Currencies try to rally…  Stevens hints at no more cuts…  Japan posts a deficit!  Gold… To buy on the dips?
And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

The markets don’t get any tougher than the last few weeks. Nothing seems to be working, except for the toughest of the tough- bonds.

Gloomy economic picture fuels risk aversion… Financials, energy, retailers among top drags… Dow off 4.3 pct, S&P 500 off 5 pct, Nasdaq off 5.3 pct

Apparently, there’s just no stopping stocks. They just keep on trucking higher as investors forget about the recent troubles in the financial sector and focus on Merrill Lynch’s note that ‘credit markets may be “past their worst”’.

Thanks to panicky speculators there is a last chance to buy CHINA… at a huge discount!

Anyone, like us, who has suffered the interminable “wait in the hall” hiatus for which Heathrow is so notorious, should just regard it as training for sitting out mining’s major bid.

There has been little said about BHP Billiton Ltd.’s (BHP) attempted takeover of Rio Tinto PLC (RTP) in recent months, but the proposal is far from dead.

The base metals were mostly in the red on Monday. Copper fell below $3.87 in the pre-dawn hours, then moved steadily higher from there although it failed to return to break-even, finishing at $3.9442/lb., down 3½ cents from Friday.