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J.P. Morgan, U.S. Reach Terms of $4 Billion in Consumer Relief
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and the Justice Department Monday agreed to a landmark $13 billion settlement that resolves a number of legal headaches for the largest U.S. bank, clearing the way for a public announcement as soon as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the talks.

The final piece holding up the deal, terms of a $4 billion payment to help distressed homeowners, was completed Monday, said people close to the talks READ MORE....    

Brazil Preparing for World Cup and Olympics, Still Isn’t Ready for Investors

Two years ago it all seemed to be coming together for Brazil. Preparations for the 2014 World Cup were well underway and would be quickly followed by the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The soaring price of commodities were funding an unprecedented infrastructure spend that would make Brazil the the shining star of South America.

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Smoggy Beijing sees lung cancer cases soar

The number of lung cancer cases in the Chinese capital Beijing has soared over the last decade.

According to figures published by the state-run Xinhua news agency, they have increased by more than 50%.

Beijing health officials say smoking is still the number one cause of lung cancer, but they admit air pollution is also a factor.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently estimated that polluted air kills millions of people every year.

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Can we finally stop worrying about Europe?

THE squiggles on traders’ screens showing changes in the prices of government bonds are the closest thing that financial markets have to ECG machines for economies. By this diagnostic measure the invalids in Europe’s medical ward are making a remarkable recovery.

On January 10th the interest rate on Spanish ten-year government bonds fell below 5% for the first time in almost a year. Even though rates then ticked up a tad, the cost of new government borrowing is now about 2.5 percentage points lower than it was when worries over a break-up of the euro area peaked in July 2012 (see left-hand chart). The Italian patient is doing well too. The rate on ten-year Italian debt is approaching 4%, which is also close to 2.5 percentage points off the highs last year.

Other measures show improvement as well. Big banks in Italy and Spain are managing to sell long-term bonds. European banks also seem likely to reduce their dependence on the lifeline extended by the European Central Bank (ECB) through its long-term refinancing operations. Huw van Steenis, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, reckons that banks (mainly those in the core of Europe) may repay €100 billion-200 billion ($133 billion-266 billion) of the €1 trillion in cash they borrowed from the central bank in 2011 and 2012. Mario Draghi, the president of the ECB, says that a “positive contagion” is sweeping through Europe. The idea has some merit, but is the region really on the mend?

Read More at The Economist

A bail-out by any other name

CALL it a silent bail-out. After several failed attempts, the euro zone's finance ministers finally agreed late on November 26th partly to reschedule Greece's debt, and offer several other measures to alleviate the country’s financial burden. Taken together, this action should cut Greece's debt by up to 20 percentage points of GDP by 2020—with the promise of more to come if Greece keeps to its adjustment programme.

The promise of relief—and the disbursement of a long-delayed tranche of aid worth €34.4 billion next month, subject to approval in national parliaments—does not come a moment too soon for Greece, whose economy has been in free-fall for five years. The country’s crisis has seen many false dawns, and there are several open questions even about the latest plan. But the hope is that it will help restore a degree of confidence in Greece's future and make the euro zone look less fragile. Yannis Stournaras, the Greek finance minister, said the agreement’s assumptions were so pessimistic that Greece could surprise on the upside. He even spoke of his hope of tapping the markets within the next couple of years.

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France's rating downgrade a warning for banks

French banks were reminded of risks to their own growth and credit ratings when Moody's stripped France of its triple-A badge because of an uncertain fiscal and economic outlook.

"It is likely that Moody's will cut its outlook on SocGen and Credit Agricole in coming weeks," said Yannick Naud, fund manager at Glendevon King Asset Management.

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The time-bomb at the heart of Europe

THE threat of the euro’s collapse has abated for the moment, but putting the single currency right will involve years of pain. The pressure for reform and budget cuts is fiercest in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, which all saw mass strikes and clashes with police this week. But ahead looms a bigger problem that could dwarf any of these: France.

The country has always been at the heart of the euro, as of the European Union. President François Mitterrand argued for the single currency because he hoped to bolster French influence in an EU that would otherwise fall under the sway of a unified Germany. France has gained from the euro: it is borrowing at record low rates and has avoided the troubles of the Mediterranean. Yet even before May, when François Hollande became the country’s first Socialist president since Mitterrand, France had ceded leadership in the euro crisis to Germany. And now its economy looks increasingly vulnerable as well.

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European workers stage austerity protests

Workers across the European Union are staging a series of protests and strikes against rising unemployment and austerity measures.

General strikes in Spain and Portugal have halted transport, businesses and schools. Police and protesters have clashed in Madrid.

Smaller strikes were reported in Greece, Italy and Belgium, and rallies were planned in other countries.

Hundreds of flights to and from striking nations have been cancelled.

Airlines are recommending that passengers check schedules before setting out to airports.

British Airways and Easyjet were among the UK carriers forced to cancel some of their services.

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Is China Getting Desperate to Prop Up Their Economy?

China looks like it wants to get ahead of any possible economic slowdown, catapulting off of strong export numbers and granting a record foreign investment quota of $2.75 billion in October.

China’s Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor system curates all foreign investment in the country. Prior to 2002, the country’s control on capital prevented investors to trade on China’s exchanges. The introduction of the QFII system allowed qualified investors to trade on Chinese exchanges within a certain quota. The quotas granted for the last few years have been modest, usually coming in at under a billion dollars in any given quarter

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G20 economic growth slows in 2012

The G20 group of leading world economies has reported slower growth in the three months ending in June.

National output as measured by GDP grew at an annual rate of 3% in the second quarter compared with 3.2% in the first quarter, official data showed.

But, economic health varied with China's output growing 7.6% and Italy's shrinking 2.6% due to recession.

Taking global population growth into account, G20 output is effectively stagnating.

Read More at BBC

Soros calls for Germany to 'lead or leave euro'

International financier George Soros has called for Germany to "lead or leave the euro" days before a crucial ruling on the eurozone's bailout fund by Germany's constitutional court.

Mr Soros argued that the eurozone should target 5% economic growth.

That would require the bloc to abandon German-backed austerity measures and accept higher inflation, he says.

He also backed a new European Fiscal Authority financed by VAT receipts to oversee eurozone government finances.

In an article published in Monday's New York Review of Books, Mr Soros said that Germany should become a more "benevolent" leading country or exit the single currency: "Either alternative would be better than to persist on the current course."

Read More at BBC

Europe’s tired engine

After a promising May and June, Steffen Knoop has seen his sales dip by 30%. His small Hamburg-based company, Wascut, sells cooling and cleaning oils for big machines, including those that make cars. “I have a pretty good window on the economy,” he says. Mr Knoop wonders whether the dip is caused by people taking extra long summer holidays or something more serious. Others with a broader and more long-term view of the economic landscape are asking the same question.

Hopes are pinned on Germany as the locomotive that will keep chugging even as large parts of the euro zone go into recession (see chart). As long as Europe’s biggest economy keeps growing, the argument goes, it can gradually pull others out of the mire. Figures released on August 14th duly showed that German GDP grew in the second quarter on the previous one, but only by 0.3%. That was better than in France (no growth at all), Spain (minus 0.4%) and Italy (minus 0.7%). Given its current weakness, can Germany continue to pull its neighbours along?

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Shadow Banks on Trial as China’s Rich Sister Faces Death

When a Chinese court sentenced 28- year-old Wu Ying, known as “Rich Sister,” to death for taking $55.7 million from investors without paying them back, it sparked an unexpected firestorm that has drawn in China’s top leadership.

Her crime involved a common, illegal practice in China: raising money from the public with promises to pay back high interest rates. Known as shadow banking, these underground lending and investing networks are estimated to total $1.3 trillion, according to Ren Xianfang, an economist with IHS Global Insight Ltd. (IHS) in Beijing. That’s the size of the 2011 U.S. government deficit.

Read More at Bloomberg

Spanish Bonds Fall Even as Rajoy Unveils More Budget Cuts

Spain’s efforts to calm investors with 10 billion euros ($13 billion) of budget cuts in education and health failed to stem concerns the nation may be the fourth euro member to need a bailout.

The yield on Spain’s 10-year benchmark bond surged 20 basis points to 5.95 percent today as Economy Minister Luis de Guindos declined to rule out a rescue for Spain and Bank of Spain Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said the nation’s lenders may need additional capital if the economy weakens more than expected.

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy during a plenary session at the Spanish Parliament to approve the new conservative government's first batch of austerity measures, in Madrid.

Read More at Bloomberg

Greece Faces Bond-Swap Holdouts

ATHENS—The overall participation rate in an unprecedented Greek debt-restructuring deal has exceeded Greece's expectations, a senior finance ministry official said Monday, despite some holders of Greek foreign-law bonds still refusing to take part in the offer.

The official said 97% of the bonds involved in Greece's debt restructuring agreement, which cleared the way for its €130 billion ($173 billion) bailout, have been tendered in the swap, exceeding the 95% target the country was aiming for under the plan.

"We want to achieve a maximum participation from the remaining €6.4 billion still outstanding," the official said.

Read More at The Wall Street Journal

Construction Spending in U.S. Unexpectedly Drops

Construction spending in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in February, reflecting broad-based declines that indicate the building industry will take time to stabilize.

The 1.1 percent decrease, the biggest in seven months, followed a revised 0.8 percent retreat in January that was larger than previously estimated, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The median estimate of 45 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a 0.6 percent increase.

Read More at Bloomberg Businessweek

Stock Trading Is About to Get 5.2 Milliseconds Faster

In April the Canadian research ship Coriolis II will set out from Halifax to survey parts of the continental shelf stretching 1,000 miles off the east coast of Nova Scotia. The ship has been hired by Hibernia Atlantic, a Summit (N.J.)-based company that operates undersea telecom cables, to map out a new $300 million transatlantic fiber-optic line called Project Express. The cable will stretch 3,000 miles beneath the North Atlantic, connecting financial markets in London and New York at record transmission speeds. A small group of U.S. and European high-speed trading firms will pay steep fees to use the cable.

When it opens in 2013, Project Express will be the fastest cable across the Atlantic, reducing the time it takes data to travel round-trip between New York and London to 59.6 milliseconds from the current top speed of 64.8 milliseconds, according to Hibernia Atlantic. Those five milliseconds might not seem like a big deal, but to the handful of electronic trading firms that will have exclusive access to the cable, it will be a huge advantage. “That extra five milliseconds could be worth millions every time they hit the button,” says Joseph Hilt, senior vice president of financial services at Hibernia Atlantic.

Read More at Businessweek

Greece's Fringe Parties Surge Amid Bailout Ire

ATHENS—Weeks after agreeing to an agonizing bailout deal with Europe, Greece is splintering politically ahead of national elections, raising the risk that it won't be able to make the economic sacrifices still needed to keep it in the euro.

The election, not yet scheduled but expected in April or May, is shaping up as a public revolt against Greece's political establishment, which has backed the austerity policies that are the price of financial life support from Europe and the International Monetary Fund. Mainstream politicians are increasingly painted as leading Greece into a debt trap, then impoverishing it in trying to escape.

Weeks after agreeing to an agonizing bailout deal with Europe, Greece is splintering politically ahead of national elections. Dow Jones's Costas Paris has the details. Photo: Reuters

As a result, Greece's major parties, which have promised Europe they will enact yet another round of deep public-spending cuts by summer, are struggling for support.

Read More at The WSJ