1. Creditors and Large Depositors to take Large Loss in Cyprus Rescue from the EU — hours before a possible financial meltdown in Cyprus, the eurozone agreed to a €10B bailout in which the country’s second-largest bank, Laiki, will be closed and its operations folded into Bank of Cyprus. Deposits of over €100,000 will be hit with a large tax, perhaps 30% or more, while those below that level will be left untouched. Laiki’s senior bondholders will be wiped out, while Bank of Cyprus’s creditors will also be affected.
2. Fears Arise that Farming is Heading for a Bust — NYTimes, Rising crop prices, particularly corn, have sent the cost of farmland soaring, with prices in Iowa, for example, doubling to an average of $8,296 an acre since 2009. The trend has prompted farmers to expand and has attracted investment companies, but with data about rural debt incomplete, economists fear that the boom will at some point turn into a bust, leaving a trail of bankruptcies and out-of-pocket creditors.
3. Freddie Mac sues 15 banks over Libor Rigging Scandal — Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) has sued Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan (JPM), Citigroup (C) and 12 other banks for losses caused by the manipulation of the Libor rate. Freddie, which invested in mortgage bonds and swaps tied to U.S. dollar Libor, is seeking a whole gamut of damages. The FHFA has already calculated that Freddie and Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) lost a combined $3B because of the Libor manipulation.
4. Bank of England (BOE) voted 6-3 to reject more Quantitative Easing (QE)– The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee voted unanimously to keep interest rates on hold at a meeting earlier this month and 6-3 against more quantitative easing. As in February, Governor Mervyn King was among those wanting the bank to increase the program by another £25B to £400B.
5. FOMC Maintains Its Current Policy of Bond Buy — the Federal Reserve has left its $85B-a-month QE program in place, saying that the economy has returned to moderate growth even as fiscal policy has become more restrictive. Notable among the revised economic projections was an expected improvement in the unemployment rate.
6. Household net worth drops 36% in six years — WSJ, the median net worth of American households dropped to $69,000 in 2011 from $82,000 in 2000 and $107,000 in 2005, a census report shows. Meanwhile, debt in households headed by older people more than doubled during the decade to a median $26,000 from $12,000, largely because of mortgage loans. The trend increases worries about the financial well-being of older Americans, whose retirement funds have been hit by the recession and rock-bottom interest rates.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: