General News:
– Personal Consumption Expenditures rose 0.5% versus expectations of 0.7%.
– Consumer spending on services was weak but spending on durables was surprisingly strong.
– Bloomberg is reporting that companies sold $27.3 billion worth of bonds this week, down from $42.8 billion as $3.5 billion worth of deals were cancelled or postponed.
– US equity mutual funds had an inflow of $3 billion last week. Domestic ETFs had an outflow of $8.4 billion.
– International equity mutual funds had an inflow of $1.4 billion and International ETFs had an inflow of $1.2 billion.
Asia/Europe:
Asia:
– People’s Bank of China says that the Chinese economy may grow the fastest in 12 years at a rate of 10.8%.
– China’s National Development and Reform commission is calling for a rate hike as they say inflation is rising within the 3% target at 2.9%.
– China is adjusting the tax on interest income to raise real return.
– The Chinese Ministry of Finance will gradually sell bonds to soak up liquidity and will swap bonds for foreign exchange reserves with the PBOC.
– The Chinese government is raising the minimum wage to offset higher food prices.
– Japanese housing starts fell 10.7% when only -0.9% was expected.
– Japan’s unemployment rate fell to 3.8% while household spending rose.
Europe:
– European Central Bank’s, Noyer, said that French banks must watch risk exposure because of the sub prime fallout in the US.
– German retail sales fell 1.8%, when -0.3% was expected.
– French consumer confidence rose as well as the PPI.
Corporate News:
– The iPhone is here.
– Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) is selling its Bufferin and Excedrin lines to Lion Corp.
– Dr. Pepper and Snapple brands from Cadbury Schweppes (CSG) are out for a private-equity bid.
– Research in Motion (RIMM), Avanir Pharmaceutical (AVN), Apollo Group (APOL) had strong earnings.
– Komag (KOMG) was bought by Western Digital (WDC).
– Ford (F) reported that it is on track and will pay a future dividend.
– Christopher & Banks (CBK), 3Com (COMS) and American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (AHM) guided down today.
– There could be a potential lawsuit on the table for Eli Lilly (LLY) as reported by Bloomberg.