Juggling Dynamite

The Times’s Louise Story talks to Thomas Hoenig, the vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, who says he is not alone in calling for a breakup of banks too large to regulate.Here is a direct video link.

As traders ramp the Dow waiting for more liquidity assurances from the US Fed this afternoon, key companies and commodities servicing the real economy continue to turn lower and warn of contracting global demand.  The following chart captures the “great disconnect” between the headline stealing Dow at a record high and economic bellweathers like Caterpillar, Fedex, UPS, and copper all materially lower. But then again, who needs customers when traders have the Fed recycling the mirage of tax-payer funded cash through banks and equity markets…

Chart source: Cory Venable, CMT, Venable Park Investment Counsel Inc.

• UK’s Osbourne says 2013 GDP forecast cut in half, cites Euro risks
• Fedex earnings fall short, citing ongoing international weakness, plans to decrease capacity to and from Asia in response
• General Mills sees weaker earnings as fuel and ingredient costs rise
• Retirement crisis: impoverished seniors on the horizon

“ An old error is always more popular than a new truth. ”— German Proverb