Crude Soars 5%; Ford and CAW Begin Talks; China Offering 6 Billion Yuan Sale; IBM Reiterates 2009 Earnings; Australia’s Business Confidence Elevates Asian Stocks; France Telecom and Deutsch Telekom Planning U.K. JV; Mobius Warns About Brazil Stock Sale

German unemployment falls!  RBA disappoints the markets…  China to buy Canadian company…  ISM to print positive? And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

European and Asian stocks extended last week’s rally on Monday and crude oil marched higher after U.S. economic news and stronger-than-expected data from the euro zone spurred expectations for economic recovery.

Oil rose above $44 a barrel on Friday, after sinking 4 percent in the previous session, gaining support from a weaker dollar and a meeting of OPEC later this month.

Give us Madoff! Give us Madoff!  “Oil rises to $39 on Bernanke comments…”  “Asian stocks rise after Bernanke remarks…” When they turned out the lights and closed the doors in New York last night, the Dow had lost 25 points and oil had gone down to $37.

Global markets are soaring today on renewed bailout efforts. But Irwin Greenstein says its probably not a good idea to jump back in to these emerging markets just yet. As always, China will be the bellwether for a sustainable recovery. And commodity prices will remain crucial for resource-rich nations.

What has really changed?…importing inflation…hoping to prove Friedman wrong…Can the U.S. central bank really begin fighting inflation in a serious way? Ah, dear reader – there’s a cruel twist to this story…The cure for high prices is high prices…and so the global economy lurches forward…and more!

Short-term speculators are selling Asian stocks in their droves. No more so than in my favourite market of them all: Vietnam.