rather than pick out individual stocks to trade, it can often be worthwhile to trade the indices themselves, especially in times of high volatility.

for those so inclined, i attach below charts for FTSE and FTSE 250, though one might equally be tempted to trade Dow or S&P, which is significantly broader in its coverage, or even NASDAQ

for ease of reading, i have attached 1 year and 3 month charts in each instance

Oh well - the description here is incorrect then.

hic!

Who's the Muppet now then? -):

oops..
-- A benchmark gauge of U.S. company credit risk climbed from about a two-month low on concern Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis is harming the region’s banks.

The Markit CDX North America Investment Grade Index of credit-default swaps, which investors use to hedge against losses on corporate debt or to speculate on creditworthiness, added 0.6 basis point to a mid-price of 118.6 basis points at 5:19 p.m. in New York, according to Markit Group Ltd. Credit- default swaps on Eastman Kodak Co. jumped to a record after a report that the imaging company may be preparing for a bankruptcy filing.

The swaps gauge, which typically rises as investor confidence deteriorates and falls as it improves, increased as much as 2.4 basis points after UniCredit SpA’s plan to sell shares stoked speculation that European financial institutions will need to raise more capital. The European Central Bank said overnight deposits from financial institutions rose to an all- time high of 453.2 billion euros ($585.7 billion) yesterday, underscoring banks’ reluctance to lend to each other.

UniCredit’s equity offering “highlighted” a need and ability to access capital for banks in Europe, Joel Levington, managing director of corporate credit at Brookfield Investment Management Inc. in New York, said in a telephone interview today. “Does that come back to haunt any financial institutions in the U.S.?”

The index reached 117.6 basis points yesterday, the lowest level since Oct. 31. Credit swaps pay the buyer face value if a borrower fails to meet its obligations, less the value of the defaulted debt. A basis point equals $1,000 annually on a contract protecting $10 million of debt.

Record Protection

One-year credit-default swaps tied to Kodak’s debt surged to a record, jumping 8.2 percentage points to 66.2 percent upfront, according to CMA, which is owned by CME Group Inc. and compiles prices quoted by dealers in the privately negotiated market. That means the upfront cost on a contract protecting $10 million of Kodak’s debt would be $6.62 million.

Rochester, New York-based Kodak, which lost 88 percent of its market value last year, is preparing for a bankruptcy filing this month or early February should its effort to sell patents fail, the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing people familiar with the matter.

--Editors: John Parry, Shannon Harrington

more of a 69 me thinks :))

Smartphones power Samsung to record Q4 profit

(Reuters) - Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), the world's top maker of memory chips and smartphones, reported a record quarterly profit on Friday, aided by one-off gains and best-ever sales of high-end phones.

Non Farm Payroll 200k v consensus 152k.

http://www.forexfactory.com/calendar.php?do=geteventinfo&day=2012-1-6&c=2

U.S. economy added 200,000 jobs in December, the government reports. The unemployment rate falls slightly to 8.5%.

It must be re-election year!

The feeling is much better than before in the US.

Rolls-Royce car sales hit new record

Rolls-Royce said last year's sales were the highest in the marque's 107-year history, beating the previous record set in 1978 when 3,347 Rolls-Royce models were sold.

Recession, what recession?.. certainly not in China.

Ask the media .... and BBC. They can find any excuse to say that the world is already finished and you are dead already.

Greece debt: Merkel urges deal soon on second bailout

An agreement with Greek bondholders must come soon for Greece to receive a vital second bailout, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel says.

"The second Greek aid package, including this [debt] restructuring, must be in place quickly.

"Otherwise it won't be possible to pay out the next tranche for Greece," she told a news conference.

Greece needs a second EU-IMF rescue to avoid a default on its debts and possible exclusion from the eurozone.

UK recession is not yet inevitable, survey says

The UK economy will remain weak for the foreseeable future, but recession is not inevitable, according to the latest quarterly survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC).

5,700 +/- ?

5,700 +/- ?...Yep no problem at all, I guessed 5749 for this month.. so it must be true

greece...............

Published: Tuesday, 10 Jan 2012 | 10:52 AM ET Text Size By: Michelle Caruso-Cabrera

As negotiators arrive back in Athens today, Greece enters a pivotal period in which it must finish a crucial renegotiation of its more than $200 billion of debt.

Thus far, the plan is to offer bondholders 15 cents in new cash and 35 cents in new debt for every 100 cents of Greek debt they hold. According to several people familiar with the situation, the maturity on the new debt is likely to be 30 years, but the interest rate is yet to be decided and is the most contentious part of the deal.


The cut to the net present value (NPV) of the debt, a metric that is important to banks and bond investors, will be greater than 50 percent. The NPV of a bond is determined by a number of factors, including maturity, interest rate, and the bondholder’s belief in Greece’s future ability to actually pay it back.

The new bonds are expected to be under U.K. legal jurisdiction rather than Greek jurisdiction. Bondholders prefer U.K. jurisdiction because it prevents Greece from retroactively changing the terms of the debt. (The Greek Parliament can’t change U.K. laws). Also expected to be part of the offer, a structure that puts the new bonds on par with the European Financial Stability Fund .

Greece has a principal repayment of more than $14 billion due in mid-March and it doesn't have the money. In fact, the country remains cash-flow negative each week. The debt negotiation must get done in order to first reduce the size of that payment in March, and second to get the next tranche of bailout money from their European partners.

If those things don’t fall into place, a default is highly likely. The only other remedy would be a last-minute emergency injection of cash. Where could that come from? Perhaps other European countries, but that would be a tremendous political hurdle to climb.




Michelle Caruso-Cabrera
CNBC Senior International Correspondent
Working backwards from the mid-March date, the debt renegotiation needs to get done by the end of January simply for logistical reasons; making sure the offer reaches bondholders and they have in turn enough time to tender their bonds. That is, if they plan to. Many do not.

Although European leaders Angela Merkel of Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy of France have demanded this deal be “voluntary” (i.e. that it doesn’t generate a credit event triggering credit-default swaps ), there is still a risk that is exactly what will happen. Short-term bondholders, especially if they have bought credit default swaps (CDS) or other types of insurance, have no incentive to hand in their bonds. Greece must pay them 100 cents on the dollar, and if Greece doesn’t pay, its insurance pays off. Investors are made whole either way.

One way to force bondholders to tender their existing debt is to impose a “collective action clause” retroactively. That means Greece could simply change the terms of the old debt, and decide that if a certain percentage of bondholders, say 75 percent to 90 percent, agree to tender, then the deal is imposed on every bondholder.



However, this, too, would trigger a credit event because changing the terms of a bond is understood to be a triggering event under the terms of CDS contracts. European leaders are concerned a credit event could trigger a Lehman-like contagion in the euro zone.

Yet another option is for Greece to change its laws at the parliamentary level, rather than changing the terms of the old debt. Passing that law in and of itself is not a credit-triggering event. But what remains uncertain to market participants is this: If enough bondholders still don’t tender their bonds, and then Greece imposes the Collective Action Clause, is that a CDS triggering event? That will be decided by a committee from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, and some market participants say it is impossible to predict what a committee will do, especially when there is so much political pressure from European leaders to avoid it.

disaster if this happens - cameron must tell them to shove the transaction tax - it has already been tried and failed very badly!!!

German CDU sees transaction tax with or without allies, UK


German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party will push for a financial transaction tax in Europe even though opponents of the levy include her junior coalition partners, a senior lawmaker from her Christian Democrats (CDU) said on Tuesday.

"It will happen," Michael Meister, the conservatives' deputy leader in parliament, said a day after Merkel acknowledged resistance in her coalition to the "Tobin tax" plan being pushed aggressively by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Merkel favours such a tax with or without support from all 27 members of the EU. Among the 10 EU countries outside the euro zone, Britain and Sweden are against the tax, fearing it would harm their financial sectors. This concern is shared by some euro zone countries that also rely on financial services, such as Ireland.

But Merkel was more cautious than Sarkozy on the timing, saying after the two major EU leaders met on Monday that finance ministers would finish a report by March at the latest. She acknowledged disagreement in her government, where the Free Democrats (FDP) object to such a tax being introduced unless it is adopted in all EU states.

"I doubt the FDP's opposition will last for ever," Meister told Reuters, rejecting the argument of the FDP that it was a matter of economic principle or "Ordnungspolitik" reflecting its commitment to lower taxes.

"If that was the case, the FDP could not back an EU-wide financial transaction tax either," said Meister, who stressed that discussions within the coalition had to be kept "friendly".

That was not how the media depicted it: "Merkel Ignores FDP's Qualms," read the front page of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The FDP, whose support has shrunk from a record 14.6 percent in 2009's election to 2 percent in recent polls, faces constant challenges to government policy on Europe from a small band of eurosceptics, who would be further inflamed by such a move.

"I insist that such a tax must apply to all EU countries, not just euro members," said FDP leader Philipp Roesler, economy minister in Merkel's cabinet.

However an FDP leader from Schleswig-Holstein, Wolfgang Kubicki, broke ranks to speak out in favour of introducing the tax at euro zone level, saying this could make it easier for Britain and others to one day adopt it.

Kubicki, facing a May state election that could deal another blow to the FDP, told one paper any business Germany might lose via a new tax would be unwelcome "speculative" deals anyway.

With the Financial Times Deutschland voicing concerns in German business circles about a euro zone "go-it-alone" approach to the tax, under the headline "Merkel turns London into a Tax Haven", Meister tried to play down the geographical definitions.

He said the plan set out so far by the European Commission was to levy transactions between financial firms where one or both are based in the EU.

"The decisive factor is that the tax will not depend on the location of the transaction but where the individuals have their tax domicile," he said. "So if the tax is introduced in Europe, it will be irrelevant if the financial transaction is carried out in New York, London or Frankfurt."

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday France was welcome to adopt a financial transaction tax on its own, but that he opposed such a tax across Europe and could only agree if it were accepted globally. Britain has joined the United States and China in blocking such a tax at G20 level.

Meister urged London to see the tax not as an end in itself but rather as a contribution to more market stability.

"A solution involving Britain would be more advantageous," said Meister. (Writing by Stephen Brown; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)