Week Aug 10 2012 – Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
Monday, August 13th, 2012“Wall Street never changes. The pockets change, the suckers change, the stocks change, but Wall Street never changes because human nature never changes.” – Jesse Livermore
1. Germany and Italy near blows over euro — per The Telegraph, German politicians from across the spectrum have reacted furiously to warnings by Italy’s Mario Monti that Bundestag control over EU debt policies threatens to bring about the “disintegration” of the European project.
2. Eurozone gets ever tougher with Greece — Greece plans to raise about €6bn of short-term funds this week from local banks after its eurozone partners turned down a request for a bridge loan to repay a bond held by the European Central Bank that matures later this month.
3. S&P lowers its outlook on Greece to negative — S&P has revised its outlook on Greece’s long-term rating to negative, reflecting the potential for a downgrade if the country fails to secure the next disbursement from the EU/IMF financing program.
4. US 10-year yields — yields have a positive correlation with risk assets. Below is the chart that depicts perhaps a false breakdowns in bond that typically provides enough fuel for equity to rally.
5. Saudi cuts oil output to 9.8 mln bpd in July — per Reuter, top oil exporter Saudi Arabia pumped 9.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in July, cutting output by 300,000 bpd from June.
6. U.S. corn crops suffer, global food prices rise — the UN’s index of global food prices increased 6% in July, its largest rise since November 2009, boosted by too much rain in Brazil, not enough rain in the U.S., and a hot summer in Russia.
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: