Aussie and Kiwi Dollars Rally

Risk on ….

 

 

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No reports of a Tsunami…..

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“Oil rose from the lowest close in almost two months in New York after a European Central Bank official signaled the lender may act to stem the spread of the region’s debt crisis.

Futures gained as much as 0.7 percent. ECB Executive Board member Benoit Coeure suggested that the bank may revive its bond-purchase program in Spain, pushing up the euro versus the dollar. Crude declined yesterday after an industry report showed U.S. stockpiles rose for a third week. The Energy Department will release its inventory report later today.

“Oil is getting some support from a weaker greenback amid some ECB reassurances,” saidAndrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital in London. “We also have a general rebound across the board along with equities after losses yesterday, though it seems this may be short-lived.”

Oil for May delivery was at $101.52 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 50 cents, at 11:33 a.m. London time. The contract yesterday fell 1.4 percent to $101.02, the lowest settlement since Feb. 14. Prices are up 2.7 percent this year.

Brent crude for May settlement on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange traded at $120.12 a barrel, up 25 cents. The European benchmark contract was at a premium of $18.55 to New York futures. The spread yesterday shrank 6.7 percent, the most since Feb. 20, to $18.86.”

 

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“European stocks rebounded from a two-month low and U.S. equity futures gained after Alcoa Inc. opened the earnings season with an unexpected profit. Spanish and Italian bonds climbed as governments sell about $50 billion of debt and the euro strengthened.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index (SXXP) rose 0.9 percent as of 11:57 a.m. in London, while Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures advanced 0.8 percent, signaling that stocks may gain for the first time in six days. Alcoa rose 6.3 percent in pre-market New York trading as aluminum climbed 0.9 percent from a three-month low. The euro snapped a five-day drop against the yen to strengthen 0.7 percent and Spanish debt risk neared a record.

European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure suggested the lender could revive its debt-purchase program to reduce Spain’s borrowing costs after 10-year yields approached 6 percent. Italy and Germany were among six countries in Europe that sold debt today, while in the U.S., theFederal Reserve will release its Beige Book business survey.Alcoa (AA), the country’s largest aluminum producer, reported an unexpected first-quarter profit after orders rose.

“Fundamentally, the equity market offers extreme value and I am very happy to be buying on the dips,” said George Godber, who helps oversee $22 billion as a fund manager at Charles Stanley’s Matterley division in London. His Matterley Undervalued Assets Fund gained 12 percent in 2012. “Equities are the only place to be.”

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Asia

Europe

Futures

Currencies

Commodities

LIBOR, EURIBOR, 10 year yields for Italy, Spain, France, and Germany

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European stocks opened higher, reversing earlier indications of losses, sending US futs +10 above fair value on S&P.

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Seconds later, the children started screaming for help. Their parents rushed into the water and were each able to pull a child to safety, but a third child, a little girl, was still in harms way in the rough water. Alan Hall jumped into the tide without hesitating, Julie Hall said.

Full article

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LMFAO…Holy cow, this guy was almost President…

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On March 30th, Current TV terminated its relationship with outspoken liberal anchor Keith Olbermann. The Daily Caller has exclusively obtained many of the emails between Olbermann and network founder Al Gore in the months leading up to the split. 

They are reprinted here for the first time, in their entirety, and without comment. 

FROM: Keith Olbermann
TO: Al Gore
DATE: June 18, 2011

Dear Albert,

“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”

Those words come from Samuel Clemens, perhaps better known to you as literary colossus Mark Twain.

I need not tell you, Al, that I am that scarce man who refuses to remain silent when he sees injustice, that patriot who stands tall and strong and brave, even when hated and scorned. And I do see injustice – even here at Current TV.

I tried to remedy my current morass without coming to you, Al, but with no remedy forthcoming, I feel compelled to bring to your attention my roadblock, which you shall note is something far more severe than a mere speed bump.

In the new studio for my show, I find no golden scepter despite my explicit request to Joel Hyatt for one. This will be an indispensable part of my new show and I see no reason why I have to justify its expense.

Also, the Current proletariat seem to have no inhibitions about walking up to me and freely engaging me in conversation, as if I have time for their verbal meanderings. For all their faults, my employers at MSNBC made it explicitly clear that if someone wanted to communicate with me, they could do so — but only through letters written in calligraphy that were deposited in a receptacle outside my office between 2:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.

Why has this same policy not yet been communicated at Current?

In a letter written in his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama at a time of great tumult, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote prophetically: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Will you fix my injustices, Al?

Yours Truly,

Keith Theodore Olbermann
Cornell University, Class of 1979

p.s. We also have to replace stinky my car driver — pronto!!!

FROM: Al Gore
TO: Keith Olbermann
DATE: June 22, 2011

Hello Keith,

When do you think they will commodify the rain? Someday they will try and turn it to poison. You came onboard to this endeavor full of promise. Has that good tide soured?

You are a part of me. We are all one. My life force drives Current. I am its noble blood.

I intend to be the Defender of Nature. Will you join me? Gold from streams untapped is all the more sweet. Can you taste it on your tongue?

I am standing in an almond now. It stands inside me. My scepter is made from almond wood and laced with sage. It is powerful. Soon I will command the oceans. The fish listen already.

We are all one. Even Stinky.

Mahalo,

A.G.

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Back on February 12th, I blogged ‘What a Market Top Looks Like‘. I was not telling investors to sell everything. If I had told you to sell everything, I would have been wrong. The markets were awash with momentum. But, a few months later, my concerns outlined remain.

Read the rest here.

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via Bespoke

Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 05:18PM

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Blanquita Cullum 703-307-9510 bqview at mac.com

Joint letter to NASA Administrator blasts agency’s policy of ignoring empirical evidence

HOUSTON, TX – April 10, 2012.

49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.

The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, are dismayed over the failure of NASA, and specifically the Goddard Institute For Space Studies (GISS), to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change. They charge that NASA is relying too heavily on complex climate models that have proven scientifically inadequate in predicting climate only one or two decades in advance.

H. Leighton Steward, chairman of the non-profit Plants Need CO2, noted that many of the former NASA scientists harbored doubts about the significance of the C02-climate change theory and have concerns over NASA’s advocacy on the issue. While making presentations in late 2011 to many of the signatories of the letter, Steward realized that the NASA scientists should make their concerns known to NASA and the GISS.

“These American heroes – the astronauts that took to space and the scientists and engineers that put them there – are simply stating their concern over NASA’s extreme advocacy for an unproven theory,” said Leighton Steward. “There’s a concern that if it turns out that CO2 is not a major cause of climate change, NASA will have put the reputation of NASA, NASA’s current and former employees, and even the very reputation of science itself at risk of public ridicule and distrust.”

Select excerpts from the letter:

• “The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.”
• “We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated.”
• “We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject.”

The full text of the letter:

March 28, 2012

The Honorable Charles Bolden, Jr.
NASA Administrator
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C. 20546-0001

Dear Charlie,

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

Read the rest here.

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“If the talking heads on television don’t tell us about something that happens, does it make that event any less real?  Of course the answer to that question is quite obvious, but unfortunately way too many Americans allow their realities to be defined by what they hear from the mainstream media.  Way too many people use phrases such as “if that was true I would have heard about it on television” to deflect conversations that are starting to become uncomfortable.  Critical thinking is a skill that is in short supply in America today, and most Americans seem content to let their televisions do their thinking for them.  Sadly, the pretty people on television do not spend a lot of time talking about the things that are truly important.  Instead, they love to talk about the latest celebrity scandal and they love to divide people into groups and get them fighting with one another.  In this day and age, it is absolutely critical that we all learn to think for ourselves.  The talking heads on television are concerned with keeping their bosses happy and with keeping the ratings up.  Most of them are not really concerned about what happens to you.  They just want you to keep watching them so that they can continue to earn their inflated salaries.

Unfortunately, most Americans seem perfectly content with the “infotainment” that they are getting from the major news networks, so major changes to the mainstream media are not likely to happen any time soon.

For those wanting something different, you will have to seek out alternative sources of news (such as this website) that are willing to discuss the truly earth shattering events that are continually taking place all over the globe.

So what are some of the things that the mainstream media has been ignoring?

The following are 19 things that the talking heads on television have been strangely silent about….

#1 Strange Things Happening On The Sun

A lot of really weird things have been happening on the sun lately.  For example, recently there was a tornado on the sun that was five times larger than the earth.  The following is how this solar tornado was described by a recent Wired article….

Over the course of three hours, this behemoth reached up from the sun’s surface to a height of 125,000 miles, or roughly half the distance between the Earth and the moon. The hot gases were whipped up to nearly 186,000 miles per hour. In comparison, the wind speed of terrestrial tornadoes generally reaches a paltry 100 miles per hour.

#2 Fukushima

Fukushima has turned out to be the worst nuclear disaster in human history and it is far from over.  In fact, there is still the potential that an earthquake or an explosion could cause the crisis at Fukushima to become far more dangerous than ever.  In fact, some officials have even discussed the possibility of evacuating Tokyo if a worst case scenario plays out.

Mitsuhei Murata, a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, wrote the following in a March 25th letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon….

I was asked to make a statement at the public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 23. I raised the crucial problem of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima containing 1535 fuel rods. It could be fatally damaged by continuing aftershocks. Moreover, 50 meters away from it exists a common cooling pool for 6 reactors containing 6375 fuel rods!

It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor. This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr. Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Fumiaki Koide.

Please allow me to inform you of an initiative being taken by a former UN official who is endeavoring to have the Nuclear Security Summit take up the crucial problem of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima. He is pursuing the establishment of an independent assessment team. I think his efforts are very significant, because it is indispensable to draw the attention of world leaders to this vital issue.

So just how serious is the threat posed by the spent fuel pool at reactor number 4?

Well, just check out the following assessment from a Japanese news source….

One of the biggest issues that we face is the possibility that the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant will collapse.

The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a total of 1,535 fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it and the storage pools are barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide area.

The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate.

#3 Mount Fuji In Japan About To Erupt?

Mount Fuji in Japan had been dormant for about 300 years, but in recent months there have been a lot of signs that the volcano is waking up.  If Mount Fuji were to experience a full-blown major eruption, millions of Japanese could potentially die and the Japanese economy would immediately collapse.

The following is from an article that was recently posted on The Extinction Protocol….

Reports are appearing about unrest and signs of a possible awakening of Mt Fuji volcano in Japan. According to a report which includes an unclear photo of the area, a row of new craters, the largest 50 m in diameter, has appeared on the eastern flank of the volcano at 2200 m elevation. Steam was observed erupting from these vents. The observation joins other signs suggesting a gradual reawakening: A swarm of earthquakes including 4 of magnitude 5 have occurred northeast of Mt Fuji on and after 28 January. An earlier 6.4M quake occurred under the volcano on 15 March 2011. The report also mentions increased activity from a fumarole vent at 1500 m elevation and hot spring areas at the eastern flank observed since 2003. These locations seem to be aligned geographically, and are probably connected. Dr. Masaaki Kimura of Ryukyu University is quoted to admit that there is an increased risk of an eruption on the eastern flank and that the status of the volcano should be closely monitored.

#4 Stunning Rise In Volcanic Activity Around The World

All over the world major volcanoes are showing signs of awakening.  We are especially seeing a rise in volcanic activity along the “Ring of Fire” that encircles the Pacific Ocean.

#5 Global Food Prices Rising Again

According to Reuters, global food prices have risen for three months in a row and are rapidly approaching record levels.  The food riots that we have seen in the developing world during past summers could be even worse this year.

#6 U.S. Government Debt Downgraded Again

Credit rating agency Egan Jones downgraded the credit rating of the United States from AA+ to AA last week.  There was barely a peep about this on the major news networks.

#7 500 Million Dollars To Help The IRS Implement Obamacare

The Obama administration is giving the IRS 500 million extra dollars “outside the normal appropriations process” to help them implement the provisions of Obamacare that they are in charge of overseeing.

#8 Go To Jail If You Offend Someone On The Internet In Arizona?

A proposed law in Arizona will actually make it a very serious crime to annoy or offend someone on the Internet.  So if you live in Arizona, you might want to be very careful about what you say if you leave a comment at the end of this article.

#9 Passport Suspended For Not Paying Taxes?

A bill currently going through the U.S. Congress would allow the federal government to suspend your passport if you have unpaid taxes.  If you are not able to pay the taxes that you owe, you could end up stuck in the United States indefinitely.

#10 Preparations For War In The Persian Gulf

A second U.S. aircraft carrier is on the way to the Persian Gulf.  Tensions with Iran continue to increase, and over the past several months there have been all kinds of signs that military preparations are being made for an eventual conflict.

#11 Mysterious Mass Deaths

Large numbers of birds, fish, dolphins and whales continue to die all over the globe and scientists do not have any explanation for why this is happening.

#12 The Federal Reserve Monetizing U.S. Debt

During 2011, the U.S. Federal Reserve bought approximately 61 percent of all U.S. debt that was issued according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke promised that he would never monetize the debt, but that is exactly what he is attempting to do.

#13 Giant Sinkholes

Enormous sinkholes continue to open up all over the planet.  For example, a mammoth 200 foot wide sinkhole recently opened up near a town in Sweden.

#14 Increase In Global Earthquakes

As I have written about previously, we have seen a substantial increase in the number of major earthquakes around the globe in recent years.  So far in 2012, we have seen four earthquakes of greater than magnitude 7.0, and all four of them have been along the “Ring of Fire”.

#15 Increase In U.S. Earthquakes

Scientists are acknowledging that there has been a huge increase in the number of earthquakes in the center of the United States, but they are blaming this increase on fracking.

#16 Evacuation Drills At U.S. Public Schools

All over the United States, public schools are conducting “evacuation drills” which involve putting children on buses and taking them to alternate locations.  Sometimes the alternate locations are “undisclosed” and parents are only told what the undisclosed locations were after the drills are over.

#17 Strange Sounds In The Sky

All over the planet, people are hearing strange noises in the sky.  People have come up with all sorts of theories and explanations for why they are happening, but so far the mystery has not been solved and reports of these strange sounds continue to pour in from all over the globe.

#18 Crazy Tornado Outbreaks

So far in 2012 the United States has had a very unusual number of tornadoes.  In fact, so far we have seen about twice as many tornadoes as usual. The 2011 tornado season was one of the worst ever, and the 2012 tornado season could end up being even more traumatic.

#19 Obama Signs Disturbing Executive Order

A few weeks ago, Barack Obama signed an executive order that would allow him to take control of all food, all energy, all health resources and all transportation resources.  This was an update to an old executive order, but the Obama administration made a change that would allow Barack Obama to do this even in “non-emergency” situations.  Sadly, the talking heads on television were strangely silent about this.

The world that we live in is becoming increasingly unstable.

The political order is being shaken, the financial world is being shaken, the social fabric of our society is being shaken and even the ground under our feet is being shaken.

Previous generations never had to deal with a world that was changing at blinding speed.  The rate at which things are moving is almost unimaginable, and it just seems to keep accelerating with each passing year.

We are privileged to live during one of the most exciting times in human history, but it is also likely to be one of the most dangerous times in human history.

The talking heads on television are going to keep telling us that everything is going to be okay and that everything will “return to normal” very soon, but that simply is not going to happen.

Our world has reached a critical juncture, and a time of great shaking is at hand.

So what do you think is going to happen next?

Feel free to share what you think by leaving a comment below….”

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Don’t take my title for accusation. Time needs to pass to make the correct assumption, but it appears more people are jumping on the band wagon that the jobs act is a can of worms in the making.

You have to wonder if government and their bipartisan action is a desperate move to revitalize the economy without stimulus and oversight. We know where no oversight has gotten us over the last decade.

Full article

 

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“WASHINGTON — Bank of America is suing itself for foreclosure.

“It’s crazy,” housing data analyst Michael Olenick told HuffPost. “They shouldn’t be suing themselves.”

Over the past two years, the nation’s largest banks and the Obama administration have repeatedly vowed to clean up the foreclosure fraud mess. In February, banks agreed to pay $25 billion and overhaul their foreclosure processes as part of a 50-state investigation into bank wrongdoing, resulting from practices that included robo-signing.

But in Florida’s Palm Beach County alone, Bank of America has sued itself for foreclosure 11 times since late March, according to foreclosure fraud activist Lynn Szymoniak, who forwarded one such foreclosure filing, dated March 29, 2012, to The Huffington Post. (A white-collar crime expert, Szymoniak was recently awarded $18 million for her work helping the government recover $95 million as a result of bank foreclosure problems in North Carolina.)

In the March 29 filing, Bank of America is seeking to foreclose on a condominium and names the condo owner and Bank of America as defendants in the suit. The company is literally seeking damages from itself in order to foreclose on the condo owner.

“We are servicing the first mortgage on behalf of an investor and we own the second mortgage,” Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens told HuffPost. “Naming the second-lien holder in the suit is necessary to eliminate the junior interest,” Bauwens said.

“This just strikes me as classic robo foreclosure,” Professor Alan White of Valparaiso University Law School told HuffPost. White, a predatory lending expert who tracks and analyzes data on loan modifications and foreclosures, said that lawyers for the bank likely performed an electronic title search to see if any other liens on the property existed and simply wrote down the name of whatever bank came up in the search. Lawyers and paralegals who perform these tasks typically fill out dozens of such forms a day, White told HuffPost.

“I’m sure the paralegal who did this did 100 others that day,” he said.

Banks have been caught suing themselves before. In 2009, Dow Jones columnist Al Lewis uncovered a case in which Wells Fargo had sued itself in connection with a foreclosure in Florida’s Hillsborough County. The bank owned both the first and second liens on the property and ended up hiring two separate attorneys to deal with the snafu — one to bring the lawsuit and another to defend itself.

The Bank of America self-suits seems to have emerged from a scenario that investors have complained about for years involving home equity loans. Big banks like Bank of America service mortgages on behalf of other investors. Bank of America processes payments, negotiates with borrowers and operates the foreclosure process but does not actually own the loan. Many properties from the housing bubble had an additional home equity loan, or second lien. Banks could charge higher interest rates on these second liens because they were riskier loans — the second lien is supposed to eat losses before anything happens to the first lien.

When a bank brings a foreclosure case in court, it has to notify whoever owns the second lien that it is taking action. In this case, Bank of America owns the second lien.

But meticulous attorneys would not ordinarily let their clients sue themselves. “It is a little bit mindless on the part of the lawyer,” White said. “They don’t need to sue themselves.”

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For sure we are a long way from seeing the market trade like some pump and dump penny stock; but some will argue with flash crashes and high frequency trading we are nearly there.

This article does not explore this angle but was food for thought on titling the post and wondering what if…

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“It’s one of the biggest mysteries on Wall Street. How can stocks be in their fourth year of a bull market and trading activity be so low?

Getty Images

During March, average daily volume in equity shares was at their lowest level since December 2007, according to new data from Credit Suisse. This is the same month that marked the three-year anniversary of the bull market that caused the Standard & Poor’s 500 to double from its March 2009 credit-crisis low.

Credit Suisse tried to solve the riddle by blaming the growing popularity of options andfutures markets  , a drop in high frequency trading and stock splits.

“There’s no way to sugar-coat it: Volumes are down and trending lower,” wrote Ana Avramovic of Credit Suisse, in a note to clients. “A growing preference for other asset classes may be drawing money away from equities.”

Daily equity volume in March was 6.59 billion shares a day, the lowest since a sub-6 billion volume month in December 2007, according to Credit Suisse. (The firm adjusted December 2011’s low figures to account for the holiday-skewed week.)

Avramovic noted that options and futures volume set a record in 2011, as investors hungry to add risk looked for a place where they could use leverage.

“The options market has been breaking records for nine straight years and the shift has been a growing field that provides protection and leverage,” said Pete Najarian, co-founder of TradeMonster.com, an options and equity brokerage.

 

 

The Credit Suisse analyst also notes that high-frequency trading, which accounts for half of all market activity, has been on the decline since last summer. What’s more, Citigroup[C  32.86    -1.11  (-3.27%)   ] alone accounted for 7 percent of all volume in the second half of 2009 before its 10 for 1 reverse split, according to the report.

But the answer may be simpler than this. After two vicious bear markets in a decade, the average investor simply doesn’t trust this market anymore.

“There is no fresh money going into the markets,” said Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners. “Why should we be surprised the retail investor is not there? We’ve had two huge drawdowns in stocks since 2000, a flash crash two years ago and real incomes are stagnating.”

Stock mutual fund flows are negative on the year despite a double-digit percentage gain for the S&P 500 in 2012. Meanwhile, bond funds of all kinds keep garnering more assets, even with interest rates in the basement.

Some investors blame financial regulationfor the poor volume, saying it has restricted trading activity by the major banks. But others believe the banks — and their hand in causing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression — are ultimately to blame.

“The financial industry has placed itself above the investing public (“muppets“) and will take every advantage it can secure,” said Alan Newman, author of the Crosscurrents financial newsletter. “The public’s confidence has been shattered, possibly beyond repair.”

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Asian boards

Currencies 

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What do you think ?

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“LONDON: Human being are overusing the planet’s resources and will need two Earths by 2030,a new report warns.

According to the Living Planet Report, human demands on natural resources have doubled in under 50 years and are now outstripping what the Earth can provide by more than half; and humanity carries on as it is in use of resources, globally it will need the capacity of two Earths by 2030. The report said that wildlife in tropical countries is also under huge pressure, with populations of species falling by 60% in three decades, the Daily Mail reported on Friday.

And the report, from the WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, said that British people are still consuming far more than the Earth can cope with.

If everyone lived such a lifestyle , humans would need 2.75 planets to survive, it warned.

The study’s authors looked at 8,000 populations of 2,500 species and studied the change in land use and water consumption across the globe.

Britain comes 31st in a list of countries based on their “ecological footprint” — the amount of land and sea each person needs to provide the food, clothes and other products they consume and to absorb the carbon dioxide they emit. The country has fallen down the league table from having the 15th biggest footprint in the last report two years ago, but WWF attributes this to an increase in other countries’ impact rather than a reduction in the UK’s use of resources.

Ireland had the 10th highest ecological footprint, while UAE, Qatar, Denmark, Belgium and the US were the five worst countries for over-consumption of resources . “

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Chartology for the masses…

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Lawyers don’t know where the fuck he is, claiming they’ve “lost contact with Zimmerman” and no longer represents him.

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Alcoa beats by $0.13, beats on revs; reaffirms FY12 global alumina demand +7% (9.32 -0.28)
Reports Q1 (Mar) adj. earnings of $0.10 per share, $0.13 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.03); revenues rose 0.8% year/year to $6.01 bln vs the $5.75 bln consensus. The improvement over 4Q11 results was driven by strong productivity improvements across all businesses, higher realized prices for aluminum, and improved volume and mix. These were offset somewhat by a lower realized alumina price and higher input costs. Alcoa recorded revenue growth in Q1 across global end markets, including industrial products (14%), automotive (13%), packaging (11%), and commercial transportation (11%), compared to fourth quarter 2011. Compared to first quarter 2011, revenues were up in commercial transportation (32%), aerospace (15%), and automotive (7%), while revenues were down in industrial products (14%) and building and construction (5%). Alcoa is raising its 2012 global growth forecast for the aerospace market 3 percentage points (13-14%), and expects global growth in the automotive (3-7%), commercial transportation (1-5%), packaging (2-3%), building and construction (2.5 – 3.5%), and industrial gas turbine (1-2%) markets. Alcoa continues to project a global aluminum supply deficit in 2012 and reaffirmed its forecast that global aluminum demand would grow 7% in 2012, on top of the 10% growth seen in 2011.

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