Posts Tagged Wall Street Journal
U.S. government’s secret wiretaps violate the Constitution, rules court
Posted by TheRedPillGuide in Big Brother, Control Grid, Internet, Privacy & Communications, News, Police State & Police Brutality on July 26, 2012
via: NaturalNews
Thursday, July 26, 2012
by: J. D. Heyes
[NaturalNews] Finally, a federal court has ruled that the government has overstepped its constitutional bounds that are supposed to curb its ability to spy on citizens.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled recently that the National Security Agency - the nation’s premier global spy – has, “on at least one occasion,” violated the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
The ruling from the secret U.S. national security court is the first time the federal government has acknowledged its spy activities overstepped legal parameters since passage of a law in 2008 “that overhauled surveillance laws following the uproar over the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program in the George W. Bush Administration,”The Wall Street Journal reported.
The finding of the court was disclosed in a letter from a top aide to National Intelligence Director James Clapper, to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the latter is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a potent critic of the law which permits warrantless wiretaps.
The aide, Kathleen Turner, a senior official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in the letter that the agency had “remedied” the problem which led to the violation. She also said subsequent surveillance requests had been approved by the court.
‘Transparency, compliance, oversight’
In commenting about the ruling, Wyden said the government had at times “circumvented the spirit of the law” in conducting its surveillance and wiretapping operations. He noted the national security court has agreed on at least one occasion.
“Many officials have tried to present a picture of careful compliance with both the law and the constitutional rights of Americans,” he said, WSJ reported. “This information shows that hasn’t always been the case and there have been what I consider to be some serious violations.”
Stephen Roach Smokes Crack-Addicted Market “QE3 Is Not Going To Work”
Posted by TheRedPillGuide in Economy, Finance, News on July 25, 2012
via: ZeroHedge
by: Tyler Durden
July 25, 2012
JPM Admits CIO Group Consistently Mismarked Hundreds Of Billions In CDS In Effort To Artificially Boost Profits
Posted by TheRedPillGuide in Economy, Finance, News on July 13, 2012
via: ZeroHedge
by: Tyler Durden
July 13, 2012
Back on May 30 we wrote “The Second Act Of The JPM CIO Fiasco Has Arrived – Mismarking Hundreds Of Billions In Credit Default Swaps” in which we made it abundantly clear that due to the Over The Counter nature of CDS one can easily make up whatever marks one wants in order to boost the P&L impact of a given position, this is precisely what JPM was doing in order to boost its P&L? As of moments ago this too has been proven to be the case. From a just filed very shocking 8K which takes the “Whale” saga to a whole new level. To wit: ‘the recently discovered information raises questions about the integrity of the trader marks, and suggests that certain individuals may have been seeking to avoid showing the full amount of the losses being incurred in the portfolio during the first quarter. As a result, the Firm is no longer confident that the trader marks used to prepare the Firm’s reported first quarter results (although within the established thresholds) reflect good faith estimates of fair value at quarter end.”
As a result of this, regulators who now are only 3 years behind the curve, are most likely snooping to inquire not only how JPM did it (call us: we can brief you in 2 minutes), but who else has been doing this? Hint: everyone.
The Journal Continues To Pump Housing
Posted by TheRedPillGuide in Economy, Finance, News on July 12, 2012
via: Market-Ticker
by: Karl Denninger
July 12, 2012
The housing market has turned—at last.
The U.S. finally has moved beyond attention-grabbing predictions from housing “experts” that housing is bottoming. The numbers are now convincing.
I love how people look at a “market” where the distortions are ridiculously large, to the point of overpowering everything else, se a small uptick and say “the numbers are now convincing.”
What am I talking about? Let’s just look at the mortgage rate — 3.5%.
Now let’s look at a prototypical $200,000 loan for 30 years at 3.5%. This produces a payment of $895.48.
How much house does $895.48 buy if rates go up to a more-normal 6%?
Answer: $150,104.
So you think housing has “bottomed” eh? That’s very nice. You have an imputed 25% valuation increase in the price of houses today that will, over time, go away.
This is something that nobody talks about, except me. I’ve brought this up repeatedly — you want to buy houses when rates are historically high, not low, because then when rates go down you get the imputed increase.
The Seeds For An Even Bigger Crisis Have Been Sown
Posted by TheRedPillGuide in Economy, Finance, News, Silver & Gold on July 11, 2012
via: ZeroHedge
by: Tyler Durden
July 11, 2012
On occasion of the publication of his new gold report (readhere), Ronald Stoeferle talked with financial journalist Lars Schall about fundamental gold topics such as: “financial repression”; market interventions; the oil-gold ratio; the renaissance of gold in finance; “Exeter’s Pyramid”; and what the true “value” of gold could actually look like. Via Matterhorn Asset Management.
By Lars Schall
Ronald Stoeferle, who is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) and a Certified Financial Technician (CFTe), was born October 27, 1980 in Vienna, Austria. During his studies in business administration and finance at the Vienna University of Economics and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the USA, he worked for Raiffeisen Zentralbank (RZB) in the field of Fixed Income / Credit Investments. After graduating, Stoeferle joined Vienna based Erste Group Bank (http://www.erstegroup.com), covering International Equities, especially Asia. In 2006 he began writing reports on gold. His five benchmark reports on gold such as “A Shiny Outlook” and “In Gold We Trust” drew international coverage on CNBC, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. Since 2009 he also writes reports on crude oil. The latest gold report by Stoeferle was published today.
Lars Schall: What is “financial repression“ according to Ronald Stoeferle?
Ronald Stoeferle: Financial repression as a perfidious form of redistribution. It always means a combination of incentives and restrictions for banks and insurance companies, which cause the investment universe to be substantially reduced for investors. This means that capital is channelled away from the asset classes that it would flow into in a more liberal environment.
I sincerely believe that financial repression will continue to crop up in many shapes and sizes over the coming years. However, the long-term costs of the lack in efforts made towards consolidating national finances are substantial. While low bond yields in the short run suggest that the saving measures are on course, one has to bear in mind that this has mainly been achieved by market interventions.
Therefore, we regard the gradual transfer of assets as a disastrous strategy in the long run.
What happens is that none of the previous problems of misallocation are resolved, but instead redistribution takes place (at the beginning mostly invisibly) and problems are dragged out, having to be addressed later. As the dependence on these measures rises, so does the collateral damage to be expected later, and the seeds for an even bigger crisis have been sown.
L.S.: What does all that mean for gold?
R.S.: Negative real interest rates are an important cornerstone of financial repression. And negative real interest rates represent the perfect environment for the gold price. During the 20 years of the gold bear market in the 1980s and 1990s, the average real interest rate level was around 4%. Real interest rates were negative in only 5.9% of all months. The situation in the 1970s, however, was completely different: real interest rates were negative in 54% of the months. Since 2000 real interest rates have been negative for 51% of the time, which constitutes an optimal environment for gold. Due to the overindebtness (that I am also discussing in my report), I believe that this trend will continue.
Are Western Banks and the Mexican Drug Cartel Inter-Dependent? BoA Implicated in Drug Related Money Laundering
Posted by TheRedPillGuide in Banking Cartels & The Fed, Finance, News on July 9, 2012
via: SilverVigilante
by: SV
July 9, 2012
Whose to blame for the ongoing violence in Mexico related to drug cartels? Whilst the popular idea places the blame on the Mexican federal government and corrupt state officials, the truth of the matter seems clearly to be that major western banks are abetting the laundering of the cash which drives the violence. Through the US federal government – an institution fascist in nature – the banks are supplying the weapons in a feedback loop designed to keep chaos on the high and cash passing through their accounts.
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Mexican cocaine-trafficking cartel Los Zetas used accounts at Bank of America Corp. to launder money. There is a distinct tie between Los Zetas and the second-largest US bank by assets, Bank of America, according to the Federal Bureau for Investigations. The FBI’s sworn statements cover about twelve transactions since December 2009 in which over $1.5 million was deposited or withdrawn from two BoA accounts.
Have Banks Been Manipulating Libor for DECADES?
Posted by TheRedPillGuide in Economy, Finance, News on July 7, 2012
via: ZeroHedge
by: WashingtonsBlog
July 7, 2012
We’ve previously noted that Libor manipulation has been going on since at least 2005 … and continued long after the manipulation was first reported.
James Bianco notes today that the Financial Times started reporting on the manipulation in 2007, and the Wall Street Journal in 2008 (see this, this, this and this).
But as the Economist reports today, the manipulation probably goes back a lot further:
The FSA has identified price-rigging dating back to 2005, yet some current and former traders say that problems go back much further than that. “Fifteen years ago the word was that LIBOR was being rigged,” says one industry veteran closely involved in the LIBOR process. “It was one of those well kept secrets, but the regulator was asleep, the Bank of England didn’t care and…[the banks participating were] happy with the reference prices.” Says another: “Going back to the late 1980s, when I was a trader, you saw some pretty odd fixings…With traders, if you don’t actually nail it down, they’ll steal it.”
Given that homeowners, students, credit card holders, and other borrowers pay more when rates are higher, the banks appear to have fleeced consumers for 10 years during the entire bull run leading up to the financial crisis.
Ministry of [Un]Truth by Eric Sprott
Posted by TheRedPillGuide in Economy, Finance, News on June 23, 2012
via: Sprott.com
By: Eric Sprott
June 22, 2012
Ministry of [Un]Truth
Speaking at a Brussels conference back in April 2011, Eurogroup President Jean Claude Juncker notably stated during a panel discussion that “when it becomes serious, you have to lie.” He was referring to situations where the act of “pre-indicating” decisions on eurozone policy could fuel speculation that could harm the markets and undermine their policies’ effectiveness.1 Everyone understands that the authorities sometimes lie in order to promote calm in the markets, but it was unexpected to hear such a high-level official actually admit to doing so. They’re not supposed to admit that they lie. It is also somewhat disconcerting given the fact that virtually every economic event we have lived through since that time can very easily be described as “serious”. Bank runs in Spain and Greece are indeed “serious”, as is the weak economic data now emanating from Europe, the US and China. Should we assume that the authorities have been lying more frequently than usual over the past year?
When former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan denied and down-played the US housing bubble back in 2004 and 2005, the market didn’t realize how wrong he was until the bubble burst in 2007-2008. The same applies to the current Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, when he famously told US Congress in March of 2007 that “At this juncture… the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained.”2 They weren’t necessarily lying, per se, they just underestimated the seriousness of the problem. At this point in the crisis, however, we are hard pressed to believe anything uttered by a central planner or financial authority figure. How many times have we heard that the eurozone crisis has been solved? And how many times have we heard officials flat out lie while the roof is burning over their heads?
Back in March, following the successful €530 billion launch of LTRO II, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi assured Germany’s Bild Newspaper that “The worst is over… the situation is stabilizing.”3 The situation certainly did stabilize… for about a month. And then the bank runs started up again and sovereign bond yields spiked. Draghi has since treaded the awkward plank of promoting calm while slipping out enough bad news to ensure the eurocrats stay on their toes. As ING economist Carsten Brzeski aptly described at an ECB press conference in early June, “Listening to the ECB’s macro-economic assessment was a bit like listening to whistles in the dark… It looks as if they are becoming increasingly worried, but do not want to show it.”4 And the situation has now deteriorated to the point where Draghi can’t possibly show it. Although Draghi does now warn of “serious downside risks” in the eurozone, he maintains that they are, in his words, “mostly to do with heightened uncertainty”.5 Of course they are, Mario. Europe’s issues are simply due to a vague feeling of unease felt among the EU populace. They have nothing to do with fact that the EU banking system is on the verge of collapsing in on itself.
When Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy assured the Spanish press that “There will be no rescue of the Spanish banking sector” on May 28th, the Spanish government announced a $125 billion bailout for its banks a mere two weeks later.6 This apparent deceit was not lost on the Spanish left, who were quick to dub him “Lying Rajoy”. But Mr. Rajoy didn’t seem phased in the least. As the Guardian writes, “Even when the outpouring of outrage forced Rajoy to call a hasty press conference the next day, he still refused to use the word “bailout” – or any other word for that matter – and referred mysteriously to “what happened on Saturday”. He went as far as to say that Spain’s emergency had been “resolved” (“thanks to my pressure”, he said). He then took a plane to Poland to watch the national football team play (“the players deserve my presence”).”7 Sound credible to you?
Then there are the bankers. Back in April, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon blithely dismissed media reports as a “tempest in a teapot” that referred to massively outsized derivative positions held by the bank’s traders in the Chief Investment Office in London. That “tempest” was soon revealed to have resulted in a $2 billion trading loss for the bank roughly four weeks later. In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee this past week, Dimon explained that “This particular synthetic credit portfolio was intended to earn a lot of revenue if there was a crisis. I consider that a hedge.”8 He went on to add that regulators “can’t stop something like this from happening. It was purely a management mistake.”9 That’s just wonderful. Can we expect more ‘mistakes’ of this nature in the coming months given JP Morgan’s estimated $70 trillion in derivatives exposure? And will the US taxpayer willingly bail out JP Morgan when it does? Everyone knows the derivatives position wasn’t a hedge – but what else is Dimon going to say? That JP Morgan is making reckless derivatives bets overseas with other people’s money that’s backstopped by the US government? Credibility is leaving the system.
There is certainly a sense that the authorities can no longer be candid about this ongoing crisis, even if they want to be. On June 11th Austria’s finance minister, Maria Fekter, opined in a television interview that, “Italy has to work its way out of its economic dilemma of very high deficits and debt, but of course it may be that, given the high rates Italy pays to refinance on markets, they too will need support.”10 Her honesty sent Italian bond yields soaring and earned her some harsh criticism from eurozone officials, including Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. As one eurozone official stated, “The problem is that this is market sensitive… It’s one thing if journalists write this but quite another if a eurozone minister says it. Verbal discipline is very important but she doesn’t seem to get that.”11 See no evil, hear no evil… and speak no evil. That’s the way forward for the eurozone elites.
We have no doubt that everyone is tired of bad news, but we are compelled to review the facts: Europe is currently experiencing severe bank runs, budgets in virtually every western country on the planet are out of control, the banking system is running excessive leverage and risk, the costs of servicing the ever-increasing amounts of government debt are rising rapidly, and the economies of Europe, Asia and the United States are slowing down or are in full contraction. There’s no sugar coating it and we have to stop listening to politicians and central planners who continue to downplay, obfuscate and flat out lie about the current economic reality. Stop listening to them.
NOTHING the central bankers have done up to this point has WORKED. All efforts have simply been aimed at keeping the financial system from imploding. QE I and II haven’t worked. LTRO I and II haven’t worked, and the most recent central bank initiatives are not even producing short-term benefits at this stage of the crisis. Just take Spain, for example. Following Rajoy’s announcement of the $125 billion bailout loan for the Spanish banks on June 10th, Spanish bond yields were trading back over 7% one week later – the same yield level at which other eurozone countries have been forced to ask for further international aid.12 The market still doesn’t even know what entity is going to pay the $125 billion, let alone when the funds will actually be released or whether the Spanish government will have to count it as part of its national debt. Spain is the fourth largest economy in the eurozone and larger than the previously bailedout Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined. At this point, it’s not even clear if the ECB will be allowed to bail out a country of Spain’s size, let alone Italy, which is now asking the ECB to use bailout funds to buy its sovereign bonds.13
The situation in Europe is becoming an exercise in futility. The positive effects of LTRO I and II, which combined pumped in over €1 trillion into European banks back in December 2011 and February 2012, have now been completely erased by the recent bank runs in Spain. Of the €523 billion released in LTRO II, roughly €200 billion was taken by Spanish banks.14 Of that amount, roughly €61 billion was estimated to have been reinvested back into Spanish sovereign bonds, which temporarily helped Spanish bond yields drop back to a sustainable level below 5.5%. Fast forward to today, and despite the LTRO infusions, the Spanish banks are all broke again after their underlying depositors withdrew billions over the past six weeks. The only liquid assets Spanish banks still own that they can sell to raise euros just happen to be government bonds… hence the rise in Spanish yields. So in essence, the entire benefit of the LTRO, which was a clever way of replenishing Spanish bank capital AND helping calm sovereign bond yields, has been completely reversed in roughly 14 weeks. It’s as we’ve said before – it’s not a sovereign problem, it’s a banking problem. This is why Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy is now pleading for help “to break the link between risk in the banking sector and sovereign risk.”15 Without a healthy sovereign bond market, peripheral eurozone countries simply have no way of supporting their bloated and insolvent banks.
The smart money is finally waking up to the dimension of the problem here and realizing that it’s really a banking issue. Deposit flight has revealed the vulnerability of the European banking system: when depositors make withdrawals, the only assets the banks can sell to raise liquidity are sovereign bonds, which creates the vicious downward spiral that up to this point has always resulted in some form of central bank bailout. Many eurozone authorities still have trouble understanding this. As Spanish Economy Minister, Luis de Guindos, recently stated to reporters at the G20 Summit, “We think… that the way markets are penalizing Spain today does not reflect the efforts we have made or the growth potential of the economy… Spain is a solvent country and a country which has a capacity to grow.”16 Every country has the capacity to grow. Not every country has a domestic banking system that has already borrowed €316 billion from the ECB so far this year (pre the most recently announced bailout), and needs to rollover roughly €600 billion in bank debt in 2012.17 That may be why the markets are reacting the way they are.
If you want to know what’s really going on, listen to the executives of companies that actually produce and sell things. On May 24, Tiffany & Co cut its fiscal-year sales and profit forecasts blaming “slowing growth in key markets like China and weakness in the United States as shoppers think twice about spending on high-end jewelry.”18 On June 8th, McDonald’s surprised the market with lower than expected same-store sales growth in May, following a lacklustre April sales report that the company stated was “largely due to underperformance in the United States, where consumers continue to seek out very low-priced food.”19, 20On June 13th, Nucor Corp., the largest U.S. steelmaker by market value warned that its second-quarter profit will miss its previous guidance after a “surge” in imports undermined prices and “political and economic uncertainty affect buyers’ confidence”.21 On June 20th, Proctor and Gamble lowered its fourth quarter guidance and profit forecast for 2012. Factors that drove the company’s challenges included “slow-to-no GDP growth in developed markets”, high unemployment levels, significant commodity cost increases and “highly volatile foreign exchange rates”.22 Other companies that have recently lowered guidance include Danone, Nestle, Unilever, Cisco Systems, Dell, Lowe’s, and Fedex. It’s ugly out there, and many companies are politely warning the market about the type of environment they foresee ahead in both the US and abroad.
To give you a hint of how bad it is in Europe today, the most recent retail sales out of Netherlands showed a decline of 8.7% year-over-year in April.23 In Spain, retail sales fell 9.8% year-on-year in April, which was 6% greater than the revised drop of 3.8% in March.24 Declines of this magnitude are not normal occurrences and signal a significant shift in spending within those countries. We fear this is a sign of things to come within the broader Eurozone, which will only serve to complicate an already dire situation that much more.
The G6 central banks are out of conventional tools to solve this financial crisis. With interest rates at zero, and the thought of further stimulus rendered politically unpalatable for the time being, we cannot see any positive solutions to this problem other than debt repudiation. We continue to note the contrast between the reporting companies who by law cannot lie about their fiscal realities, versus the central planners who admit that they MUST lie to preserve calm and control. We’ll leave it to you to decide whose version of the truth you want to believe.
| 1 | Forelle, Charles (May 9, 2011) “Luxembourg Lies on Secret Meeting”. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on June 5, 2012 from: http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2011/05/09/luxembourg-lies-on-secret-meeting/ |
| 2 | Bernanke, Ben S. (March 28, 2007) “Economic Outlook before the Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress”. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Retrieved on June 8, 2012 from: http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/bernanke20070328a.htm |
| 3 | Evans, Stephen (March 22, 2012) “ECB Chief Mario Draghi says worst of euro crisis over”. BBC News. Retrieved on June 6, 2012 from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17471617 |
| 4 | Russolillo, Steven (June 6, 2012) “Here’s How to Read Mario Draghi’s Poker Face”. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on June 7, 2012 from: http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2012/06/06/heres-how-to-read-mario-draghis-poker-face/ |
| 5 | AFP (June 16, 2012) “ECB warns ‘serious risks’ for Eurozone, but no inflation”. Associated Foreign Press. Retrieved on June 19, 2012 from: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iiejMz-3WKosppE5ZzOzEAKg17Wg?docId=CNG.f6398cd8abf3d40ac05d3ebfdfe7bada.101 |
| 6 | CBC News (May 28, 2012) “Spain says banks won’t need EU rescue” CBC News. Retrieved on June 6, 2012 from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/05/28/spain-banks-rajoy.html |
| 7 | Murado, Miguel-Anxo (June 12, 2012) “‘Bailout’ seems to be the hardest word for Spain’s prime minister”. The Guardian. Retrieved on June 12, 2012 from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/12/bailout-spain-prime-minister-mariano-rajoy |
| 8 | AP (June 13, 2012) “‘There was good intent’: JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon APOLOGIZES while explaining $2B loss to Congress amid protesting hecklers”. Associated Press. Retrieved on June 13, 2012 from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2158827/JP-Morgan-Chase-Senate-hearings-Jamie-Dimon-defends-2billion-trading-loss-Congress.html |
| 9 | Touryalai, Halah (June 13, 2012) “Jamie Dimon’s Testimony: Volcker Rule May Have Prevented Loss”. Forbes. Retrieved on June 16, 2012 from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2012/06/13/jamie-dimons-testimony-gets-underway-i-was-dead-wrong/ |
| 10 | Shields, Michael and Scherer, Steve (June 12, 2012) “Austrian minister says Italy too may need bailout”. Reuters. Retrieved on June 12, 2012 from: http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE85B0FT20120612?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0 |
| 11 | Ibid. |
| 12 | Day, Paul (June 19, 2012) “Spain’s short-term borrowing costs jump at auction”. Reuters. Retrieved on June 20, 2012 from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/19/spain-debt-idUSL5E8HJ0RP20120619 |
| 13 | AP (June 20, 2012) “Europe gropes for crisis fix, bond buys pushed”. Associated Press. Retrieved on June 20, 2012 from: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Business/20120620/italy-monti-bailout-funds-government-bonds-120620/ |
| 14 | Watts, William (April 13, 2012) “Spain data underlines LTRO downside”. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on June 15, 2012 from: http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/04/13/spain-data-underlines-ltro-downside/ |
| 15 | Crowe, Darcy (June 18, 2012) “Spain’s Rajoy Calls for Fencing in Banking Risk”. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on June 19, 2012 from: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120618-714553.html |
| 16 | Day, Paul and Maltezou, Renee (June 19, 2012) “Spanish short-term debt costs reach alarm levels”. Reuters. Retrieved on June 20, 2012 from: http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1213512–spanish-short-term-debt-costs-reach-alarm-levels?bn=1 |
| 17 | Smith, Geoffrey (June 12, 2012) “Spain Deal Doesn’t Stop Sovereign-Bank Feedback Loop”. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on June 15, 2012 from: http://blogs.wsj.com/eurocrisis/2012/06/12/spain-deal-doesnt-stop-sovereign-bank-feedback-loop/ |
| 18 | Wahba, Phil (May 24, 2012) “Tiffany forecasts disappoint; U.S., Asia slowing”. Reuters. Retrieved on June 19, 2012 from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/24/tiffany-earnings-idUSL1E8GO1DN20120524 |
| 19 | Egan, Matt (June 8, 2012) “McDonald’s May Same-Store Sales Come Up Short”. FOXBusiness. Retrieved on June 18, 2012 from: http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2012/06/08/mcdonald-same-store-sales-come-up-short/ |
| 20 | Baertlein, Lisa and Wahba, Phil (May 8, 2012) “Mcdonald’s April U.S. sales miss estimates. Reuters. Retrieved on June 20, 2012 from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/08/us-mcdonalds-idUSBRE8470K320120508 |
| 21 | Elmquist, Sonja (June 13, 2012) “Nucor Says Profit To Miss Guidance As Steel Imports ‘Surge’”. Bloomberg. Retrieved on June 19, 2012 from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-13/nucor-says-profit-to-miss-guidance-as-steel-imports-surge-2-.html |
| 22 | Pichler, Josh (June 20, 2012) “P&G lowers guidance for fourth quarter”. Cincinnati.com. Retrieved on June 20, 2012 from: http://communitypress.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20120620/BIZ01/306200019/P-G-lowers-guidance-fourth-quarter?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7Ccommunities%7Cs |
| 23 | Van den Oever, Robert. (June 14, 2012) “Dutch Retail Sales Fall 8.7% in April”. Dow Jones. Retrieved on June 20, 2012 from: http://www.4-traders.com/news/Dutch-Retail-Sales-Fall-8-7-in-April–14369639/ |
| 24 | Dowsett, Sonya (May 29, 2012) “Spanish retail sales show record fall in April”. Reuters. Retrieved on June 20, 2012 from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/29/spain-retail-idUSE8E8FQ00020120529 |
