“The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – George S. Patton

1. Millions Trapped in Health-Law Coverage Gap — WSJ reported that millions of Americans earn too tittle for health-law subsidies but ineligible for benefits under Existing Medicaid Programs. Around 4.8M people aged 18-64 get no government help to buy medical insurance – because they earn too little to qualify for federal subsidies. However, they earn too much to receive benefits under state programs. The gap is the result of 24 states deciding not to expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
2. Dow Jones Average (DJIA) Chart Similar to 1929?? — below is a chart of the DJIA which displays a scary correlation to the 1928-1929 depression courtesy of McClellan Market Report. Will the pattern repeat is anyone guess???

3. White House again delays healthcare mandate for employers — Reuters, the government has announced yet another delay to a crucial part of Obamacare. The latest is that businesses with 50-99 full-time workers won’t have to provide health insurance to their workers until 2016. Larger firms will have to cover at least 70% of employees by 2015 and 95% a year later. The original plan was for companies to offer coverage in July 2014. That was delayed until 2015.
4. House approved suspension of debt limit for a year until March 16, 2015 — the House has authorized a one-year extension to the government’s borrowing authority – until March 16, 2015 – without any conditions by a vote of 221-201. There had been plans to link the debt-cap vote to restoring cuts to military pensions, but the battle-fatigued Republican leadership dropped its demands in order to keep the political focus on Obamacare.
5. German CPI in deflation territory — German CPI fell 0.6% on month in January following an increase of 0.4% in December. The drop in prices comes amid increasing concern that the eurozone faces the threat of deflation, although European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi has so far been sanguine about the prospect.
6. China’s Inflation Rate Holds Steady — WSJ, China’s CPI held steady at +2.5% on year in January, while PPI dropped for the 23rd consecutive month with a fall of 1.6%. The benign inflation could give the People’s Bank of China room to loosen monetary policy should the economy slow further, although the PBOC is also concerned about reining in soaring debt.
7. Twitter (TWTR) Insiders Get First Chance to Sell Shares as Lockup Ends — Bloombers, about 9.87 million of non-executive employees’ shares will become eligible for sale as agreements that locked them up after the IPO expire, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That would boost the number of shares available for trading by 12 percent to about 90 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. More stock will start to become available for trading in May.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: