Eurozone inflation above bank target in December

Eurozone inflation above bank target in December
Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said consumer price Inflation jumped 2.2 percent in the year to December, its highest level since October 2008. The increase from November's 1.9 percent rate was markedly ahead of expectations—the consensus in the markets was for a far more modest increase to 2 percent. A more detailed breakdown of the Figures Will be published later this month, but all indications are that higher energy and commodity costs are likely to have been behind the bigger tha...

Inflation in eurozone hits 2.2 percent
In a release, Eurostat said the estimate is unofficial and considered a "flash estimate." Nevertheless, prices are escalating significantly faster than the 1.9 percent annual Inflation rate recorded in November, Eurostat said. The euro zone is made up of 17 Member States with Estonia joining the group this week and not included in the estimate. The flash estimate includes no details or data breakdowns country by country. But the estimate is considered "reliable," Eurostat said, with 21 of the pa...

Boarding the Titanic?
In the square of Tallinn's Tammsaare park, a queue of cold but curious Estonians stretches round in a small circle, waiting to get their turn in front of a giant plastic cow. The "sacred cow", as it's called, is a new work of art apparently designed to symbolise the importance Estonian policymakers attach to membership of the Eurozone. But that is not what is drawing the crowds on this chilly winter's day. For a short while only, this cow will exchange 1 old Estonian kro...

Inflation Jumps in Europe...
PARIS — Higher prices for food, oil and other commodities are starting to stoke Inflation in the euro area, data released Tuesday indicated, while British residents got their first taste of higher taxes on retail goods and services. Annual Inflation in the euro area jumped to 2.2 percent in December from 1.9 percent in November, according to an initial estimate from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. The release was significant because it means that Inflation has breac...

Europe: The Can Kicking Stops Here
However, it’s never a great idea to be too married to a forecast. And there is the potential for a quick Euro pop in the short-term. As you can see, the last two months have formed something of a falling wedge pattern for the Euro. The bottom trendline coincides with the weekly trendline dating back to June ‘10. In contrast, the top trendline (the descending one) has only developed in the last m...

FORTUNE: 2011: Year of the bank run?
The deposit flight compounds the stress on a Financial System whose massive property-lending losses already have driven the government to accept an unpopular Bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Worse yet, it shows that the solutions policymakers slapped together in the fall of 2008 helped in some cases to create even bigger problems -- ones that are now coming due. Unconditionally guaranteeing bank deposits is just such a policy, in a country where loan loss...

Central banks underpin euro and diversify toward "other currencies"
The IMF released its Q3 2010 Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) report. The COFER database provides the breakdown of official Central Bank portfolio holdings by currency across advanced and emerging/developing market economies. The picture is roughly half complete, as 44% of the global reserve positions go unallocated. But the trend in reported FX holdings indicates that central banks are supporting the euro, giving it a lower bound. Furthermore, there has been ...

Asia shares rise, oil near 27-month high on data
By Sanjeev Miglani Singapore | Mon Jan 3, 2011 11:19pm EST Singapore (Reuters) - Asian stocks advanced on Tuesday and oil hovered near a 27-month high, supported by U.S. data suggesting a recovery in the world's biggest economy was gathering momentum. Japanese shares hit a 7- high on Tokyo's first trading session of the New Year, a day after the United States reported Manufacturing grew at its fastest clip in seven months in December. U.S. stocks hit new two-year highs overnight. .N The next ...

The investigators
Though Rep. Darrell Issa will consume much of the Oversight oxygen this Congress, several other incoming chairmen are itching to get their hands on administration chiefs: Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, is promising a vigorous attack on Health Care reform. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), head of Homeland Security, has Civil Rights groups worried with his plan to investigate the “Radicalization” ...

Bond crisis on the way?
With strong Christmas sales and the Stock Market surging to a two-year high, talk is spreading that the long-awaited recovery is at hand. But gleaning the news from Europe and Asia as U.S. cities, states and the Federal Government sink into Debt, it is difficult to believe a worldwide Financial Crisis that hammers governments, banks and bondholders alike can be long averted. Consider. Fitch and Moody's have just downgraded the debt of Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Hungary. In Budapest, the poli...

China's 2010 GDP growth likely 10 percent
BEIJING, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- China expects to register a double digit annual Economic Growth rate in 2010, the country's Central Bank Governor said. Zhou Xiaochuan, in a Speech carried on the Web site of the People's Bank of China, said the country's economy had returned to normal and that the 2010 Economic Growth was estimated to reach about 10 percent, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Zhou said the government would promote a market-oriented reform of the Interest Rate regime in a gradual...

Fed members split over economic outlook
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Policymakers at the Federal Reserve were divided in their outlooks for The Economy, suggesting that the Central Bank is unlikely to change direction any time soon. Some of the policymakers at the Dec. 14 meeting argued that the U.S. economy could start growing more rapidly than expected, bringing unwanted levels of Inflation, according to minutes released Tuesday. Email Print Comment But other members of the Fed's decision-making body worried that the economy is at risk o...

Believe it or not, despite the Eurozone crisis, most countries sovereign credit risk fares better at the end of 2010 vs. 2009
The funny thing is that most people wouldn't believe the premises of the story that in the diourse of the last year, risk has fallen dramaally. Well, it is true considering where we were at the end of 2009 we thought that the world was going to end. When it didn't the market breathed a sigh of relief. Via Moody's: The “man-bites-dog” story of 2010 is that global sovereign credit risk actually generally improved in 2010, even in Europe, where the Sovereign Debt crisis intensified and ...

Contrary To The IMF's Lies, The IEA Finds That Surging Oil Price Actually Will Be A "Threat To The Recovery"
, we now get an FT article with the following title: "Oil price ‘threat to recovery’" based on a quote from the IEA." H.M.M.M.M. we wonder whose opinion is more accurate: an organization run by idiots (who subsequently matriculate into modestly coherent people whose only job is to bash their former employer), whose only purpose is to destroy economies under mountains of Debt (or is that the World Bank?) and to bail out insolvent PIIGS... or the International Energy Agency? We'll have...

FOMC Minutes: Economic improvement "not sufficient" for QE2 changes
by CalculatedRisk on 1/04/2011 02:00:00 PM From the December 14, 2010 FOMC meeting. These are probably the key sentences: While the Economic Outlook was seen as improving, members generally felt that the change in the outlook was not sufficient to warrant any adjustments to the asset-purchase program, and some noted that more time was needed to accumulate information on The Economy before considering any adjustment. Members emphasized that the pace and overall size of the purchase program woul...

Eurozone manufacturing picks up
The Eurozone's Manufacturing sector ended 2010 enjoying strong growth, a survey has indicated. The Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) recorded a level of 57.1 for December, up from an earlier estimate of 56.8 and above November's 55.3. A reading above 50 indicates growth, and eurozone PMI has now stayed above this level for 15 months in a row. The strongest growth was recorded in Germany, but Greece's Manufacturing sector continued to shrink. "Manufacturing output g...

One Of Europe's Darkest Clouds Is Starting To Lifting
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. Today is PMI day, and across the Eurozone, reports indicate that the recovery strengthened in December. Countries including Germany, France, Ireland, and Italy all reported much better than expected Manufacturing numbers. This is key: One of Europe's biggest (and obvious) headwinds is the drag from Austerity. If a robust global recovery and a weak euro can counteract that, and actually propel growth across the region this is huge. If you figur...

Price of copper hits another high
The price of copper has hit yet another record high in London trading, buoyed by strong Manufacturing data from both the US and the Eurozone. Copper to be delivered in three months rallied to $9,728 a tonne, up from Friday's peak of $9,600. It means that copper prices have now hit fresh all-time highs on the London Metal Exchange in five of the past seven trading sessions. Analysts said prices were being lifted by expectations of high demand in 2011. The latest US Manufacturing data came fr...

Forget It If You Were Hoping For An Easy Solution To The Eurozone Crisis In 2011
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. One of the biggest macro threats to the Global Economy in 2011 continues to be instability in the Eurozone. And while the Bailout fund, set to provide a financial backstop for fringe eurozone members, in in place, Germany and France cannot agree on what to do next. Germany wants a fund similar to the one that already exists (the EFSF), according to Der Spiegel, except it would be buying European Sovereign Debt, instead of the ECB. Germany, and...

Fed: Economy Still Weak Despite Improvements
WASHINGTON (By Pedro da Costa and Mark Felsenthal) - Federal Reserve officials in December felt the U.S. Economic Recovery was still weak enough to warrant monetary support despite growing signs of strength, Fed meeting minutes released on Tuesday showed. Wall Street Economists have been busy revising up their forecasts for Economic Growth in recent weeks on the back of signs showing business activity and Consumer Spending picking up steam. But the Fed's policy-setting panel, which at its Dece...

Hugo Chavez Takes Over the Federal Reserve
Time was when countries believed in strong currencies — strength measured not in the Rhetoric of bearded wise men but of bank vaults flush with gold coin. Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez recently announced that he would be devaluing his currency on New Year’s day.  As the Wall Street Journal reported: News of the devaluation came just after the Central Bank said the Venezuelan economy contracted 1.9% in 2010, the second consecutive year of declining output in the oil-rich nation after a...

China c.bank sees 2010 GDP growth at around 10 percent
Beijing | Tue Jan 4, 2011 7:01am EST Beijing (Reuters) - China's Central Bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan said the Chinese Economy likely grew around 10 percent in 2010. In a Speech published on Tuesday on the central bank's website (www.pbc.gov.cn), Zhou said he was not confident that China's economy, the world's second largest, was on a "normal" growth trajectory because of tepid demand in the developed world. Zhou first delivered the Speech on Dec 15. (Reporting by Langi Chiang and Koh Gui Qing; ...

Fed: Economy still weak despite improvements
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials in December felt the U.S. Economic Recovery was still weak enough to warrant monetary support despite growing signs of strength, Fed meeting minutes released on Tuesday showed. Wall Street Economists have been busy revising up their forecasts for Economic Growth in recent weeks on the back of signs showing business activity and Consumer Spending picking up steam. But the Fed's policy-setting panel, which at its December 14 meeting made no changes...

Market Commentary From Russ Certo On Complacency, "Year End Illiquidity In The New Year" And Risk Correlation
This is not hate for Goldman, but elucidation & clarification regarding exactly what business Goldman, et. al. are actually in & how they generate the profits that they do off of their Client's Backs! Many think that Goldman is the best and brightest on the Street. Those guys went to the same schools, studied under the same teachers, graduated and employed using the same strategies trading the same products as everybody else. Get over the mysticism marketing bullshit. View your shopping cart. Al...

The Specter of Minarchy
Since I wasn’t blogging over the holidays, I missed the online dust-up over Chris Beam’s big essay on Libertarianism’s moment in the political sun. What earned Beam the most pushback from Libertarians was probably the way he finished his piece: After briskly surveying libertarian thought, from Ayn Rand to Will Wilkinson, he concluded with an extended argument that “libertarianism ventures down some fascinating paths but usually ends up deep in the wilderness.” That ...