Names to consider: $DDD, $SSYS, $CIMT, $PRCP, & $ONVO

“(MoneyWatch) As technology theorist Ray Kurzweil pointed out in “The Age of Spiritual Machines,” the pace of innovation has been accelerating for centuries. A graph of such technological change looks a lot like the curve for Moore’s Law, the tech industry dictum that processor speeds double every 18 months.

Innovation is accelerating, and when the next great transformative change comes odds are that it will involve 3D printing.

3D printers aren’t exactly new;  indeed, they’ve been around for decades. But over the last few years, these printers have started to drop precipitously in price and have become generally more accessible and easy to use. Right now, you can buy any number of 3D printers for as little as $1,000, or what a typical laser printer cost 15 years ago. The difference, of course, is that while laser printer print ink on paper, 3D printer create real 3D objects on your desktop while you wait.

The 2013 Consumer Electronics Show was something of a coming out party for 3D printing. There were many 3D printers on display, many challenging established limitations. Various vendors showed off models that purported to be the cheapest or to print the largest objects within a consumer-friendly price range.

And the industry is evolving quickly. A simple printer like the MakerBot Replicator, which  retails for $1,700, churns out simple objects in a single color, while the Replicator 2X can print objects in two colors for $2,800.

• Woman gets world’s first 3D printed jaw transplant
• MakerBot pulls 3D printable gun parts from Thingiverse
• Pirate Bay says physical 3D objects future of downloads

Creating replacement household items like replacement doorknobs and shower curtain rings is an obvious application for 3D printers, but there’s at least one clear limitation: Most people can’t design things like that themselves….”

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“The U.S. economic recovery is entering the home strait, though unemployment is still very high and may only come down gradually, outgoing U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.

“I think in the recovery, if you do basketball, we’re in the early part of the fourth quarter,” Geithner said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

The United States was further advanced than other countries in balancing debt against income and cutting leverage risk in the financial system, and “we are through the big adjustment in housing,” he said….”

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NYSE

NASDAQ

AMEX

In Play ,

On the Wires 

“The “awakening dragon” that is the growing Chinese economy will help boost oil demand in 2013, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday as it raised its 2013 demand forecast.

According to the IEA, global oil consumption will rise to 90.8 million barrels per day (bpd), a 240,000 barrels per day increase over its previous estimate.

Overall, 2013 consumption will increase 1 percent on 2012. The organization cited higher winter demand in the fourth quarter of 2012 and heightened expectations for growth in China, the world’s second largest energy consumer, for hiking estimates.

(Read More: Oil Market Going Through ‘Violent’ Structural Change: IEA)

Economic data from China on Friday, showed a pick-up, with growth accelerating to 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter, from a year ago.

After warning in December of “violent structural changes” as the shift in oil demand moves from west to east, the IEA’s latest report likens the global market to a “crouching tiger, hidden dragon,” with increased demand from China and decreased supplies from Saudi Arabia.

But the IEA said the global market has “nothing to worry about” from the dip in Saudi Arabian supplies….”

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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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“Citi’s resident technical analyst, Tom Fitzpatrick, is known for his bearish calls and his favorable outlook for gold.

Fitzpatrick was just on CNBC this afternoon, and he laid out an extremely bearish thesis on the stock market.

The current market rally reminds the Citi analyst of the final rallies into the market tops of both 2000 and 2007 – and he sees stocks entering a bear market sometime soon.

Fitzpatrick told CNBC:

I think in the short term, we still a little bit of legs here. If you look at the S&P 500 – we’ve just moved to this new high above 1475 – it’s actually very similar to the way we traded into the highs in 2007 and 2000.

So, I wouldn’t be surprised that there is a little bit of legs here – maybe even up toward 1495 – but what there isn’t is momentum. Most of the momentum came in the first move up from last year, and we’re seeing a loss of momentum here similar to what we saw there.

Also, we’re seeing in the big picture…”

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[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRGJDKTcsdw 450 300]

Sounds a bit far fetched for me….given i love a good conspiracy theory. There is much more to this story. Developing!.

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Serious questions need answers! Z.H. asks:

How Many Central Banks

Does It Take To Generate 1% GDP Growth In 5 Years?

”

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“As we forge ahead into the year 2013, I wanted to post an article going over the complete yearly forecast path, as suggested by the various time cycles that I track – and also with other indicators such as seasonal patterns, the Bradley indicator, and also the post-election ‘presidential cycle’ pattern in stocks.

With the above said and noted, the projected path for 2013 looks somewhat similar to that seen in 2012, though with a larger percentage correction being expected in the second-half of the year – primarily due to the position of the larger 180-day, 360-day (18-month) and four-year cycles. In- between, there should the normal up-and-down gyrations along the way, ideally with a peak in here in January ideally giving way to a low in February, prior to returning to strength again into late-Spring or early-Summer, setting up for that important top with the 360-day wave….”

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“Community banks are not only a major source of credit, but also a stable one for businesses. During the recent financial crisis and its aftermath, these smaller, traditional lenders provided credit to many firms, especially small businesses, when they needed it most.

Financial stability is key to economic performance—a proposition made starkly clear when banks became a source of trouble during the recession. Before the downturn’s start in December 2007, U.S. banks stoked an epic real estate boom with lax lending, setting the stage for a severe financial crisis. Once the worst was over, these institutions inhibited a recovery by tightening credit standards and limiting loans. Like a broken thermostat, banks and the financial system helped overheat the economy and then helped overcool it.

Some types of banks destabilized the credit cycle and economy more than others. The biggest banks, their focus diverted from traditional balance-sheet activities and toward capital markets and short-term gains, incurred spikes in loan defaults and exhibited significant cyclical declines in business loan volume.

Chart 1 Community Banks Focus on Small Business Loans

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Chart 2 Community Banks Hold Less Than One-Fifth of Industrywide Banking Assets but More than Half of Industrywide Small Business Loans

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Chart 3 Business Loan Volume

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Chart 4 Small Business Loan Volume

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Meanwhile, community banks concentrated on traditional banking, taking deposits and extending loans, relying on long-term relationships and time-tested judgment. These smaller banks not only demonstrated relative strength in business loan quality, but also maintained business loan volume to a much greater degree, providing credit to many small businesses when they needed it most. Such lending is vital to the economy.

Community banks are organizations with assets of $10 billion or less. The smallest community banks are those with assets below $1 billion.

Their activities are compared with the actions of two classes of larger financial institutions—those in the over $10 billion to $250 billion range and others with assets over $250 billion.

Business Lending Focus…”

Full report

A larger draw then expected…..

El-Erian and his crystal ball 

“Warnings that the world is headed for “peak oil” – when oil supplies decline after reaching the highest rates of extraction – appear “increasingly groundless,” BP’s chief executive said on Wednesday.

Bob Dudley’s remarks came as the company published a study predicting oil production will increase substantially, and that unconventional and high-carbon oil will make up all of the increase in global oil supply to the end of this decade, with the explosive growth of shale oil in the US behind much of the growth.

As a result, the oil and gas company forecasts that carbon dioxide emissions will rise by more than a quarter by 2030 – a disaster, according to scientists, because if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change then studies suggest emissions must peak in the next three years or so.

So-called unconventional oil – shale oil, tar sands and biofuels – are the most controversial forms of the fuel, because they are much more carbon-intensive than conventional oilfields. They require large amounts of energy and water, and have been associated with serious environmental damages.

While some new conventional oilfields are likely to come on stream before 2020, they will be balanced out by those being depleted.

BP predicts that by 2030, the US will be self-sufficient in energy, with only 1% coming from imports, the company’s analysts predict. That would be a remarkable turnaround for a country that as recently as 2005, before the shale gas boom, was one of the biggest global oil importers. ”

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“Jim Cramer has picked a winner in the Herbalife cage match.

As you will recall, two hedge fund giants–Bill Ackman and Dan Loeb–have taken the opposite sides of this trade.

Bill Ackman argues that Herbalife is an illegal pyramid scheme and has a price target of $0.

Dan Loeb dismisses Ackman’s claim as “preposterous” and has bought up 8% of the company.

Assuming one of these two doesn’t chicken out, someone is going to win big…and the other is going to lose big.

And Jim Cramer, it appears, thinks the winner is going to be Dan Loeb:

”

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NYSE

NASDAQ

AMEX

In Play ,

On the Wires 

“Federal Reserve officials are voicing increased concern that record-low interest rates are overheating markets for assets from farmland to junk bonds, which could heighten risks when they reverse their unprecedented bond purchases.

Investors have been snapping up riskier assets since the Fed boosted its bond buying to reduce long-term borrowing costs after cutting its overnight rate target close to zero in December 2008. Enthusiasm for speculative-grade bonds is at unprecedented levels, driving a Credit Suisseindex that tracks the yield on more than 1,500 issues to a record-low 5.9 percent last week….”

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“SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Bank of America Corp. on Thursday extends the run of big banks reporting earnings this week. Its biggest challenge will be how it stages a turnaround as it seeks to recover from wounds inflicted by its mortgage business.

Hopes are high for the sector as B. of A. BAC +1.99%  follows stellar earnings from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS +4.06%  and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM +1.01% . J.P. Morgan’s results topped Wall Street earnings estimates even as it continues to deal with its “London Whale” controversy. Read more on financial stocks on Wednesday.

Of 21 analysts surveyed by FactSet, Bank of America is expected to report earnings of 2 cents a share on revenue of $21.19 billion. With that in mind, here are five things to consider before Bank of America reports earnings Thursday morning….”

5 things to know