Jobless Friday - US, Japan and Europe Add More Stimulus

Wheee – more free money!

The money train left the station just ahead of the US market close yesterday when the House passed a $15Bn Jobs Bill although it remains to be seen if Jim Bunning will pass it.  China doesn’t need Bunning’s permission to hand out free money and they will be ”allocating 63.2 Billion Yuan” to fight high housing prices by SUBSIDIZING low-cost housing.  Come to think of it – I object to that!  Someone in China needs a lesson in some basic economics…

The big boost this morning came from Japan, where bonds hit the highest level of the year after the Nikkei newspaper said the central bank at its March 16 meeting may discuss additional monetary easing steps.  It doesn’t matter whether this report is true or not as it already did it’s job and shot the Nikkei up 223 points for the day, erasing two week’s worth of losses in a single session.  It’s hard for the BOJ to get easier than our own Fed but Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said yesterday he needs evidence of “highly sustainable” growth before supporting tighter monetary policy, while James Bullard of the St. Louis Fed said the central bank should remain “accomodative” – these are, of course, the Fed’s code words for MORE FREE MONEY! 

Of course, our Futures are up 1% from yesterday’s low and the commodity markets LOVE IT and oil is back at $80.65 with copper back at $3.40 despite “weak” demand in China, where stockpiles of copper are now at 7-year highs and even Goldman Sachs has withdrawn their buy recommendation on coppper because of concern that economic recovery in developed markets isn’t on “solid footing.”  “About 60 percent of China’s copper is used in the power industry, and our sales to wire-and-cable users reflected that demand is rather weak,” Chairman Wei Jianghong said, while attending the National People’s Congress.

“The demand is not very strong in the first place,” Jiangxi Copper Chairman Li said in Beijing while at the congress. “But a lot of people have long positions in the market, so I think in the first half of this year, copper prices will be good.”  Copper stockpiles in China jumped to 149,478 tons for the week ended Feb. 26, 28 percent more than the week ended Feb. 12, according to the Shanghai Futures Exchange.  Demand from China for global supplies may weaken because prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange are now close to those in London, discouraging arbitrage trading, Goldman Sachs analysts…

Read the original story at Phil’s Stock World