Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- European retail sales declined 1.6% in March, the most since at least 1995 and twice as much as economists forecast, as soaring fuel and food costs sapped consumer spending.
- The US dollar rose against most of the other major currencies as US productivity increased while Europe showed signs of an economic slowdown.
- India, the world’s second-biggest buyer of vegetable oils, banned futures trading in soybean oil and three other commodities as it intensified efforts to cool inflation that’s at the highest in more than three years.
- Copper dropped for the second straight day on concern that a 27% jump in prices this year will curb demand in China, the world’s largest user of the metal.
- China’s stocks fell 4.7%, the most in three weeks, led by financial companies, on concern a supply of newly tradable Shanghai Pudong Development Bank shares will create a glut and as investors judged a two-week rally to be excessive.
- Crude oil is rising another $1.82/bbl. to a record $123.65/bbl. even after US oil inventories surged 5.6 million barrels as investment funds raised bets on an unexpected decline in refinery utilization.
- Petrobras(PBR) plans to add 14,000 engineers, geologists and drillers within three years as it develops the biggest crude oil discovery in the Western Hemisphere since 1976.
- South Korea’s won may add to its 8.8% loss this year as the country is poised for a “monetary shock” from overstretched local banks, according to Morgan Stanley.

Wall Street Journal:
- Charles Schwab(SCHW), Vanguard Group and other US companies are offering “managed-payout” mutual funds, which seek to make retirees’ savings last throughout their lives.
- This week in Congress, efforts are underway to roll back goals enacted just last year to encourage the development of biofuels. This could damage – perhaps irretrievably – the substantial progress we’ve made toward relieving the threat posed by our reliance on foreign oil.

Il Sole 24 Ore:
- UBS AG(UBS) CEO Marcel Rohner said “the worst is behind” the Swiss bank after the turmoil in global financial markets.

China Youth Daily:
- China’s Guangdong province plans to boost wages by 12% in 2008, citing a local government report. The average wage in Chinese urban areas climbed 18.3% in the first quarter from a year earlier.

The Economic Times:
- After buying agricultural commodities worth a record $70 billion in February, large index fund traders pulled out $10 billion in March. The total investment in farm futures from index funds has risen 400% in two years. At the end of the week, on CBoT, index traders held 44% of the open interest in wheat, 23% in corn and 27.8% in bean oil. On ICE Futures, index traders were holding 25% of the open interest in cotton, 17.3% in cocoa, 36.6% in sugar and 28% in coffee. There has been a steady rise in assets being parked by commodity index funds. Calculations by Fortis Bank show they have risen from $19.3 billion at the start of 2006 to $52.1 billion at the start of 2008. The CFTC could help prick the bubble by enforcing its own rules. If the agency were to rescind the exemption on position limits given to the index funds, prices would probably fall back to reflect their true supply-demand fundamentals.

Xinhua News:
- China’s rate of hand, foot and mouth disease infections may rise in June and July, citing Health Ministry spokesman Mao Qunan. This disease has occurred in the provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Henan, Hebei, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Yunnan, Jilin and in the municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing.

Gulf Times:
- Saudi Arabia, which is grappling with near-record inflation, said yesterday it is having some success with efforts to curb public spending but acceleration in rents and food costs continue to pose risks. Inflation in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, hit 9.6% in March, the highest since at least the oil boom of the 1970s, as rents surged 19% and food prices jumped 14.2%. Saudi Central Bank Governor Hamad Saud al-Sayyari said inflation could cross 10% this year before possibly easing in the second half of the year as anti-inflationary government measures take hold and lower global demand for commodities feeds into prices.