http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices

http://money.cnn.com/markets/morning_call/










http://www.kitco.com

Energy futures

Currencies/Au/Ag

A reasonably strong start thanks to the miners. All Ords +0.4% with Metals & Mining in the lead, +1.3% followed by Materials +1.2%. There's a sprinkling of reds headed by Healthcare, -1.9%.

BHP and RIO are seeing some serious buying, +1.7% and +1.3% respectively. The golds are quieter after yesterday's run: Newcrest -0.3%, Newmont +4.1% and Lihir +2.1%.

Oils marking time: Woodside +0.4%, Santos +0.2% and Caltex +0.4%.

U.K. Banks Plan to Tighten All Lending This Quarter

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. banks told the Bank of England they plan to make fewer loans to consumers and companies in the first quarter, threatening to deepen the economic slowdown.

Banks curbed secured credit for households ``materially'' and cut debt to companies ``significantly'' in the past three months, the central bank said in a quarterly survey conducted from Nov. 19 to Dec. 12. They plan to pare loans to those borrowers further, the report showed.

-------------

U.K. Wages Rise at Fastest Pace in at Least 13 Years

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. wage negotiators agreed on the biggest salary increases since at least 1994 in the three months through January as inflation fueled higher pay demands, Incomes Data Services said.

The median salary settlement rose to 4 percent from 3.4 percent in the three months through December, the London-based researcher said in an e-mailed statement today. The reading is based on 30 agreements covering 434,889 workers.

An interesting contradiction: these vehicles must be going into the export market?

German December Joblessness Falls to Near 15-Year Low

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Germany's unemployment rate fell to the lowest in almost 15 years in December as manufacturers of cars and industrial equipment hired staff to work off a backlog of orders.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG said Jan. 1 it plans to take on 4,300 employees in Germany, while Audi AG, Volkswagen AG's luxury brand, said yesterday it will hire 800 graduates.

-----------------

German 2007 Car Sales Drop 9% on Sales-Tax Increase

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- German 2007 car sales dropped 9 percent to a 17-year low after a sales-tax increase made vehicles more expensive.

Purchases fell to 3.15 million vehicles in 2007, the Frankfurt-based VDA carmakers' association said in a statement today. December sales plummeted 20 percent to 243,000 vehicles following a year-earlier surge in advance of the tax increase.

Consumers scaled back purchases last year after the German government raised the value-added tax in January 2007 to 19 percent from 16 percent. Stiffer European Union emission rules and rising fuel prices also hampered sales. The car-sales number was the lowest since Germany's unification in 1990, according to the VDA's Web site.

All Ords ended with a meagre +0.2% gain however the action wasn't exactly bearish. The index is lingering near support so I suspect the punters are taking a wait-and-see approach. The mining sector was the main support, +1.1% with many sectors having small losses. IT -1.9% and Healthcare -1.4% were the biggest losers.

BHP turned in a reasonable performance, +1.9% with RIO +0.3%. Golds did ok: Newcrest -0.6%, Newmont +3.9% and Lihir +2.4%. Juniors are finally receiving some interest.

Oils didn't do much of anything: Woodside +0.8%, Santos +0.5% and Caltex -1.1%.

All over the place in Asia: Honkers +2.3%, India +1.2%, Nikkers -4% and Taiwan -1.1%.


On to UK/Europe:








http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=europe

Don't have the link handy anymore, but read a commentary last month about relatively huge volumes of German equipment going to populate the China factory floors.

Not long until The Number.

We'll see if they can still engineer a Friday gold smackdown like the good ole daze ...

Consensus between 50K and 70K.

Actual = 18,000.

Oops.

Recession.

Hindenberg Warning on bonds.

That is, yields are sinking like a lead balloon.

Jobs number disappoints. Just 18,000 instead of estimated 50,000.

Unemployment rate is up to 5%


Wind up Ben!

Turn on those helicopters!

Dollar getting slapped around like a trailer-wife after a friday night beer binge.

There's something going on with that Auto Insurance ad that keeps pushing the message frames to the bottom of the page and centers the text.

Not sure who you would talk to about that Doc, but there's a problem with that particular ad.

Looks like we just might get that gap up I was looking for in QID.....

UUUUGGGLLLYYYY

Yeah been noticing that too...and sometimes it stalls the page load very badly

and SDS, and SKF, and SRS, and ....

QID trading $40 premarket....

All systems go..just need the launch command now...

.........and EWV, ultrashort Japan.

RUT futs just took out December spike low

Crapvision chick just said 10-year yields hit a low going back to June 2005.

A lot of people on various boards were loading up long yesterday...today might be POR

hmmm...HGX not having the same luck

Credit Derivatives Market Headed for Worst Week in Two Months

By Kabir Chibber and Shannon D. Harrington

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Credit derivatives headed for the worst week in almost two months after a U.S. government report showed unemployment jumped to a two-year high, driving concerns the housing slump is dragging the economy into a recession.

Credit-default swaps on the Markit CDX North America Investment Grade Series 8 Index rose 2.75 basis points to 86.5 basis points at 8:47 a.m. in New York, according to Deutsche Bank AG. The index has risen about 9 basis points this week and is poised for its biggest increase since the week of Nov. 9, Bloomberg data show.

Payrolls rose by 18,000 in December, less than economists forecast, and unemployment rose to 5 percent, fueling concern that the economy will enter a recession amid falling U.S. consumer spending, record fuel prices and tumbling home values. The Institute of Supply Management reported the biggest decline in U.S. manufacturing in five years this week.

``Bad news coming out of the U.S. has become almost a habit,'' said Gunnar Stangl, head of index and bond strategy at Dresdner Kleinwort in London. ``It's important to see what second-round effects are there in the real economy.''

The ad isn't being served in Canada, where I am so I don't know who the advertiser is. Can you tell me the name of the advertiser? I can block it from being served by the ad server. I just need to know who it is.

Tanks! Sorry for the problem!

Holy crap!
107-handle on the Japanese yen.

I love dat!

Do yourself a favor--use Firefox and get NoScript. It really works very well.

http://noscript.net/

I'm looking at the list. Is is AAA?

And now that pro-labor John Edwards has edged out Billary in corn country, will the U.S. follow suit?

HindenBURG

Tanks a bunch! I already love FireFox, not familiar with NoScript.

Get up to speed, Doc. I think Standard & Poor's downgraded that list's vintage this morning to BBB....

All of the advertising on this site, including the Google Ads, are javascript based. The ads being served here are harmless other than a minor inconvenience on rare occasion. I would appreciate it if you would not block them since they pay the bills that allow you to enjoy this site every day.

Again, I would request that you not use any add on that blocks the ads being served here.

Ach!

Veruekte Sprache....

Ehmaliganpraesidentsgenommenflugzeugsluftballonungluck

The futures just fell off the cliff with the jobs report

If you have access to WSJ, go look at its front page right now.

There, you'll find these two simultaneous headlines:

Weak Jobs Data May Spur Rate Cuts

Inflation Fears May Trump Rate Cuts

I kid you not - if I could do the screen-picture thing and post it here, I would.

This looks like a point of support or very near one.

Freeware, I think: http://www.filehippo.com/download_winsnap/?2173

qqqq 3 day cycle projection looks 49.45.

dow 5 hr cycle projection 12,865


Can't get a projection on spx yet..

Very strange how USPeso is way down this morning and no rise in gold.


I predict some kind of golden assblast coming later.


... and DOW 36,000,000 too, of course.



EDIT: Interesting that googpic of 'golden assblast' doesn't return anything...

thanks for the hippo link!

Unfortunately, I'm on my iBook right now, so that MS-DOS executable file doesn't play friendly.

DJ Fed Accepts $6 Bln In 6-Day RPs

Type of transaction: 6-Day RPs
Total accepted: $6 Bln
Total submitted: $66.35 Bln

Agency Collateral Operation
Total accepted: $3.998 Bln
Total submitted: $26.7 Bln
Stop-Out Rate: 4.22%
Weighted Average: 4.23%
High-rate submitted: 4.24%
Low-rate submitted: 4.1%

Treasury Collateral Operation
Total accepted: $2.002 Bln
Total submitted: $14.85 Bln
Stop-Out Rate: 3.94%
Weighted Average: 3.99%
High-rate submitted: 4.05%
Low-rate submitted: 3.7%

Mortgage-Backed Collateral Operations
Total accepted: None
Total submitted: $24.8 Bln
Stop-Out Rate: N/A
Weighted Average: N/A
High-rate submitted: 4.28%
Low-rate submitted: 4.19%

(Data was provided by the New York Federal Reserve Bank).

tentative 3 day cycle projection spx 1420

dow 12800

situation fluid. support lines on dow 12920-12870
spx 1428.50-1434 (already pierced)

QQQQ support line around 49.45. then a 40 cent air pocket.

ISM at the top of the hour.

It'll be totally cool if it's a wipeout horrible number.

Yeah.

That'd be cool.

CNBSer fumble manager, great time to pick up bargains before big FED cut and resumption of bull market.
Spooz holding down 15, PPT must be busy.

But first, a smackdown so da boys can shake loose some bargains..

Not surprisingly, they've just announced a second operation. I'd classify it as an emergency measure since I can't recall the last time the did a second op on a Friday after a big add to begin with.

But the Fed doesn't watch the market, right?