Current Account Balance: Prior -$137.3 Bn, Market Expects -$126.8 Bn, Actual -$117.4 Bn

FedEx has already told us recently that things are slowing and cutting estimates was expected. What was not expected was a cut back in estimates for a couple of quarters to come.

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Apple is trading above $700 per share in pre-market trade on news thay sold a record amount of iPhone 5s since their release.

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“Wendell and Margret Brady haven’t paid their mortgage in more than three years, withholding the money amid a foreclosure dispute on the couple’s 11-bedroom house in Morristown, New Jersey.

The Victorian home, built in 1887 and owned by the retired couple for 38 years, is part of the growing backlog of properties facing repossession in the state, which now has the second-highest serious delinquency rate in the U.S. While shrinking nationwide, the pipeline of distressed real estate, or shadow inventory, is also growing in New York, Connecticut, Maine and Pennsylvania because of state laws that slow the foreclosure process. The Bradys heard nothing from their lender from May 2011, until a letter arrived in the mail last week.”

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“LONDON (AP) — Global markets mostly fell Tuesday as investors worried about the global growth outlook and Spain’s apparent delay in accepting a financial aid package.

Spain’s markets have improved in recent weeks on expectations that the government will get some form of rescue loan from the 16 other eurozone countries. But Madrid has not made any formal request yet, likely wary of the policy conditions that would come attached.

The delay pushed the country’s bond yields sharply higher on Monday, suggesting an increase in investor concern about the government’s finances. The yields eased back somewhat on Tuesday after a bond auction was well-received. The sale of 12- and 18-month debt saw strong demand and resulted in lower interest rates than in the previous such auctions.

The auction result helped markets, but tensions remain high — by midmorning in Europe, Spain’s main stock index was still down 1.7 percent.

“Investors appear to be turning nervous,” said Kintai Cheung, analyst at Credit Agricole CIB.”

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“BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – The European Central Bank has room to cut base interest rates below the current 0.75 percent if the economic situation warrants it, policymaker Jozef Makuch said on Tuesday.

“When it comes to lowering of interest rates, there is of course mathematically room for that… Whether the ECB will do so will be assessed at its future meetings,” Makuch told reporters as the Slovak central bank published new forecasts.

“It will be based on the current situation and future (economic) outlook… It makes no sense to speculate whether October, November, December.”

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“European Central Bank Governing Council member Luc Coene said rising bond yields may force Spain into asking for aid and submitting to the ECB’s conditions for granting it.

If “markets see that Spain will not” ask for assistance, “then it will not last long before spreads will rise again, and then Spain will be somewhat forced to come back on its decision and submit to the conditionality program,” Coene said at a panel discussion in London yesterday.”

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“European banks pledged last year to cut more than $1.2 trillion of assets to help them weather the sovereign-debt crisis. Since then they’ve grown only fatter.

Lenders in the euro area increased assets by 7 percent to 34.4 trillion euros ($45 trillion) in the year ended July 31, according to data compiled by the European Central Bank. BNP Paribas SA (BNP), Banco Santander (SAN) SA, and UniCredit (UCG) SpA, the biggest banks in France, Spain and Italy, all expanded their balance sheets in the 12 months through the end of June.”

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After touching nearly a $100 per barrel oil has made a nice reversal as of last Friday’s trade. Oil is off a $1.120 @ $95.60…

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“Stocks (MXWO) fell for a second day and the euro weakened on concern European leaders will struggle to resolve the debt crisis. Spain’s two-year notes stayed lower after a bill auction and commodities dropped.

The MSCI All-Country World Index lost 0.3 percent at 7:35 a.m. in New York, while Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures slid 0.1 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.9 percent amid escalating tensions with Japan, capping its biggest two-day loss since March. The euro depreciated 0.4 percent to $1.3068 and Spain’s two-year yield added four basis points to 3.37 percent. The S&P GSCI gauge of 24 raw materials slipped 0.5 percent, with nickel down 1.6 percent and soybeans falling 1.7 percent. New York oil declined 0.4 percent.”

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World Markets

Currencies

Commodities

USD Libor

Euribor

Yields for Italy, Spain, France,  and Germany …

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUvGQWAxJI8 603 500]

Using official government sources, the National Federation of Independent Business calculates there are more than 4,000 federal rules in the pipeline, and that just the 13 biggest ones would, if imposed in an Obama second term, cost businesses a total of more than $515 billion over four years.

That tally doesn’t include more than 100 still-to-be-written regulations needed to enforce the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, or the mountain of regulations required by ObamaCare. The health law has already resulted in thousands of pages of rules, including 18 pages simply to define what a “full-time employee” is.

Among the most expensive new rules now waiting in the wings:

Smog rules.

Read the rest here.

Doug Short from Advisor Perspectives is out with a thought-provoking new article:

Until the past few months I’ve not routinely reported on monthly manufacturing data, regional or otherwise. However, now that I’m tracking the Big Four economic indicators, which includes Industrial Production, I’m watching these indexes more closely. This morning we got the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The diffusion index for General Business Conditions was not good.

Read the rest and see the charts, here.

The next Treasury secretary will confront problems so daunting that even Alexander Hamilton would have trouble preserving the full faith and credit of the United States.

Sometimes a few facts tell important stories. The American economy now is full of facts that tell stories that you really don’t want, but need, to hear.

Where are we now?

Did you know that annual spending by the federal government now exceeds the 2007 level by about $1 trillion? With a slow economy, revenues are little changed. The result is an unprecedented string of federal budget deficits, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, $1.3 trillion in 2011, and another $1.2 trillion on the way this year. The four-year increase in borrowing amounts to $55,000 per U.S. household.

The amount of debt is one thing. The burden of interest payments is another. The Treasury now has a preponderance of its debt issued in very short-term durations, to take advantage of low short-term interest rates. It must frequently refinance this debt which, when added to the current deficit, means Treasury must raise $4 trillion this year alone. So the debt burden will explode when interest rates go up.

It gets worse. Read the rest here.

Got to see the stills and video to believe it. They were either bold or really into it.

Gapping up

TSLA +6.9%, YPF +5.9%, NOK +2%, CS +1.8%,  TGH +0.6%,  NVS +0.7%,

LNG +1.2%, YNDX +1.3%,  KCG +4.9%, ODP +12.6%, GNOM +11.2%,

IRIS +40.3%,

Gapping down

LDK -6.5%, CLF -2.1%, MT -1.8%, ACI -1.8%, SDRL -1.4%,  AKS -4.6%,

BT -1.8%,  DB -0.6% ,  UA -0.9% , THLD -19.7%, ZNGA -1.6%, BIOF -5.1%,

ANR -2.3%, WLT -1.2%,  TYC -3.1%,

ACN, AKS, NLY, BBVA, BLMN, LNG, CLF, DB, DFS, LM, NFLX, OPEN, PSX, GOLD, TM, TSLA, X, UA, WFC, CMO, CYS, HTS, IVR,

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