defendants Anthony Chiasson and Todd Newman were too far removed from the inside information to be prosecuted. The appeals court ruling stemmed from a government crackdown on hedge fund insider trading that resulted in more than 80 convictions.

Repeatedly Thursday, the judge told lawyers he had "strong doubts" that guilty pleas to conspiracy charges by four men are supported by the facts of the case. A fifth man is awaiting trial.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ALLY_FINANCIAL_GOVERNMENT_EXIT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-18-20-25-07

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is selling the last of its shares in Ally Financial Inc., the former financing arm of General Motors that was bailed out during the financial crisis.

Detroit-based Ally said Thursday that the Treasury Department is selling its remaining 54.9 million shares. That amounts to about an 11 percent stake in the company. At the close of trading Thursday, that would be worth about $1.25 billion.

Ally, formerly called GMAC Inc., received a $17.2 billion bailout that began in 2008. It's now a standalone auto financing company and bank.

Ally said that the government has already received $18.3 billion from its investment in the company. Ally went public in April and Treasury sold a chunk of its stake then.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-12-15/high-speed-trader-charged-with-spoofing-argues-law-vague

The first high-speed trader charged with a method of market manipulation known as spoofing contends the new law is too vague to be enforced and his indictment should be thrown out.

Spoofing was first made illegal by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, although exchanges have long discouraged the practice because it can be used to manipulate prices. The technique involves placing orders that aren’t intended to be executed, with the goal of moving prices up or down toward a level that’s favorable to the spoofer. When that happens, the spoofer cancels the initial order and executes another. Some high-frequency traders allegedly brought the practice into the modern era, using computers to execute spoofing strategies with automated systems placing transactions in tiny fractions of a second.

Michael Coscia, the Rumson, New Jersey, principal of Panther Energy Trading LLC, was indicted in October by a federal grand jury in Chicago and later pleaded not guilty. His lawyers today asked a judge to dismiss the six spoofing counts and six commodities-fraud counts against him, contending the term has no accepted meaning in the futures industry and that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission didn’t issue guidance on the subject until May 2013, a year and a half after Coscia’s allegedly criminal conduct. Utilizing high-frequency trading programs, Coscia reaped almost $1.6 million through spoofing from August to October in 2011, Chicago U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon said in an Oct. 2 press statement.

The practice was defined under Dodd-Frank as “bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution.” Critics said the provision was unclear and pressed the CME Group Inc. (CME:US), the world’s biggest futures market operator, to clarify what is allowed.

“The charged offenses are a glaring example of prosecutorial overreach, as the government attempts to spring after-the-fact criminality on an unsuspecting defendant who could not reasonably have known that his conduct fell within the reach of either an obscure, never-tested statute or the novel construction of another,” Coscia’s lawyers said in today’s filing. They called the charges “legally flawed.”

...Each of the spoofing counts against Coscia carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of as much as $1 million. Each of the commodities-fraud charges are punishable by as long as 25 years in prison and a $250,000 fine....

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/12/how-chinas-eurasia-maneuvers-beat-obamas-pivot-to-asia.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

...overview of the measures China is taking to create greater economic integration with its Eurasian and European trade partners, to the detriment of US influence. And Washington appears to have been caught flat-footed.

Welcome to the new trans-Eurasia choo-choo train. At over 13,000 kilometers, it will regularly traverse the longest freight train route in the world, 40% farther than the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway. Its cargo will cross China from East to West, then Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France, and finally Spain.

You may not have the faintest idea where Yiwu is, but businessmen plying their trades across Eurasia, especially from the Arab world, are already hooked on the city “where amazing happens!” We’re talking about the largest wholesale center for small-sized consumer goods — from clothes to toys — possibly anywhere on Earth.

The Yiwu-Madrid route across Eurasia represents the beginning of a set of game-changing developments. It will be an efficient logistics channel of incredible length. It will represent geopolitics with a human touch, knitting together small traders and huge markets across a vast landmass. It’s already a graphic example of Eurasian integration on the go. And most of all, it’s the first building block on China’s “New Silk Road,” conceivably the project of the new century and undoubtedly the greatest trade story in the world for the next decade.

Go west, young Han. One day, if everything happens according to plan (and according to the dreams of China’s leaders), all this will be yours — via high-speed rail, no less. The trip from China to Europe will be a two-day affair, not the 21 days of the present moment. In fact, as that freight train left Yiwu, the D8602 bullet train was leaving Urumqi in Xinjiang Province, heading for Hami in China’s far west. That’s the first high-speed railway built in Xinjiang, and more like it will be coming soon across China at what is likely to prove dizzying speed. Today, 90% of the global container trade still travels by ocean, and that’s what Beijing plans to change. Its embryonic, still relatively slow New Silk Road represents its first breakthrough in what is bound to be an overland trans-continental container trade revolution...

FASCINATING READ...REAL NEWS!

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FINANCIAL_RISK_METLIFE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-18-19-24-47

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. regulators have labeled insurer MetLife as a potential threat to the financial system, a designation that brings stricter government oversight.

MetLife said Thursday that the Financial Stability Oversight Council has designated the company as "systemically important." As a result, MetLife must increase its cushion of capital against losses, limit its use of borrowed money and submit to inspections by examiners. MetLife will come under the supervision of the Federal Reserve. Its primary regulator now is New York state.

Regulators saw a need for closer oversight of big financial companies that aren't banks after the near-collapse of insurer American International Group threatened to bring down the global system in September 2008 during the crisis. The idea is to prevent a catastrophic collapse that could lead to another financial meltdown.

New York-based MetLife is the largest U.S. life insurer, with about $475 billion in assets under management.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CHINESE_SPENDING_WASHINGTON_STATE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-19-03-47-09

MEDINA, Wash. (AP) -- Savvy Seattle-area real estate agents have gained an advantage by paying attention to the growing connections between China and Washington state.

"I'm so glad my mother made me study Chinese," laughed property broker Janie Lee, after showing a client from Beijing a $4 million home in the suburb of Medina. "I've been using it a lot."

This year, Chinese visitors are on pace to top the list of international travelers to the Evergreen State. More than half of the 7,300 international students at the University of Washington are from the People's Republic. And a recent top-grossing Chinese romantic comedy featured a Beijing woman who finds love in Seattle.

The influx has made its way to high-end property markets, and observers don't expect it to slow down any time soon. "This is just the beginning from just a few years ago. So in a few years there will be even more," Lee said, interpreting for her perspective buyer, Hongbin Wei.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_COAL_ASH_REGULATIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-19-03-39-49

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Environmentalists and industry experts widely expect the first federal standards for the waste generated from coal burned for electricity to treat the ash like household garbage, rather than a hazardous material.

The Obama administration is under court order to unveil the rule Friday, ending a six-year effort that began after a massive spill at a Tennessee power plant in 2008. Since then, the Environmental Protection Agency has documented coal ash waste sites tainting hundreds of waterways and underground aquifers in numerous states with heavy metals and other toxic contaminants.

Coal ash has been piling up in ponds and landfill sites at power plants for years, an unintended consequence of the EPA's push to scrub air pollutants from smokestacks. In volume, it ranks only behind household trash in quantity, and it is expected to grow as the EPA controls pollutants like heat-trapping carbon dioxide and mercury and other toxic air pollutants from the nation's coal fleet. On the upside, a switch from coal to natural gas-fired power plants in recent years has generated less ash.

Environmental groups had wanted the coal ash to be classified as hazardous, pointing to an assessment by the agency last year that found more than 132 cases in which coal-fired power plant waste damaged rivers, streams and lakes, and 123 where it has tainted underground water sources, in many cases legally. A hazardous classification would have put the federal government in charge of enforcement, which has been uneven across states which have varying degrees of regulation.

12/18/14 Happy Holidays from Nanex - 2014

Created from EMini (S&P 500 futures) price changes between Midnight to 16:15 ET for every trading day from January 1, 2012 through the close of December 18, 2014. Chart rotated 90 degrees.

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and the ultimate:

honoring and respecting the Diversity of the world's people, as much as can be found in the time available with the resources on hand...