China is pressing Rio Tinto PLC (NYSE ADR: RTP) hard for a sharp reduction in the prices the company charges for its iron ore. But mining companies like Rio, who have had their bottom lines eviscerated by a slump in commodities prices, may have a hard time acquiescing.

Risk Aversion comes back strong! Risk assets get sold… What games will be played with TIC’s? 40 years since Woodstock! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

China’s stock market is back to where it was one year ago. But what exactly does that mean for your portfolio?The World Bank just upped China’s economic growth projection from 6.5 percent to 7.2 percent. If China’s economic rebound is real, it would open up all kinds of investment opportunities.

China imported record amounts of copper and iron ore in April as its mammoth stimulus program stoked its foundries and mills.  But the nation’s exports remained weak, leaving some to wonder how much longer the country can keep its economic fires lit without an increase in global consumption.

Last week, the stock market fell by more than 6%. That’s a return of -24.5% for the year. While we equities here in the U.S. continue to struggle, emerging nations have been hit even harder… especially commodity-based economies.

Demand is way down for iron ore and the negotiated price between China and its major suppliers is due for a big hit. Last year the price almost doubled. This year could see prices almost cut in half.

While the rest of the world is grappling with the global slowdown, China is figuring out ways to exploit it.

Yesterday Brazil’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate from 13.75% to 12.75%, its first rate cut in 16 months and a move to guard the country’s economy from the global financial crisis.

Sometimes you have to just stand back and admire the extremes a real bubble can produce. What you have now, as Bill explained last night at the Doomer’s Ball, is the last greatest bubble of them all, the bubble in U.S. bonds. It’s reaching staggering levels.

China may soon ask the world”s top iron ore producers to reduce the prices they charge for the key steel component by as much as 82%.