“It’s pretty incredible how well data
from Macau correlates with the broader Chinese economy. It really is a lock-stop, real-time indicator.
Anyway, from Morgan Stanley, here’s year-over-year revenue growth of Macau VIPs.
China is back. Enough said.”
 Morgan Stanley |
“WASHINGTON (AP) — The aftermath of the housing bust forced many homebuilders to dramatically scale back construction on new homes to avoid the risk of ending up saddled with a trove of newly built, yet unsold properties.
But an improving housing market has homebuilders feeling more confident about sales, and that’s likely to kick the pace of new construction into a higher gear this year.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that builders broke ground on houses and apartments last month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 954,000. That’s 12.1 percent higher than November’s annual rate. And it is nearly double the recession low reached in April 2009.
Construction increased last month for both single-family homes and apartments. And the pace in which builders requested permits to start more homes ticked up to a 4½ year high.
For the year, builders started work on 780,000 homes. That’s still roughly half of the annual number of starts consistent with healthier markets. But it is an increase of 28.1 percent from 2011. And it is the most since 2008 — shortly after the housing market began to collapse in late 2006 and 2007.
Steady hiring, record-low mortgage rates and a tight supply of new and previously occupied homes available for sale have helped boost sales and prices in most markets. That has persuaded builders to start more homes, which adds to economic growth and hiring.
David Williams, a homebuilding analyst with Williams Financial Group, says builders are very closely tied to what’s happening in the housing market and they’re going to build homes to meet demand, but not go overboard….”
Comments »“General Electric Co. (GE) reported higher profit than analysts estimated as earnings rose at all of its industrial businesses for a second straight quarter.
Adjusted income from continuing operations gained 13 percent to $4.67 billion, or 44 cents a share, in the last three months of 2012, GE said today in a statement. That topped an averageprojection of 43 cents a share in a Bloomberg survey of 13 analysts. Sales climbed 4 percent to $39.3 billion.
GE overcame a year-end slump that deepened as President Barack Obama and his opponents in Congress negotiated to avoid $600 billion of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes that had been scheduled to begin taking effect on Jan. 1. Orders for industrial equipment from grew 2 percent in the fourth quarter, pushing its backlog to a record $210 billion.
“You see the slow but steady transition to industrial leadership to drive GE’s growth,” said Nick Heymann, an analyst at William Blair & Co. in New York, in an interview on Bloomberg TV with Tom Keene. “Order growth, while it slowed, didn’t stall and you continue to see better pricing.”
GE gained 3.4 percent to $22.03 at 7:38 a.m. in pre-market New York trading. The stock climbed 17.2 percent last year compared with a 13.4 percent gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index….”
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“Morgan Stanley (MS), the top global equity underwriter last year, reported earnings that beat analysts’ estimates as revenue from the retail brokerage climbed.
Fourth-quarter profit was $507 million, or 25 cents a share, compared with a loss of $250 million, or 15 cents, a year earlier, the New York-based company said today in a statement. Excluding accounting charges tied to the firm’s own debt, profit was 45 cents a share, beating the 27-cent average estimate of 24 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg….”
Comments »“Oil headed for the longest weekly rising streak in 14 months in New York after economic growth accelerated in China, the world’s second-biggest crude consumer.
West Texas Intermediate traded close to a four-month high after gaining the most in two weeks yesterday. The International Energy Agency raised forecasts for global oil demand this year as demand rises in China and said the world oil market is “tighter” than previously estimated. China’s gross domestic product rose 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, compared with 7.4 percent in the previous period, the National Bureau of Statistics said today in Beijing.
“I don’t think there will be a hard landing in China,” said Michael Poulsen, an analyst at Global Risk Management Ltd. in Middelfart, Denmark.
Crude for February delivery was at $95.36 a barrel, down 13 cents, in electronic trading on theNew York Mercantile Exchange at 12:57 p.m. London time. The contract advanced 1.3 percent to $95.49 yesterday. That was biggest gain since Jan. 2 and the highest close since Sept. 17. Prices gained 1.9 percent this week for a sixth straight advance, the longest run of gains since November 2011.
Brent for March settlement slipped 32 cents to $110.78 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark contract was at a premium of $14.99 to WTI futures for the same month. The gap was $15.16 yesterday, the narrowest closing level since July 24….”
Comments »“The euro fell from near an 11-month high against the dollar after reports showed Italian industrial orders dropped and Spanish bad loans increased, adding to sign the region’s economy will struggle to expand this year.
Europe’s shared currency slipped from the highest in 20 month against the yen amid speculation its 4.7 percent gain this year has been too rapid. The Swiss franc declined to the least since May 2011 against the euro after a trade union called on the nation’s central bank to change its cap on the currency. South Africa’s rand dropped on concern labor protests will curb exports. The pound slid for a sixth day against the dollar as retail sales unexpectedly fell.
“The euro is giving back some of its gains,” said Lutz Karpowitz, a senior foreign-exchange strategist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “It went too high, too quickly. The economy is still very weak. We don’t expect the euro strength to remain.”
The euro declined 0.2 percent to $1.3356 at 7:39 a.m. New York time after appreciating to $1.3404 on Jan. 14, the strongest since Feb. 29. Europe’s shared currency rose 0.1 percent to 120.35 yen, after reaching 120.71, the most since May 2011. Japan’s currency lost 0.2 percent to 90.03 per dollar.
Europe’s shared currency will fall to $1.29 by the end of March, Commerzbank predicts.
Italian industrial orders fell 0.5 percent in November from a month earlier, a report showed today. The euro-area economy will contract 0.1 percent this year, according to analyst predictions compiled by Bloomberg. The U.S. will expand 2 percent, according to a separate survey.
“Speculation that banks will start repaying European Central Bank loans early prompted futures traders to step up bets that borrowing costs will rise as liquidity is drained from the system.
The implied rate on Euribor futures expiring in December rose as much as 18 basis points over the past two days to 0.54 percent, the highest since July 10, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the biggest jump since the yield started climbing in December, after a 29 basis-point drop in the preceding three months.
Banks can soon start repaying about 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) of cheap loans that the ECB provided under its longer- term refinancing operations to avert a credit crunch. Concern the Frankfurt-based central bank will tighten its collateral rules also helped push indicators of future interbank borrowing costs higher.
“The repayment of the LTRO money has the potential to throw key market trends into reverse,”Christoph Rieger, head of fixed-rate strategy at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, wrote in a note. “Reportedly the ECB is mulling plans to restrict loan collateral. This would add to the pressure on peripheral banks to reduce ECB funding,” though only marginally, he wrote.
The implied rate on three-month euro interbank offered rate futures due in December rose 0.5 basis point today to 0.46 percent at 11:38 a.m. in London. That’s after paring its earlier increase.
“U.K. retail sales unexpectedly fell in December as consumer uncertainty extended into the key Christmas trading season for British stores.
Sales including fuel declined 0.1 percent from November, when they stagnated, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The median forecast of 22 economists in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 0.2 percent increase. Household goods fell the most in almost three years. From a year earlier, total sales rose 0.3 percent.
The data underscores the weakness of Britain’s high streets in a week that saw HMV Group Plc (HMV), the U.K.’s biggest seller of CDs and DVDs, and movie rental chain Blockbuster Entertainment Ltd. enter administration. GfK NOP’s measure ofconsumer confidence fell in December as the economy struggled to recover from a recession. Some of the nation’s largest utilities have raised electricity and gas prices, squeezing households.
“The festive period was fairly lackluster for the high street,” saidVicky Redwood, an economist at Capital Economics in London. “With consumers’ real pay still falling, demand is unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future.”
Excluding December 2010, when cold weather curbed consumer spending, the annual increase in sales last month was the weakest for a December since 1998, the statistics office said.
The pound extended its decline against the dollar after the report. It was trading at $1.5936 as of 11:40 a.m. in London, down 0.4 percent from yesterday….”
Comments »“Australia’s bonds fell, pushing the benchmark 10-year yield up by the most in two weeks, after data showed economic growth in China exceeded economist estimates, supporting export prospects.
The rate on the three-year note also posted its biggest one-day advance in two weeks amid gains in Chinese industrial production and retail sales, boosting bets the Reserve Bank of Australia will keep borrowing costs unchanged when officials meet next month. New Zealand’s currency, known as the kiwi, weakened following a report that showed an unexpected drop in the nation’s consumer prices.
“All signs point to a modest pickup in Chinese growth towards the end of the year,” said Michael Turner, a fixed- income strategist in Sydney at Royal Bank of Canada. “It probably suggests the RBA will be comfortably on hold to February, if not March, which should keep the upward bias to yields in the near-term.”
Australia’s 10-year yield rose 12 basis points, or 0.12 percentage point, to 3.41 percent at 5:01 p.m. in Sydney, the biggest advance since Jan. 2. The rate on three-year securities climbed 10 basis points to 2.81 percent, also the largest increase since Jan. 2.
The Australian dollar fell 0.2 percent to $1.0522 and was little changed at 94.76 yen. Its New Zealand counterpart dropped 0.1 percent to 83.57 U.S. cents and rose 0.1 percent to 75.26 yen.
Gross domestic product in China, Australia’s biggest trading partner and New Zealand’s second-largest export destination, rose 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, according to a report today by the National Bureau of Statistics. That compared with the 7.8 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey and a 7.4 percent gain in the previous period.
Industrial output in December rose a more-than-expected 10.3 percent from the prior year, while retail sales climbed 15.2 percent….”
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“Koichi Hamada, the former Yale professor advising Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on choosing a new central bank chief, signalled that a yen at 110 per dollar would pose a problem for the economy.
“I think 100 yen is a good level for Japan, 110 is too weak but 95 or 100 is no problem,” Hamada said after a speech in Tokyo today, referring to the level of the yen against the dollar. “We need to bring the yen back to a level that works well for Japan’s economy.”
The yen has weakened about 4.5 percent since Abe took office last month, with his administration pushing for more monetary easing and a doubled inflation target at the central bank. The government and Bank of Japan (8301) will issue a joint policy statement at next week’s central bank meeting, Finance Minister Taro Aso said earlier today.
Hamada, who once taught the current BOJ governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, said that the central bank has no choice but to conduct further monetary easing. He also said that the bank was to blame for the failure of Elpida Memory Inc. by not expanding its balance sheet sufficiently, which led to a strong yen. Japanese exporters have been hampered in recent years by strength in the yen, which reached a postwar high in 2011.
The currency was trading at 90.05 yen at 2:54 p.m in Tokyo, after touching a 2 1/2 year low of 90.21 earlier in the day. A range of 95-100 yen per dollar was last sustained in 2009….”
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“The yen reached a 2 1/2-year low against the dollar and headed for its 10th weekly loss after a government adviser said the currency can keep weakening without hurting the economy, while the pound slid for a sixth day after U.K. retail sales declined. Metals rose after China’s growth accelerated and European stocks swung between gains and losses.
Japan’s currency declined 0.1 percent to 90 per dollar at 7:39 a.m. in New York after touching 90.21, the weakest level since June 23, 2010. The pound fell 0.3percent versus the dollar. Lead jumped 1.6 percent, zinc climbed 1.5 percent and a gauge of Chinese stocks jumped to a 17-month high. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index (SXXP) and Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures slipped less than 0.1 percent. Japan’s Topix Index jumped 2.4 percent, capping a 10th straight weekly advance, on prospects the central bank will extend asset purchases…”
Comments »“On January 13, 2013, H.R. 226 was introduced in the House of Representatives by Connecticut Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro. The bill will amend the 1986 IRS code and allow a credit if taxpayers “surrender” their guns to the government.
Cited as the “Support Assault Firearms Elimination and Reduction for our Streets Act,” the proposed legislation represents another effort to convince citizens that they must voluntarily turn in their guns as a civic duty and to do their part to reduce “gun violence” and protect children, as Obama said yesterday.
The bill is yet more evidence that federal and state governments are now pulling out all stops short of door-to-door confiscation in their coordinated effort to disarm the American people.
Strikingly honest language included in the legislation specifies that the bill is part of the government’s “program to reduce the number of privately owned weapons,” in short, a program to disarm the American people.
The bill contains an exhaustive list of so-called “assault weapons” that will garner a $2,000 tax credit, including the much demonized Bushmaster AR-15 allegedly used in the Newtown Sandy Hook massacre.
The bill was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means on January 14, 2013.
The inclusion of the IRS in the government’s attempt to grab guns is especially foreboding considering its effort to act as a Obamacare compliance enforcer. In July, we reported on a revelation made by Texas Republican Rep. Kevin Brady that the tax agency planned to hire up to 16,500 new agents.
American taxpayers must reject such cynical enticements and stand together and support the Second Amendment against all attacks by Obama and Congress.
The latest foray against the Second Amendment and the founding principles of the republic commenced soon after the Sandy Hook incident on December 15 when California Democrat senatorDianne Feinstein exploited the tragedy to call for an attack on America’s “gun culture.”
Comments »“Following Oregon Sheriff Tim Mueller’s lead, three more Sheriffs in parts of Oregon announced Wednesday in letters to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that they would refuse to enforce any federal gun laws that are unconstitutional….”
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Thomas Sadowski, the fired consultant, told the Times Union that he was escorted out of the building when he visited the New York Office of Emergency Management shortly after he filed his report on November 17.
The state hired Sadowski for his extensive experience in emergency procurement management with the federal government. The certified public accountant also did similar work for 10 years at the U.S. Department of Interior’s Inspector General’s office. Sadowski also trained the U.S. Forest Service, Alaska Fire Service, National Interagency Fire Center, Colorado Wildfire Academy, and other government agencies.
“I didn’t believe I did anything to be escorted off the premises,” Sadowski told the Times Union. “I wasn’t trying to get back at anybody or get anybody in trouble.” But Sadowski said he believed he was fired for finding the waste. “I was relieved of my duties because I identified these problems,” he said.
In his report, Sadowski found that the state was buying equipment it didn’t need but had wanted for other purposes, had bought equipment that cannot be tracked, and even lost some equipment bought….”
Comments »“……
“No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.
“Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.”
“This is my eye-witness account.
“It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.
“America is truly is the greatest country in the world.
“Don’t let freedom slip away.
“After America, there is no place to go.”
Comments »[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj2e7lr0xXg 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaDP8YLCKj4&playnext=1&list=PL7F2617DB75653F8E 450 300]
Comments »This article speaks of law enforcement being in violation of Cuomo’s new gun laws and how the PBA and state government are ironing out the kinks to allow the police to have the current magazines that hold 15 bullets. The problem here is that retired law enforcement will be included which in my mind is predjudice against law abiding citizens.
After all a retired officer of the law is a citizen and should be subject to the laws created for all citizens.
Comments »“WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer advocates have complained that U.S. mortgage lenders are getting off easy in a deal to settle charges that they wrongfully foreclosed on many homeowners.
Now it turns out the deal is even sweeter for the lenders than it appears: Taxpayers will subsidize them for the money they’re ponying up.
The Internal Revenue Service regards the lenders’ compensation to homeowners as a cost incurred in the course of doing business. Result: It’s fully tax-deductible.
Critics argue that big banks that were bailed out by taxpayers during the financial crisis are again being favored over the victims of their mortgage abuses.
“The government is abetting the behavior by not preventing the deduction,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. “The taxpayers end up subsidizing the Wall Street banks after the headlines of a big-dollar settlement die down. That’s unfair to taxpayers.”
Under the deal, 12 mortgage lenders will pay more than $9 billion to compensate hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were seized improperly, a result of abuses such as “robo-signing.” That’s when banks automatically approved foreclosures without properly reviewing documents….”
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