“If you do not know who you are, the stock market is an expensive to find out.” — George Goodman

1. Germany dampens ECB bond-buying speculation — Germany’s Bundesbank stepped up its opposition to the European Central Bank’s plan to buy more government bonds, warning that any move to share “solvency risks” across the euro zone should be decided by governments and not the ECB. The speculation has sent Spanish yields plummeting.
2. BHP shelves $20B copper expansion as China slowdown — in one of the biggest signs of how China’s falling growth has stalled the global mining boom, BHP Billiton (BHP) is abandoning a $20B expansion of its Olympic Dam copper project in Australia and will look at a “less capital intensive option” instead reported by Reuters.
3. Greece stalls on making tough cuts — as reported by the BBC, Greece’s Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, is preparing for the first of a series of meetings in which he will ask the country’s lenders for more time to implement spending cuts and reforms. At issue is whether Greece has done enough to receive its next instalment of loans worth 31.5bn euros ($39.3bn; £24.7bn) that it needs to avoid defaulting on its vast public debts, and possibly even leaving the euro.
4. Fed minutes show active discussion of QE3 — Members of the Federal Reserve got closer to decide on a new round of bond purchases even as a less-aggressive step of altering language on a low-rate pledge seems to be in the works, according to the latest FOMC meeting minutes.
5. Chinese factory activity contracts at faster pace in August — the August preliminary HSBC PMI for China fell to a nine-month low of 47.8 from 49.3 in July. New orders and new export orders contracted at a faster rate than in July, while inventories rose at a speedier pace.
6. S&P500 Performance YTD vs. Net New Highs — stocks with smaller market caps have lagged in this rally and being led by megacaps (like AAPL). Chart courtesy of the Bespoke Investment Group.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: